(pb; 2005: non-fiction)
From the back cover:
"Meet the Female Chauvinist Pig -- the new brand of 'empowered woman' who embraces 'raunch culture' wherever she finds it. In her groundbreaking book, New York magazine writer Ariel Levy argues that, if male chauvinist pigs of years past thought of women as pieces of meat, Female Chauvinist Pigs of today are doing them one better, making sex objects of other women -- and of themselves... Female Chauvinist Pigs makes the case that the rise of raunch does not represent how far women have come; it only proves how far they have left to go."
Review:
Levy's book, lean and direct, states that many women in their twenties, who came of age after the '60s and '70s -- "raunch feminists" -- have "perverted" the forward-looking precepts of early feminist thought by carrying on, sexually and otherwise, like teenage boys: they place a premium on being "hot," make fun of "girly-girls" (who hold them in ironic, sneering thraldom), and extol the virtures of mainstream porn (in what seems to be a misguided "beating the boys at their own game" gambit). Even lesbians, specifically bois (previously labeled transgendered or FTMs, Females To Males), who are "young, hip, sex positive, a little masculine and ready to rock," have embraced these regressive pseudo-macho attitudes.
Levy's backs her charges with points regarding the popularity and social effects of the Girls Gone Wild videos, the increase in vaginoplasties ("cosmetic operations to alter the labia and vulva so they look more like the genitals" of porn stars and Playmates), and the mixed social-sexual messages that teenagers (especially girls) receive (which, of course, may very well set them on the path of raunch feminism).
Eminently entertaining, this is a smooth, indispensable polemic, one that should be read by anyone who's alarmed at how our acelerated society is converging once-X-rated concepts into mainstream daily life.
Friday, January 26, 2007
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Thunderball, by Ian Fleming
(pb; 1961: ninth book in the original 007/James Bond series)
Review:
A new terrorist group, SPECTRE – acronym for “The Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion” – headed by Ernesto Stavro Blofeld (who directly battles Bond in two later novels, On Her Majesty's Secret Service and You Only Live Twice), has two atomic bombs and is threatening to use them on the United States and England… that is, of course, unless the two superpowers pay mad cash.
M, vexed, unofficially sends Bond to Nassau, in the Bahamas, to investigate the area as a possible stash spot for the bombs. There, Bond sniffs out (and later matches wits with) Emilio Largo (aka, SPECTRE associate “No. 2”), an urbane “treasure hunter” who means to make good on SPECTRE’s bomb threats, if necessary.
Bond also meets, and aligns with, Largo’s bored mistress, Domino – born Dominetta Petacchi – whose calid temper and cool intelligence makes her Bond’s compeer, in the ways of survival.
Felix Leiter, Bond’s friend and ex-Pinkerton detective, is back in action, too. Leiter has been reinstated in the CIA (serving as Bond’s American counterpart).
Ninth in the series, following the anthology For Your Eyes Only, Thunderball has a meant-to-be-funny but maladroit set-up in the first forty pages (Bond goes to Shrublands, an English health clinic, to detox from all his boozing and smoking, and ends up pissing off a SPECTRE hitter, Count Lippe). After that, it’s all systems go, and what a “go” it is!
There’s not a whole lot that’s new here, but it is a fun read – Fleming’s Bond novels are always a pleasure to peruse – and Fleming employs some effective foreshadowing – SPECTRE, replacing SMERSH; Blofeld – for future Bond tales.
Followed by The Spy Who Loved Me.
Thunderball was released stateside as a film on December 29, 1965.
Sean Connery played Bond. Claudine Auger played Dominique “Domino” Derval – the altered version of Dominetta Petacchi. Adolfo Celi played Emilio Largo/SPECTRE #2. Rik Van Nutter played Felix Leiter. Guy Doleman played Count Lippe.
Bernard Lee played M. Lois Maxwell played Miss Moneypenny. Desmond Llewelyn played Q.
