bookpagedev

Fiction

This land is your land

Review by bookpagedev

David Lozell Martin’s 11th novel is a marvelously over-the-top vehicle for his outspoken views on subjects as diverse as Native American sports mascots (“Can you imagine a football team named the San Francisco Chinks? The Philadelphia Wops?”); obese middle-aged tourists; and the U.S. waste of oil. His narrator, John Brown Dog, is part of a group of Native Americans plotting to destroy St. Louis’ Gateway Arch and Mount Rushmore, both of which are seen as monuments to Europe’s conquest of North America.

Charlie Hart, the FBI agent assigned to stop the Indians’ offensive, listens to Brown Dog’s story and his litany of all the wrongs committed against the Indians by whites over the last four centuries or so. (He compares the annihilation of Indians to the genocide of Jews, and the massacre at Wounded Knee to the bombing at Oklahoma City.) When asked what they are seeking, Brown Dog responds that they want the return of all the national parks and forests. They want to see how Yellowstone would rebound if it were left alone for 500 years, without roads, hotels and concessions. They want to leave the oil in the ground.

If their demands are not met, the Indians will use their supernatural powers, already in evidence in the mysterious black ooze that coated the Arch and engulfed the presidential heads, with dire consequences for the white population. The Native ANmericans would eventually be re-established as the earth’s sole inhabitants.

The author ratchets up the suspense in the final chapters, drawing the reader into this race for survival, with agent Hart caught between reality and where his sympathies now lie. Martin’s latest offering reads like a thriller a provocative one as he engages the reader on a myriad of issues, and has a good time doing it. Deborah Donovan writes from Cincinnati and La Veta, Colorado.

David Lozell Martin's 11th novel is a marvelously over-the-top vehicle for his outspoken views on subjects as diverse as Native American sports mascots ("Can you imagine a football team named the San Francisco Chinks? The Philadelphia Wops?"); obese middle-aged tourists; and the U.S. waste of…
NonfictionHumor

Humerus: books to tickle your funny bone

Review by bookpagedev

Imagine you are sitting down to a late dinner. It’s been a hard day at the office, and you’re ready for some comfort food. "Ring," says the phone. "Ring, ring, ring." You pick it up, because only a friend would call this late, right? "Good evening, may I speak to, Mr. or Ms. (name pronounced incorrectly)?" GrrrrÉ What you need is a liberal dose of Fun With Phone Solicitors: 50 Ways to Get Even! by Robert Harris. Try this response: "One minute please, I’ll connect you." Then press any two buttons in sequence on your phone. After about five seconds, expect the solicitor to say something like "Hello is anyone there?" Ask for whom he is holding, then press the buttons again. At this point, the game will probably be over. It’s highly unlikely that the game will go to a third round but one can dream, can’t one?

Perhaps a dose of history would be more to your liking. How about Non Campus Mentis, the history of the world according to college students, with actual quotes from exams and term papers. Compiled by Professor Anders Henriksson, Non Campus Mentis is relentlessly hilarious. The student authors are, thankfully, anonymous. Of the French Revolution, one opines: "Another problem was that France was full of French people. Dickens made this point in The Tail of Two Sisters, which he required us to read." Or how about this pithy observation on the industrial revolution: "The social structure was Upper Class, Middle Class, Working Class, and Lowest Poor Scum." Or perhaps something from more recent times: "John F. Kennedy worked closely with the Russians to solve the Canadian Missile Crisis." Those damn Canadians, they’re always up to something.

Finally, in an unlikely nod to Miss Manners, one of the Lone Star State’s most unapologetic eccentrics brings us Kinky Friedman’s Guide to Texas Etiquette. The Kinkster rails about all that is good and holy in the Friendship State. He offers a guide to Texas dialect: "Remember: Y’all is singular. All y’all is plural. All y’all’s is plural possessive." Or, "Don’t call it soda’ or pop’. It’s all Coke’ unless it’s Dr. Pepper." Things you will never hear a Texan say: "Duct tape won’t fix that." "The tires on that truck are too big." "I thought Graceland was tacky." Friedman clearly hopes to make some money from this venture, but he says that’s not the most important thing: "As we say here in Texas, Money may buy you a fine dog, but only love can make it wag its tail.’ "

 

Imagine you are sitting down to a late dinner. It's been a hard day at the office, and you're ready for some comfort food. "Ring," says the phone. "Ring, ring, ring." You pick it up, because only a friend would call this late, right? "Good…

Fiction

Coming of age in the Arctic

Review by bookpagedev

Brendan Kane is a small town New England boy driven out into the world by the incessant prodding of a restless heart. In the spring of his 17th year, feeling no allegiance to his family or boyhood home, he turns his back on them forever and wanders south towards the sea. He passes through the draft riots in New York City and the carnage and chaos of the Civil War, eventually accepting a cryptic invitation to serve aboard a vessel with an undisclosed mission. As he becomes acquainted with the patchwork pasts of his fellow crewmen and the extraordinary ambitions of their eccentric financier, Brendan is plunged into a journey of survival and self-discovery that takes him to the bitter twilight of the Arctic Circle. There, Brendan wrestles with the powerful and mysterious yearnings of his heart, as he and his shipmates struggle to endure the numbing cold and perilous circumstances of Arctic exploration. In this engaging debut novel, Ben Jones deftly intertwines a compelling adventure plot with a young man’s endeavor to understand his place in the world. Jones presents the Arctic in poetic detail, coupling his descriptions of the desolate landscape with an impressive knowledge of both the region and the period. His prose is written with skill and subtlety and yields a narrative in which the shifting arctic floes echo the tumultuous evolution of Brendan’s understanding of himself. Campbell Palfrey writes from Nashville.

Brendan Kane is a small town New England boy driven out into the world by the incessant prodding of a restless heart. In the spring of his 17th year, feeling no allegiance to his family or boyhood home, he turns his back on them…
Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

What makes a hero?

Review by bookpagedev

Journalist Stewart Dubinsky, a character who’s appeared in several of Scott Turow’s legal thrillers, wants to write a book. Instead, he finds a story he’d never imagined.

When his father, David Dubin, dies, Stewart discovers a packet of David’s wartime letters to his fiancŽe with a note referring to his court-martial. Stewart had always known his father served as an Army lawyer in World War II, meeting his mother in a concentration camp, but the fiancŽe and the court-martial weren’t part of that story. As Stewart investigates, he discovers that the lives his parents claimed to have lived were far less dramatic, and far less heroic, than the truth.

Still a working lawyer, Turow is known for intelligent, gripping thrillers that lead readers into the shadowy corners of life. In Ordinary Heroes, he dives into a different world: an Army lawyer’s search for a truant OSS officer during the darkest days of the war in Europe, and a son’s search for the truth about his parents.

David Dubin’s former lawyer, now an elderly retired judge, gives Stewart his father’s written account of his journey from loyal lieutenant to infantry captain to accused man. David is assigned to investigate and arrest Maj. Robert Martin, who pulled off a series of raids that helped turn the Allies’ luck. But Martin’s clash with authority brands him as insubordinate and worse. David participates in a raid with Martin’s crew including an intriguing Polish girl, Gita. Following Martin’s trail with his intrepid sergeant, David parachutes into ever-changing territory, then leads a weary band of survivors in the Battle of the Bulge. Still uncertain whether he’s chasing a traitor or a hero, David pursues Martin into Germany, to the camp where he once again meets Gita.

A masterful, passionate storyteller who handles his latest literary challenge with assurance, Turow pays homage in Ordinary Heroes to all who ever dared pursue love or justice amid the horrors of war. Leslie Budewitz practices law and writes in northwest Montana.

Journalist Stewart Dubinsky, a character who's appeared in several of Scott Turow's legal thrillers, wants to write a book. Instead, he finds a story he'd never imagined.