Terence Young directed the film, from a script by Richard Maibaum and John Hopkins.
Review:
A new terrorist group, SPECTRE – acronym for “The Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion” – headed by Ernesto Stavro Blofeld (who directly battles Bond in two later novels, On Her Majesty's Secret Service and You Only Live Twice), has two atomic bombs and is threatening to use them on the United States and England… that is, of course, unless the two superpowers pay mad cash.
M, vexed, unofficially sends Bond to Nassau, in the Bahamas, to investigate the area as a possible stash spot for the bombs. There, Bond sniffs out (and later matches wits with) Emilio Largo (aka, SPECTRE associate “No. 2”), an urbane “treasure hunter” who means to make good on SPECTRE’s bomb threats, if necessary.
Bond also meets, and aligns with, Largo’s bored mistress, Domino – born Dominetta Petacchi – whose calid temper and cool intelligence makes her Bond’s compeer, in the ways of survival.
Felix Leiter, Bond’s friend and ex-Pinkerton detective, is back in action, too. Leiter has been reinstated in the CIA (serving as Bond’s American counterpart).
Ninth in the series, following the anthology For Your Eyes Only, Thunderball has a meant-to-be-funny but maladroit set-up in the first forty pages (Bond goes to Shrublands, an English health clinic, to detox from all his boozing and smoking, and ends up pissing off a SPECTRE hitter, Count Lippe). After that, it’s all systems go, and what a “go” it is!
There’s not a whole lot that’s new here, but it is a fun read – Fleming’s Bond novels are always a pleasure to peruse – and Fleming employs some effective foreshadowing – SPECTRE, replacing SMERSH; Blofeld – for future Bond tales.
Followed by The Spy Who Loved Me.
Thunderball was released stateside as a film on December 29, 1965.
Sean Connery played Bond. Claudine Auger played Dominique “Domino” Derval – the altered version of Dominetta Petacchi. Adolfo Celi played Emilio Largo/SPECTRE #2. Rik Van Nutter played Felix Leiter. Guy Doleman played Count Lippe.
Bernard Lee played M. Lois Maxwell played Miss Moneypenny. Desmond Llewelyn played Q.
Terence Young directed the film, from a script by Richard Maibaum and John Hopkins.
What Was She Thinking? [Notes on a Scandal], by Zoë Heller
(hb; 2003)
From the inside flap:
“Schoolteacher Barbara Covett has led a solitary existence; aside from her cat, Portia, she has few friends, and no intimates. When Sheba Hart joins St. George’s as the new art teacher Barbara senses the possibility of a friendship. It begins with lunches and continues with regular invitations to meals with Sheba’s seemingly close-knit family. But as their relationship develops, another does as well: Sheba has begun a passionate affair with an underage male student. And when it comes to light and Sheba falls prey to the inevitable media circus, Barbara decides to write an account in her friend’s defense – an account that reveals not only an unwitting Sheba’s secrets, but her own.”
Review:
Barbara Covett, aptly surnamed, provides a first-person narrative for this story of supposed friendship and public scandal. Plenty of words describe Barbara – hyper-critical, parasitic, petty – as she stalks (from a quiet distance) Sheba, who may be too much of “free spirit” for her own good. When Sheba becomes friends with her, Barbara’s motives and actions turn creepier, culminating in an masterful, understated finish that left this reader shuddering in revulsion.
Heller – through Barbara’s eyes and voice – has crafted an incisive, minutiae-mindful tale that echoes the unsettling elements of Fatal Attraction (minus the grisly shrieks, tacky coitus and bodies).
Worth reading, this.
This became a film in 2006, titled Notes on a Scandal. Judi Dench played Barbara Covett. Cate Blanchett played Bathsheba (“Sheba”) Hart. Bill Nighy played Richard Hart, Sheba’s husband. Richard Eyre directed. Patrick Marber scripted.