When his father, David Dubin, dies, Stewart discovers a packet of David's wartime letters to his…
MusicArts & Culture

America’s soulful soundtrack

Review by bookpagedev

It’s a little bit like religion: country music inspires a fervor in its fans that gives their attachment to it a nearly divine dimension. As music lovers go, a more zealous lot cannot be found. Devotees who believe in a hillbilly heaven know that Hank Williams occupies a special spot in paradise. Authors Kira Florita and Colin Escott pay tribute to the man in the snow white suit with Hank Williams: Snapshots from the Lost Highway, a photo-filled tour of the singer’s brilliant, brief career. From his impoverished Alabama childhood, to his success in the 1940s with hits like "Honky Tonkin’" and "Lovesick Blues," to his tragic death in 1953 at the age of 29, Snapshots offers a compelling portrait of a man who revealed much of himself through song but remained strangely elusive.

Telling the stories behind tunes like "Kaw-Liga" inspired by Alabama’s Kowaliga Bay Snapshots is generously illustrated with never-before-seen pictures, private correspondence and pages of roughly scrawled song drafts. "He spelled things the way they sounded . . . and punctuated them with sorrow, love and regret," Rick Bragg writes in the book’s foreword. Hank’s volatile private life the blondes, the brawls, the alcohol also gets treated here, with commentary by his two wives that is, to put it politely, colorful. A montage of voices that includes Little Jimmy Dickens, George D. Hay and Hank’s daughter Jett, comprises the text of the book, which has an introduction by Marty Stuart. For Williams’ many disciples, Snapshots will read like a revelation. If you require conversion to the country sound, then American Roots Music should sway your spirit. A majestic, memorabilia-filled volume based on the PBS television series that aired in the fall, this wide-ranging book brings history and geography to bear upon the evolution of America’s traditional musical genres. Authoritative chapters on country music’s early years, the history of the blues and the ’60s folk explosion are graced by the faces of greats like banjo maestro Uncle Dave Macon, bedrock bluesman Memphis Slim and America’s premier seer, Bob Dylan. Testifying to the diversity of American musical expression, the book includes sections on the Tex-Mex, Native American and gospel genres. Each chapter opens with a timeline chronicling significant events from the death of Bessie Smith to Dylan’s decision to go electric in the life of a particular musical category. The book’s unforgettable visuals close-ups of cracked 45s and yellowed songbooks, stark shots of chain gangs and cotton fields and unfurling Southern highways hint at the cultural landscape that produced our country’s distinctive sounds. Editors Robert Santelli, Holly George-Warren and Jim Brown, working with the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution, have produced a monumental volume that is the ultimate tribute to our musical heritage.

Blues fans can stop wailin’ and moanin’: Bass great Bill Wyman has written a slick, comprehensive history of the music that’s filled with classic quotes, rare photographs and one-of-a-kind artifacts. From Memphis to Rosedale, Chicago to St. Louis, Bill Wyman’s Blues Odyssey: A Journey to Music’s Heart and Soul logs the miles required to tell the fascinating story of this venerated genre. How did Wyman, a white Brit, get the blues? The answer lies in his working class roots. Like countless other listeners, Wyman says, in the bruised but defiant sound of the blues, in songs about hardship and heartache, he heard his own experience articulated. Otherwise known as a Rolling Stone, he left that band in 1992 and now plays bass in a blues group called The Rhythm Kings. For Odyssey, Wyman dipped into his personal collection of photographs to create a book full of visual treasures, amply illustrated with classic cartoons, old postcards and playbills, and sidebars on musical subgenres and important blues figures. At once intimate and historical, personal and universal, Odyssey traces the music from its African origins to its American flowering, and explores blues hybridizations like Western swing and rock n’ roll. All the blues greats get their due here, from Ma Rainey to Stevie Ray Vaughan. For collectors, the book also lists Wyman’s listening picks, an inventory of great albums that draws on prewar, country and white rock blues categories. As musical journeys go, Odyssey is one hip trip.

It's a little bit like religion: country music inspires a fervor in its fans that gives their attachment to it a nearly divine dimension. As music lovers go, a more zealous lot cannot be found. Devotees who believe in a hillbilly heaven know that…

Fiction

On the trail of Mark Twain

Review by bookpagedev

Michael Pearson, a professor of creative nonfiction, successfully transfers his talents to fiction writing in his debut novel, Shohola Falls, a thought-provoking blend of historical fiction and coming-of-age saga.