From the inside flap:
“Schoolteacher Barbara Covett has led a solitary existence; aside from her cat, Portia, she has few friends, and no intimates. When Sheba Hart joins St. George’s as the new art teacher Barbara senses the possibility of a friendship. It begins with lunches and continues with regular invitations to meals with Sheba’s seemingly close-knit family. But as their relationship develops, another does as well: Sheba has begun a passionate affair with an underage male student. And when it comes to light and Sheba falls prey to the inevitable media circus, Barbara decides to write an account in her friend’s defense – an account that reveals not only an unwitting Sheba’s secrets, but her own.”
Review:
Barbara Covett, aptly surnamed, provides a first-person narrative for this story of supposed friendship and public scandal. Plenty of words describe Barbara – hyper-critical, parasitic, petty – as she stalks (from a quiet distance) Sheba, who may be too much of “free spirit” for her own good. When Sheba becomes friends with her, Barbara’s motives and actions turn creepier, culminating in an masterful, understated finish that left this reader shuddering in revulsion.
Heller – through Barbara’s eyes and voice – has crafted an incisive, minutiae-mindful tale that echoes the unsettling elements of Fatal Attraction (minus the grisly shrieks, tacky coitus and bodies).
Worth reading, this.
This became a film in 2006, titled Notes on a Scandal. Judi Dench played Barbara Covett. Cate Blanchett played Bathsheba (“Sheba”) Hart. Bill Nighy played Richard Hart, Sheba’s husband. Richard Eyre directed. Patrick Marber scripted.
Monday, January 08, 2007
Dream of the Blue Room, by Michelle Richmond
(hb; 2002)
From the back cover:
"On a warm July night, thirty-two year old Jenny finds herself sitting on the deck of a Chinese cruise ship next to a charming but secretive stranger. Her husband is down in the cabin sleeping, and in Jenny's lap is a cookie tin containing the ashes of her best friend, Amanda Ruth, brutally murdered fourteen years earlier in a small Alabama town.
"In this foreign landscape, filled with ancient cities that will soon be inundated by the rising waters of the Yangtze River, Jenny must confront her haunted past and decide the direction of her future. As the ship moves slowly upriver, from one abandoned village to another, Jenny journeys deeper into her own guilt and eroticism..."
Review:
This death-themed, stream-of-consciousness novel is melancholic, though muted hope lightens the proceedings. Richmond's writing flows as easily as the river that Jenny, her emotionally-distant husband (Dave), and her intriguing stranger-lover (Graham) ride.
Jenny is a creature in transition, for whom things, emotions and traditional morality are hazy. So are many of the other characters, especially blunt charming Graham, whose secret may be pivotal to their collective fates.
Dream is movingly great. Check it out.
From the back cover:
"On a warm July night, thirty-two year old Jenny finds herself sitting on the deck of a Chinese cruise ship next to a charming but secretive stranger. Her husband is down in the cabin sleeping, and in Jenny's lap is a cookie tin containing the ashes of her best friend, Amanda Ruth, brutally murdered fourteen years earlier in a small Alabama town.
"In this foreign landscape, filled with ancient cities that will soon be inundated by the rising waters of the Yangtze River, Jenny must confront her haunted past and decide the direction of her future. As the ship moves slowly upriver, from one abandoned village to another, Jenny journeys deeper into her own guilt and eroticism..."
Review:
This death-themed, stream-of-consciousness novel is melancholic, though muted hope lightens the proceedings. Richmond's writing flows as easily as the river that Jenny, her emotionally-distant husband (Dave), and her intriguing stranger-lover (Graham) ride.
Jenny is a creature in transition, for whom things, emotions and traditional morality are hazy. So are many of the other characters, especially blunt charming Graham, whose secret may be pivotal to their collective fates.
Dream is movingly great. Check it out.