When his mother dies of emphysema and his father disappears, teenager Tommy Banks is left to fend for himself in the Bronx. He goes to school, works at a deli and steals his food and books. “My days were stitched together by the stories I read,” he says, but when he is caught stealing an armload of books by Mark Twain, his favorite author, he is sent to a boys’ home in upstate New York, as far from the Bronx as he’s ever been. He falls in love with a girl from the nearby town of Shohola Falls, but physical abuse at the home forces him to flee.

Tommy is taken in by the caretaker of a nearby cabin once owned by Tommy’s great-grandfather. There the teenager finds a journal written by his great-great-grandfather, Thomas Blankenship, a childhood friend of Samuel Clemens, and the model for the character of Huckle- berry Finn. The journal ends with a hint that more is hidden in a San Francisco bungalow, so Tommy heads west on an trip that recalls Huck’s own adventure.

Of the numerous writings on the life and career of Mark Twain, Pearson’s enjoyable debut is one with a refreshingly unique viewpoint. Bringing to life both his young hero and the historical figures in the book with equal skill, Pearson has created a memorable modern-day story with evocative echoes of the past. Deborah Donovan writes from Cincinnati and La Veta, Colorado.

Michael Pearson, a professor of creative nonfiction, successfully transfers his talents to fiction writing in his debut novel, Shohola Falls, a thought-provoking blend of historical fiction and coming-of-age saga.

When his mother dies of emphysema and his father disappears, teenager Tommy Banks is…
MusicArts & Culture

America’s soulful soundtrack

Review by bookpagedev

It’s a little bit like religion: country music inspires a fervor in its fans that gives their attachment to it a nearly divine dimension. As music lovers go, a more zealous lot cannot be found. Devotees who believe in a hillbilly heaven know that Hank Williams occupies a special spot in paradise. Authors Kira Florita and Colin Escott pay tribute to the man in the snow white suit with Hank Williams: Snapshots from the Lost Highway, a photo-filled tour of the singer’s brilliant, brief career. From his impoverished Alabama childhood, to his success in the 1940s with hits like "Honky Tonkin’" and "Lovesick Blues," to his tragic death in 1953 at the age of 29, Snapshots offers a compelling portrait of a man who revealed much of himself through song but remained strangely elusive.

Telling the stories behind tunes like "Kaw-Liga" inspired by Alabama’s Kowaliga Bay Snapshots is generously illustrated with never-before-seen pictures, private correspondence and pages of roughly scrawled song drafts. "He spelled things the way they sounded . . . and punctuated them with sorrow, love and regret," Rick Bragg writes in the book’s foreword. Hank’s volatile private life the blondes, the brawls, the alcohol also gets treated here, with commentary by his two wives that is, to put it politely, colorful. A montage of voices that includes Little Jimmy Dickens, George D. Hay and Hank’s daughter Jett, comprises the text of the book, which has an introduction by Marty Stuart. For Williams’ many disciples, Snapshots will read like a revelation. If you require conversion to the country sound, then American Roots Music should sway your spirit. A majestic, memorabilia-filled volume based on the PBS television series that aired in the fall, this wide-ranging book brings history and geography to bear upon the evolution of America’s traditional musical genres. Authoritative chapters on country music’s early years, the history of the blues and the ’60s folk explosion are graced by the faces of greats like banjo maestro Uncle Dave Macon, bedrock bluesman Memphis Slim and America’s premier seer, Bob Dylan. Testifying to the diversity of American musical expression, the book includes sections on the Tex-Mex, Native American and gospel genres. Each chapter opens with a timeline chronicling significant events from the death of Bessie Smith to Dylan’s decision to go electric in the life of a particular musical category. The book’s unforgettable visuals close-ups of cracked 45s and yellowed songbooks, stark shots of chain gangs and cotton fields and unfurling Southern highways hint at the cultural landscape that produced our country’s distinctive sounds. Editors Robert Santelli, Holly George-Warren and Jim Brown, working with the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution, have produced a monumental volume that is the ultimate tribute to our musical heritage.