Bluegate Fields, by Anne Perry
(hb; 1984: sixth book in the Charlotte & Thomas Pitt series)
Review:
1886. When the body of Arthur Waybourne, a sixteen-year old syphlitic sodomized well-to-do boy, is discovered in the sewer-slums of Bluegate Fields, Thomas Pitt is called in to investigate. As the scandal grows, and key clues are concealed by others -- family members fearing further scandal, and/or the killer himself -- Pitt finds himself in treacherous social waters that my end his career.
Then Pitt gets a break: Arthur's unpopular Latin tutor, Maurice Jerome, is arrested for the double crime (homosexual acts are illegal), tried and sentenced to be hanged in three weeks.
But the evidence doesn't add up. Thomas and his wife, Charlotte, both disturbed by the lack of solid facts, investigate separately -- Charlotte, with the help of her socially-adept sister Emily Ashworth, and their great-aunt Vespasia Cummings-Gould (aka Aunt Vespasia), whose observance of social etiquette masks her sharp memory regarding old scandals.
All of this happens nine months after the occurrences of Rutland Place. Jemima Pitt, Charlotte and Thomas's daughter, is two and a half. Daniel, three months old, is the newest addition to the Pitt family. And telephones are beginning to appear in the homes of the select rich.
Wonderful book, this. Perry rearranges her story structure and the nature of Waybourne's murder, which breathes further life into this consistently intriguing mystery series. While I spotted the villain straight away, it wasn't through any sharp-eyed reading; it was through bias. (I didn't like the character, so I wanted it to be that character.)
So check it out. Heck, check out the whole series! Be warned -- there are twenty-three books in it.
Followed by Death in the Devil's Acre
Review:
1886. When the body of Arthur Waybourne, a sixteen-year old syphlitic sodomized well-to-do boy, is discovered in the sewer-slums of Bluegate Fields, Thomas Pitt is called in to investigate. As the scandal grows, and key clues are concealed by others -- family members fearing further scandal, and/or the killer himself -- Pitt finds himself in treacherous social waters that my end his career.
Then Pitt gets a break: Arthur's unpopular Latin tutor, Maurice Jerome, is arrested for the double crime (homosexual acts are illegal), tried and sentenced to be hanged in three weeks.
But the evidence doesn't add up. Thomas and his wife, Charlotte, both disturbed by the lack of solid facts, investigate separately -- Charlotte, with the help of her socially-adept sister Emily Ashworth, and their great-aunt Vespasia Cummings-Gould (aka Aunt Vespasia), whose observance of social etiquette masks her sharp memory regarding old scandals.
All of this happens nine months after the occurrences of Rutland Place. Jemima Pitt, Charlotte and Thomas's daughter, is two and a half. Daniel, three months old, is the newest addition to the Pitt family. And telephones are beginning to appear in the homes of the select rich.
Wonderful book, this. Perry rearranges her story structure and the nature of Waybourne's murder, which breathes further life into this consistently intriguing mystery series. While I spotted the villain straight away, it wasn't through any sharp-eyed reading; it was through bias. (I didn't like the character, so I wanted it to be that character.)
So check it out. Heck, check out the whole series! Be warned -- there are twenty-three books in it.
Followed by Death in the Devil's Acre
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony, by Eoin Colfer
(hb; 2006: fifth book in the Artemis Fowl series)
From the inside flap:
“Thousands of years ago, fairies and humans fought a great battle for the magical island of Ireland. When it became clear that they could not win, all of the fairies moved belowground – except for the 8th Family, the demons. Rather than surrender, they used a magical time spell to take their colony out of time and into Limbo. There they have lived for decades, preparing to exact their violent revenge on humans.
“Now the time spell is unraveling, and demons are beginning to materialize without warning on Earth. If humans were to find out about them, all fairies would be exposed. To protect themselves, the fairies must predict when the next demon will materialize. But in order to do so, they will have to decipher equations so complicated, even a great brain like Foaly can’t understand them. But he knows someone who can: Artemis Fowl.