Blues fans can stop wailin’ and moanin’: Bass great Bill Wyman has written a slick, comprehensive history of the music that’s filled with classic quotes, rare photographs and one-of-a-kind artifacts. From Memphis to Rosedale, Chicago to St. Louis, Bill Wyman’s Blues Odyssey: A Journey to Music’s Heart and Soul logs the miles required to tell the fascinating story of this venerated genre. How did Wyman, a white Brit, get the blues? The answer lies in his working class roots. Like countless other listeners, Wyman says, in the bruised but defiant sound of the blues, in songs about hardship and heartache, he heard his own experience articulated. Otherwise known as a Rolling Stone, he left that band in 1992 and now plays bass in a blues group called The Rhythm Kings. For Odyssey, Wyman dipped into his personal collection of photographs to create a book full of visual treasures, amply illustrated with classic cartoons, old postcards and playbills, and sidebars on musical subgenres and important blues figures. At once intimate and historical, personal and universal, Odyssey traces the music from its African origins to its American flowering, and explores blues hybridizations like Western swing and rock n’ roll. All the blues greats get their due here, from Ma Rainey to Stevie Ray Vaughan. For collectors, the book also lists Wyman’s listening picks, an inventory of great albums that draws on prewar, country and white rock blues categories. As musical journeys go, Odyssey is one hip trip.

It's a little bit like religion: country music inspires a fervor in its fans that gives their attachment to it a nearly divine dimension. As music lovers go, a more zealous lot cannot be found. Devotees who believe in a hillbilly heaven know that Hank…

Science Fiction & FantasyFantasy

Jordan’s Wheel of Time springs eternal

Review by bookpagedev

<B>Jordan’s Wheel of Time springs eternal</B> From its title, <B>New Spring</B>, the new Robert Jordan novel might prompt fans of the best-selling fantasy author to wonder if he has simply expanded on the short story, "New Spring," that appeared in the 1998 anthology, <I>Legends</I>. As luck would have it, though, the short story is merely the final chapter and epilogue of the novel. That leaves 25 other chapters of pure, fresh Wheel of Time excitement, chronicling a climb by Moiraine Damodred and Siuan Sanche (characters familiar to series fans) to the shawl of the always-respected and often-feared Aes Sedai. The novel also reveals much about Lan Mandragoran’s past, most notably why he has a right to the throne of the dead kingdom of Malkier and how he became Moiraine’s Warder (a man of great capability pledged to an Aes Sedai). Although some of the recent entries in the series have been disappointingly sluggish, readers who had a hard time slogging through <I>Crossroads of Twilight</I> will be pleased with this new pre-Rand adventure. This is The Wheel of Time at its best: political intrigue, powerful characters, dangerous magic and even more dangerous secrets, a book sure to win new loyal followers for Jordan’s epic series.

<B>Jordan's Wheel of Time springs eternal</B> From its title, <B>New Spring</B>, the new Robert Jordan novel might prompt fans of the best-selling fantasy author to wonder if he has simply expanded on the short story, "New Spring," that appeared in the 1998 anthology, <I>Legends</I>. As…

FictionHistorical Fiction

Memories of war

Review by bookpagedev

At the height of the Allied liberation of Elba during World War II, 10-year-old Adriana Nardi finds herself tucked into a cabinet beneath the kitchen sink. Hidden there overnight by her mother to protect her from the bands of roving soldiers, Adriana longs to be released and set free into a world she no longer understands. Cataloging the sounds around her to pass the long night “three quick coughs, suck of a cigarette, murmur of prayer” she bristles at the confinement, her stubborn childhood courage deeply insulted at being forced to hide from danger. Sixty years later, Adriana again finds herself captive to circumstances beyond her control and flashes back to that night and the story that unfolded after she stepped from the kitchen cabinet.