“So when a very confused demon imp appears in a Sicilian theater, Artemis is there to meet him. But he is not alone. There is someone else who has unlocked the secrets of the fairy world and managed to solve complex mathematical problems as only a genius could. And she is just twelve years old…”
Review:
The whole gang is back: Holly Short, ex-LEPrecon-officer-turned-private-investigator; Mulch Diggums, Holly’s gas-passing dwarf business partner; Butler, Artemis’s level-headed bodyguard; Foaly, LEPrecon’s techno-geek centaur slash resident genius.
And there are new characters, too – Doodah Day, a fish-eating pixie and smuggler; and, more importantly (in this novel, anyway), Minerva Paradizo, a twelve-year old super-criminal girl, who is Artemis’s counterpart – in more ways than one.
Like the four previous Artemis Fowl novels, the plot is solid, the pace is mad-dash, the characters are semi-quirky, and crazy imaginings abound.
If you haven’t read the Artemis Fowl novels, you should. Read in order, these witty, accelerandic adventures are an out-and-out collective pleasure.
Followed by Artemis Fowl: The Time Paradox.
From the inside flap:
“Thousands of years ago, fairies and humans fought a great battle for the magical island of Ireland. When it became clear that they could not win, all of the fairies moved belowground – except for the 8th Family, the demons. Rather than surrender, they used a magical time spell to take their colony out of time and into Limbo. There they have lived for decades, preparing to exact their violent revenge on humans.
“Now the time spell is unraveling, and demons are beginning to materialize without warning on Earth. If humans were to find out about them, all fairies would be exposed. To protect themselves, the fairies must predict when the next demon will materialize. But in order to do so, they will have to decipher equations so complicated, even a great brain like Foaly can’t understand them. But he knows someone who can: Artemis Fowl.
“So when a very confused demon imp appears in a Sicilian theater, Artemis is there to meet him. But he is not alone. There is someone else who has unlocked the secrets of the fairy world and managed to solve complex mathematical problems as only a genius could. And she is just twelve years old…”
Review:
The whole gang is back: Holly Short, ex-LEPrecon-officer-turned-private-investigator; Mulch Diggums, Holly’s gas-passing dwarf business partner; Butler, Artemis’s level-headed bodyguard; Foaly, LEPrecon’s techno-geek centaur slash resident genius.
And there are new characters, too – Doodah Day, a fish-eating pixie and smuggler; and, more importantly (in this novel, anyway), Minerva Paradizo, a twelve-year old super-criminal girl, who is Artemis’s counterpart – in more ways than one.
Like the four previous Artemis Fowl novels, the plot is solid, the pace is mad-dash, the characters are semi-quirky, and crazy imaginings abound.
If you haven’t read the Artemis Fowl novels, you should. Read in order, these witty, accelerandic adventures are an out-and-out collective pleasure.
Followed by Artemis Fowl: The Time Paradox.
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Santa Steps Out, by Robert Devereaux
(pb; 1998)
Review:
Santa Claus is corrupted by the wily and pernicious Tooth Fairy while making another toy delivery. This “accident” reawakens memories of what Santa was in an earlier age, before Xians boosted and sanitized pagan myths to their suiting – the seething, angry-at-God fairy points this out early in the book, thereby irrevocably altering everything that Santa, and those around him, knows or remembers.
The first part of this blasphemous fairy tale is filled with laugh-out-loud descriptions of pornographic sex and general nastiness. Nobody is innocent in this explicit tale, not even the elves and reindeers.
The second half lives up to the book’s "horror" label. Mutilation and necrophilia ensue, and other dark desires are borne out.
If you can deal with the above elements, seek this novel out. Most horror novels quiver in comparison, in terms of skewering precious childhood memories and our perceptions of why Christmas is, um, white.
Review:
Santa Claus is corrupted by the wily and pernicious Tooth Fairy while making another toy delivery. This “accident” reawakens memories of what Santa was in an earlier age, before Xians boosted and sanitized pagan myths to their suiting – the seething, angry-at-God fairy points this out early in the book, thereby irrevocably altering everything that Santa, and those around him, knows or remembers.
The first part of this blasphemous fairy tale is filled with laugh-out-loud descriptions of pornographic sex and general nastiness. Nobody is innocent in this explicit tale, not even the elves and reindeers.
The second half lives up to the book’s "horror" label. Mutilation and necrophilia ensue, and other dark desires are borne out.
If you can deal with the above elements, seek this novel out. Most horror novels quiver in comparison, in terms of skewering precious childhood memories and our perceptions of why Christmas is, um, white.
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Farewell Summer, by Ray Bradbury
(hb; 2006; sequel to Dandelion Wine)
From the inside flap:
“In a summer that refuses to end, in the deceiving warmth of earliest October, civil war has come to Green Town, Illinois. It is the age-old conflict: the young against the elderly, for control fo the clock that ticks their lives ever forward. The first cap-shot heard ‘round the town is dead accurate, felling an old man in his tracks, compelling town elder and school board despot Mr. Calvin C. Quartermain to marshal his graying forces and declare total war on the assassin, thirteen-year old Douglas Spaulding, and his downy-cheeked cohorts. Doug and his cronies, however, are most worthy adversaries who should not be underestimated, as they plan and execute daring campaigns – matching old Quartermain’s experience and cunning with their youthful enthusiasm and devil-may-care determination to hold on forever to childhood’s summer. Yet time must ultimately be the victor, with valuable revelations for those on both sides of the conflict. And life waits in ambush to assail Doug Spaulding with its powerful mysteries – the irresistible ascent of manhood, the sweet surrender to a first kiss…”
Review:
A year has passed since Douglas and Tom’s summer in Dandelion Wine. The Ravine is still the home of the Lonely One (aka, Death), but its mysterious threat is considerably lessened, and autumn, with its crisp chilliness, is creeping into Green Town.
Smaller in scope (i.e., more focused) and less rambly-episodic than its predecessor, Farewell Summer maintains the humor, warmth, magic and awe of Dandelion Wine, while advancing its characters and themes (Death, Time, growing up), with an equally wondrous denouement.
Great work, check it out.
From the inside flap:
“In a summer that refuses to end, in the deceiving warmth of earliest October, civil war has come to Green Town, Illinois. It is the age-old conflict: the young against the elderly, for control fo the clock that ticks their lives ever forward. The first cap-shot heard ‘round the town is dead accurate, felling an old man in his tracks, compelling town elder and school board despot Mr. Calvin C. Quartermain to marshal his graying forces and declare total war on the assassin, thirteen-year old Douglas Spaulding, and his downy-cheeked cohorts. Doug and his cronies, however, are most worthy adversaries who should not be underestimated, as they plan and execute daring campaigns – matching old Quartermain’s experience and cunning with their youthful enthusiasm and devil-may-care determination to hold on forever to childhood’s summer. Yet time must ultimately be the victor, with valuable revelations for those on both sides of the conflict. And life waits in ambush to assail Doug Spaulding with its powerful mysteries – the irresistible ascent of manhood, the sweet surrender to a first kiss…”
Review:
A year has passed since Douglas and Tom’s summer in Dandelion Wine. The Ravine is still the home of the Lonely One (aka, Death), but its mysterious threat is considerably lessened, and autumn, with its crisp chilliness, is creeping into Green Town.
Smaller in scope (i.e., more focused) and less rambly-episodic than its predecessor, Farewell Summer maintains the humor, warmth, magic and awe of Dandelion Wine, while advancing its characters and themes (Death, Time, growing up), with an equally wondrous denouement.
Great work, check it out.
Monday, December 18, 2006
Dandelion Wine, by Ray Bradbury
(hb; 1957: prequel to Farewell Summer)
Review:
Summer 1928 – Green Town, Illinois. Twelve-year old Douglas Spaulding and his brother, ten-year old Tom, are excited as summer begins. They live in an idyllic town where the elderly are Time Machines, their tongues the levers which reveal eras passed; where “dandelion wine,” the intangible essence of the aestival season, can be bottled and swilled at any time; where a scandalous romance between a young man and an old woman is sweetly ventured; where the town tinkerer, Leo Auffman, sets out to build a different kind of Time Machine (and succeeds).