Pulitzer Prize finalist Joanna Scott beautifully captures war as seen through the innocence of a child. Mostly isolated from the occupying German soldiers, young Adriana views the war alternately as a grand adventure and a grand nuisance. It is not until her accidental discovery of the fleeing Amdu Diop, a Senegalese solider barely more than a child himself, that the war becomes tangible for both. Amdu’s displeasure at being a soldier matches Adriana’s despair at being sheltered from adventure and they soon learn that each is able to offer what the other is seeking. Together, they help to free each other from the aftermath of the liberation.

As Adriana remembers her past, Liberation winds its way through the New Jersey landscape seen from her Manhattan-bound train and the terrain of her childhood memories of war-torn Elba. The result is a deeply moving story of the surrender of innocence and love and the struggle to remember the cost of both. Meredith McGuire writes from New Jersey.

At the height of the Allied liberation of Elba during World War II, 10-year-old Adriana Nardi finds herself tucked into a cabinet beneath the kitchen sink. Hidden there overnight by her mother to protect her from the bands of roving soldiers, Adriana longs to be…
MusicArts & Culture

America’s soulful soundtrack

Review by bookpagedev

It’s a little bit like religion: country music inspires a fervor in its fans that gives their attachment to it a nearly divine dimension. As music lovers go, a more zealous lot cannot be found. Devotees who believe in a hillbilly heaven know that Hank Williams occupies a special spot in paradise. Authors Kira Florita and Colin Escott pay tribute to the man in the snow white suit with Hank Williams: Snapshots from the Lost Highway, a photo-filled tour of the singer’s brilliant, brief career. From his impoverished Alabama childhood, to his success in the 1940s with hits like "Honky Tonkin’" and "Lovesick Blues," to his tragic death in 1953 at the age of 29, Snapshots offers a compelling portrait of a man who revealed much of himself through song but remained strangely elusive.

Telling the stories behind tunes like "Kaw-Liga" inspired by Alabama’s Kowaliga Bay Snapshots is generously illustrated with never-before-seen pictures, private correspondence and pages of roughly scrawled song drafts. "He spelled things the way they sounded . . . and punctuated them with sorrow, love and regret," Rick Bragg writes in the book’s foreword. Hank’s volatile private life the blondes, the brawls, the alcohol also gets treated here, with commentary by his two wives that is, to put it politely, colorful. A montage of voices that includes Little Jimmy Dickens, George D. Hay and Hank’s daughter Jett, comprises the text of the book, which has an introduction by Marty Stuart. For Williams’ many disciples, Snapshots will read like a revelation. If you require conversion to the country sound, then American Roots Music should sway your spirit. A majestic, memorabilia-filled volume based on the PBS television series that aired in the fall, this wide-ranging book brings history and geography to bear upon the evolution of America’s traditional musical genres. Authoritative chapters on country music’s early years, the history of the blues and the ’60s folk explosion are graced by the faces of greats like banjo maestro Uncle Dave Macon, bedrock bluesman Memphis Slim and America’s premier seer, Bob Dylan. Testifying to the diversity of American musical expression, the book includes sections on the Tex-Mex, Native American and gospel genres. Each chapter opens with a timeline chronicling significant events from the death of Bessie Smith to Dylan’s decision to go electric in the life of a particular musical category. The book’s unforgettable visuals close-ups of cracked 45s and yellowed songbooks, stark shots of chain gangs and cotton fields and unfurling Southern highways hint at the cultural landscape that produced our country’s distinctive sounds. Editors Robert Santelli, Holly George-Warren and Jim Brown, working with the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institution, have produced a monumental volume that is the ultimate tribute to our musical heritage.