Threatening this charming idyll is the Lonely One – aka, Death – who is rumored to lurk in the Ravine that physically splits the town in half. The Lonely One isn’t the only enemy on the lurk, for another, encroached in the swing of clock arms, is on the prowl, as well…
Readers familiar with Bradbury’s oeuvre will likely recognize the author’s trademark thematic interplay of childhood innocence and skulking darkness, which bore fuller, more tightly-plotted fruit in his later novel Something Wicked This Way Comes.
Dandelion Wine is a gentle, episodic work, more cobbled together than written organically. Still, between Bradbury’s prose-poetic writing, and his enchanting moral lessons, this is a wondrous, classic work.
Followed by Farewell Summer.
Review:
Summer 1928 – Green Town, Illinois. Twelve-year old Douglas Spaulding and his brother, ten-year old Tom, are excited as summer begins. They live in an idyllic town where the elderly are Time Machines, their tongues the levers which reveal eras passed; where “dandelion wine,” the intangible essence of the aestival season, can be bottled and swilled at any time; where a scandalous romance between a young man and an old woman is sweetly ventured; where the town tinkerer, Leo Auffman, sets out to build a different kind of Time Machine (and succeeds).
Threatening this charming idyll is the Lonely One – aka, Death – who is rumored to lurk in the Ravine that physically splits the town in half. The Lonely One isn’t the only enemy on the lurk, for another, encroached in the swing of clock arms, is on the prowl, as well…
Readers familiar with Bradbury’s oeuvre will likely recognize the author’s trademark thematic interplay of childhood innocence and skulking darkness, which bore fuller, more tightly-plotted fruit in his later novel Something Wicked This Way Comes.
Dandelion Wine is a gentle, episodic work, more cobbled together than written organically. Still, between Bradbury’s prose-poetic writing, and his enchanting moral lessons, this is a wondrous, classic work.
Followed by Farewell Summer.
Mötley Crüe: The Dirt, by Mötley Crüe & Neil Strauss
(pb; 2001: non-fiction)
Review:
Mötley Crűe – made up of bassist Nikki Sixx, drummer Tommy Lee, guitarist Mick Mars, and vocalist Vince Neil – were one of the raunchiest high-profile heavy metal bands in the 1980s, pursuing sex, drugs and other dehumanizing debaucheries without restraint for the better part of fifteen years. This book spans twenty-one years, from 1980 (when the band formed) to 2001, the band’s story told by the band members (and those who worked with them) in author-alternated chapters.
It should go without saying that this is not for anyone who’s easily offended. The Dirt is sordid, raw, cruel (especially when it comes to the band members’ past deeds), and often shockingly funny; throughout it all, however, one fact shines through – all the band members, f*cked-up and impenitent as they were/are, have a deep, genuine love for making music, which rarely wavered, drug addictions and drama aside.
A necessary, not-off-putting tone of psychoanalysis creeps into the book near the middle of it, as the band members, who come off as distinctive personalities, talk about why they were such sh*ts to everyone around them – the one exception would seem to be Mick Mars, who, while not an innocent, was less indulgent than Sixx, Lee or Neil.
This is not pretty reading. But it is painfully honest and brave, and oftentimes, funnier than a tortoise wearing a tortoise-sized black leather prom dress: highly-recommended for anyone who’s a metal fan, or anybody with a dark seedy sense of humor.
Also worth checking out: The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star, by Nikki Sixx and Ian Gittins.
Review:
Mötley Crűe – made up of bassist Nikki Sixx, drummer Tommy Lee, guitarist Mick Mars, and vocalist Vince Neil – were one of the raunchiest high-profile heavy metal bands in the 1980s, pursuing sex, drugs and other dehumanizing debaucheries without restraint for the better part of fifteen years. This book spans twenty-one years, from 1980 (when the band formed) to 2001, the band’s story told by the band members (and those who worked with them) in author-alternated chapters.