Blues fans can stop wailin’ and moanin’: Bass great Bill Wyman has written a slick, comprehensive history of the music that’s filled with classic quotes, rare photographs and one-of-a-kind artifacts. From Memphis to Rosedale, Chicago to St. Louis, Bill Wyman’s Blues Odyssey: A Journey to Music’s Heart and Soul logs the miles required to tell the fascinating story of this venerated genre. How did Wyman, a white Brit, get the blues? The answer lies in his working class roots. Like countless other listeners, Wyman says, in the bruised but defiant sound of the blues, in songs about hardship and heartache, he heard his own experience articulated. Otherwise known as a Rolling Stone, he left that band in 1992 and now plays bass in a blues group called The Rhythm Kings. For Odyssey, Wyman dipped into his personal collection of photographs to create a book full of visual treasures, amply illustrated with classic cartoons, old postcards and playbills, and sidebars on musical subgenres and important blues figures. At once intimate and historical, personal and universal, Odyssey traces the music from its African origins to its American flowering, and explores blues hybridizations like Western swing and rock n’ roll. All the blues greats get their due here, from Ma Rainey to Stevie Ray Vaughan. For collectors, the book also lists Wyman’s listening picks, an inventory of great albums that draws on prewar, country and white rock blues categories. As musical journeys go, Odyssey is one hip trip.

It's a little bit like religion: country music inspires a fervor in its fans that gives their attachment to it a nearly divine dimension. As music lovers go, a more zealous lot cannot be found. Devotees who believe in a hillbilly heaven know that Hank…

Mystery & SuspenseSuspense

Le Carr delivers another absolute winner

Review by bookpagedev

For more than a generation, British author John Le CarrŽ has written spy novels that both define and transcend the genre. His latest book, Absolute Friends, is his best work in years, another impassioned portrayal of the forces that drive global politics. Ted Mundy is a thistledown of a man, blown wherever fate and his own whims take him. His resume is endless: ex-’60s radical, failed writer, businessman, schoolteacher, spy. It is this last role that comes back to haunt him with the reappearance of his old friend and fellow traveler, Sasha, who offers financial security and a chance to fight the good fight once again. A mysterious benefactor wants to finance a school that will counter what he sees as propaganda supporting the war in Iraq. Mundy eventually realizes, however, that some things can look too good to be true. Absolute Friends is an absolute page-turner, yet in some ways, plot is superfluous to this novel. We are drawn into the plot because we care about the characters, from the simply drawn minor actors to the meticulously assembled protagonist. Absolute Friends is as much an examination of the human soul as it is an intriguing commentary on 21st century conflicts.

 

For more than a generation, British author John Le CarrŽ has written spy novels that both define and transcend the genre. His latest book, Absolute Friends, is his best work in years, another impassioned portrayal of the forces that drive global politics. Ted Mundy…

FictionWorld Fiction

The loves of a lifetime

Review by bookpagedev

At a key moment in this melancholy picaresque fable, the 90-year-old narrator announces: “Sex is the consolation you have when you can’t have love.” And he has had plenty of consolation: when he lost count of the prostitutes he’d slept with at the age of 50, he had been with 516 of them. Never once did he make love without paying for it. Except, perhaps, the one time he was overwhelmed with the thighs of a laundry girl and launched a rear-guard attack that leads to one of the outbursts of absurd crude humor that enliven the story.

This slender book is really a novella. Curiously, it has the kind of temporal compression one would find in a shorter fictional form, and a mysterious expansiveness that makes the book feel 200 pages longer. This magical effect is due, in large part, to the meditations and obsessions of its central character, who remains nameless throughout. A rouŽ who comes from a line of men so well endowed they could “make donkeys smile,” he is reluctantly facing death with a series of stratagems designed to put off the inevitable.

Gabriel Garc’a M‡rquez assaults political correctness with the first line of the first page. “The year I turned ninety,” the narrator says, “I wanted to give myself the gift of a night of wild love with an adolescent virgin.” Alert Oprah and Dr. Phil we are in Lolita territory here. The narrator contacts an old madam and makes a contract for the deflowering of a working girl of 15. That night he totters to the whorehouse, where he discovers his virgin, naked and asleep. Here begins a scene both lyrical and uncomfortable for North American readers the old man spends much of the night inspecting the body of the naked child. He looks at everything with an erotic sorrow that leaves him haunted and almost remorseful by dawn. Readers have waited 12 years for new fiction from the Nobel Laureate, and this autumnal effort is a miniature jewel. It will alternately make them laugh out loud, sigh with their own memories and cringe at its erotic transgressions. Garc’a M‡rquez, himself facing winter, is clearly planning to tango all the way. A Pulitzer Prize finalist in nonfiction for The Devil’s Highway, Luis Alberto Urrea is also the author, most recently, of the novel The Hummingbird’s Daughter.