It should go without saying that this is not for anyone who’s easily offended. The Dirt is sordid, raw, cruel (especially when it comes to the band members’ past deeds), and often shockingly funny; throughout it all, however, one fact shines through – all the band members, f*cked-up and impenitent as they were/are, have a deep, genuine love for making music, which rarely wavered, drug addictions and drama aside.
A necessary, not-off-putting tone of psychoanalysis creeps into the book near the middle of it, as the band members, who come off as distinctive personalities, talk about why they were such sh*ts to everyone around them – the one exception would seem to be Mick Mars, who, while not an innocent, was less indulgent than Sixx, Lee or Neil.
This is not pretty reading. But it is painfully honest and brave, and oftentimes, funnier than a tortoise wearing a tortoise-sized black leather prom dress: highly-recommended for anyone who’s a metal fan, or anybody with a dark seedy sense of humor.
Also worth checking out: The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star, by Nikki Sixx and Ian Gittins.
Monday, December 11, 2006
Rutland Place, by Anne Perry
(pb; 1983: fifth book in the Charlotte & Thomas Pitt series)
From the back cover:
"London's most unusual sleuthing team, Inspector Thomas Pitt and his wife, Charlotte, could not stay away from trouble.
"When Charlotte learned of her mother's distress in losing a locket with a compromising picture, she did not know it was the beginning of several bizarre events that would end in sudden death. For hidden behind the sumptuous elegance of Rutland Place were terrible secrets. Secrets so horrifying that only murder could conceal them.
"But the dangerous persistence of Charlotte and the quiet patience of Inspector Pitt made it possible to unwind this most macabre and chilling mystery..."
Review:
The fifth Charlotte and Thomas Pitt mystery takes place shortly after the events of Resurrection Row. Jemima Pitt, Charlotte and Thomas’s daughter, is now eighteen months old; the Pitts are expecting another child in six months.
This mystery is initially lighter than previous Pitt entries, but no less enjoyable or clever. Fresh darkness is introduced to the series near the end of the book, but it isn’t jarring, and sharp-eyed readers will probably see it coming. Aside from that, the pseudo-twists and possible red herrings aren’t so easy to spot, and the characters, as always, are interesting. (One of my favorite characters from Paragon Walk, Paul Alaric, a charming sensitive Frenchman, makes an appearance, which made me like Rutland Place even more).
Excellent, difficult to put down, and followed by Bluegate Fields.
From the back cover:
"London's most unusual sleuthing team, Inspector Thomas Pitt and his wife, Charlotte, could not stay away from trouble.
"When Charlotte learned of her mother's distress in losing a locket with a compromising picture, she did not know it was the beginning of several bizarre events that would end in sudden death. For hidden behind the sumptuous elegance of Rutland Place were terrible secrets. Secrets so horrifying that only murder could conceal them.
"But the dangerous persistence of Charlotte and the quiet patience of Inspector Pitt made it possible to unwind this most macabre and chilling mystery..."
Review:
The fifth Charlotte and Thomas Pitt mystery takes place shortly after the events of Resurrection Row. Jemima Pitt, Charlotte and Thomas’s daughter, is now eighteen months old; the Pitts are expecting another child in six months.
This mystery is initially lighter than previous Pitt entries, but no less enjoyable or clever. Fresh darkness is introduced to the series near the end of the book, but it isn’t jarring, and sharp-eyed readers will probably see it coming. Aside from that, the pseudo-twists and possible red herrings aren’t so easy to spot, and the characters, as always, are interesting. (One of my favorite characters from Paragon Walk, Paul Alaric, a charming sensitive Frenchman, makes an appearance, which made me like Rutland Place even more).
Excellent, difficult to put down, and followed by Bluegate Fields.
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