At a key moment in this melancholy picaresque fable, the 90-year-old narrator announces: "Sex is the consolation you have when you can't have love." And he has had plenty of consolation: when he lost count of the prostitutes he'd slept with at the age of…
Sports

Golf: It’s not just a sport, it’s an obsession

Review by bookpagedev

Mark Twain once famously remarked that "Golf is a good walk spoiled." Harsh words perhaps, but there’s no denying that, as sports go, this one is singularly exasperating. Nevertheless, each day people travel to their local greens in search of new adventures. According to the National Golf Foundation, over 26 million players took to nearly 17,000 courses last year. Instead of Mike, many people would rather "be like Tiger."

At the end of a vigorous round, golfers like nothing better than to gather at the clubhouse, the 19th hole, to regale each other with stories of their exploits on the course. Like fishermen, they compare gear, swap tall tales and continually try to one-up each other. If your favorite golfer needs material for these clubhouse confabs, the season’s best golf books offer many gift-giving possibilities.

At the top of every golfer’s wish list is the blockbuster golf book of the year, Tiger Woods’ How I Play Golf. With help from the editors of Golf Digest, Woods has compiled a thorough treatise on the basic aspects of the game, from putting to smoking the driver. As all duffers know, half the game is mental, so Woods also offers tips on how to handle problems, how to stay in control and how to practice winning psychology. Woods is known for his tireless approach to training, and he shares insights on that subject as well. The volume is loaded with helpful step-by-step color photographs of Tiger’s techniques and text that is neither too technical nor too patronizing.

The problem with books written by sports superstars is the false expectation that reading them might actually make one as good as the author. But keeping the title in mind how Tiger plays golf will help maintain a sense of perspective about the benefits of reading this excellent guide.

A different kind of instruction can be found in The Golfer’s Guide to the Meaning of Life: Lessons I’ve Learned from My Life on the Links by Gary Player. Rather than micro-managing your game by telling you how to stand or grip the clubs, Player, one of the troika of golf greats that included Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer, discusses issues that usually receive less consideration: success, gratitude, fear, sportsmanship, motivation, goals and change.

Player is a firm believer in doing things the right way. He recalls a time when he could have gotten away with a minor rules infraction. Instead, he reported his innocent error and was disqualified from a tournament he easily could have won. "If I had not turned myself in, I would have had to live the rest of my life with the knowledge that I had cheated. . . . Much better is the feeling I have today that even though I left a trophy and check behind . . . I still have my dignity and honor."

Player’s focus isn’t on learning the techniques of the game, but rather on what the game has taught him about life. "[Golf] leaves us no choice but to accept the good with the bad and to move on to the next shot. . . . That’s the way life is, and the grand old game of golf will never let you forget it."

While Player has been around the course a time or two, Darren Kilfara is a relative rookie. A student at Harvard, he somehow convinced the history department that a year in Scotland, the birthplace of golf, would be beneficial to his studies. They fell for it, and Kilfara was off to St. Andrews. His sports-driven coming-of-age story is told with appealing style and insight in A Golfer’s Education.

It’s easy to see how readers might find themselves a bit jealous of Kilfara, who uses his year abroad to play as much golf as he can while earning academic credit. Along the way he manages to learn life lessons from the everyday people he meets in the quaint towns of Scotland (including a new love interest). Part travelogue and part memoir, Kilfara’s book paints such a charming picture of his temporary home that some readers might be tempted to book their own passage to play a few rounds on the bonnie shores.

Ron Kaplan is a freelance writer who lives a good "drive" away from the Montclair Country Club in New Jersey.

Mark Twain once famously remarked that "Golf is a good walk spoiled." Harsh words perhaps, but there's no denying that, as sports go, this one is singularly exasperating. Nevertheless, each day people travel to their local greens in search of new adventures. According to…

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