Peak

If there weren't children named Dwezil, Moon Unit, River, Rainbow, Peak would seem far-fetched. I've had a subscription to Backpacker and some knowledge of rock climbing but Rock Rat is new to me.

Asked why a man would climb a mountain littered with the bodies of those who did not make it the answer given was, "Because it's there." Mountaineers are a strange confraternity. That a father would take his fourteen-year-old son to such a place.... You'll also rail at self-important officious functionaries everywhere.

Rarely does a book so capture my attention and I read it in one sitting but this is such a book. It's also eminently readable, action-packed, and well-edited.

Virus-free. www.avast.com

Born To Darkness

Born to Darkness is a genre bending book. Part horror, romance, sci-fi. A couple take tantric sex to the point that it blows electrical circuits for an entire block. People possess psychic powers that enable them to probe other's minds, project pain and mental distress, even move objects. Children are tortured.

As the story progresses we are treated with three romances.

At over 500 pages the storyline too often gets lost in too much detail. As with too many other books I've read since the age of computers began this book could have benefited greatly from the loss of about 200 pages.

Virus-free. www.avast.com

13 Reasons Why

The book takes the form of a 6-hour suicide note left on cassette tapes with commentary from one of the people who listen to them, or if you like a sod off from beyond the grave. Which begs the question as to why someone with that level of rationality and self-awareness went ahead with the act in the first place. This cry for help was pointless if the act succeeded. Did the individual intend to succeed or was her death an accident. Suspense builds as each side is completed and the listener still hasn't learned his part in the story.

For me school was a trial that had to be endured. For the most part I was an outside observer. My only activities were library and glee club where I excelled, and the occasional drama. I'm sure all the social interactions described here went on, one of my classmates showed up with a tooth broken in a fight, but I took no part in it. Hour-long bus rides on dusty, muddy, or ice-slicked roads added to the tedium coming and going. School dances were boring affairs I suffered. Graduation an exercise we marched through in advance of receiving our provincially marked grades. I stood first in my class, so I was an egghead.That teenagers have their own cars is still a revelation to me, that they get a new one for their 16th birthday....!

Reading the book has led to me to look up a classmate I haven't interacted with in 50 years. It has also made me think of all the people I have known who took their own lives whose acts I felt powerless to prevent.

---

This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. www.avast.com

Ten Thousand Saints

Lack of education, unemployment, malnutrition, broken homes, depression, drug & alcohol addiction, early death.... The destiny of slum dwellers everywhere. The characters in this novel fit the pattern and no effort is made to pretty it up for us.

The action moves from a New Hampshire back woods town to the streets of New York City and up and down the New England Coast.

The mid point has the gang on a road trip as a rock band. An addendum 18 years later has Jude, the central character and the book's ostensible narrator back in his old neighbourhood that is remarkably gentrified since his teen years.

Virus-free. www.avast.com

Malice in Maggody

If you didn't know already the novel was set in the south, Arkansas, names like Jim Bob and Larry Joe would give it away. Fishing for catfish and a display of dried beef jerky beside the garage cash register seal the deal. The style is so ah shucks down home it makes Andy Griffith's Mayberry look like an urban metropolis. Since I've driven through Dildo, NFLD, I'll not question the placename Maggody.

The chief of police here is a woman. The turns of phrase contain gems like: "beanpole with acne", "booming threats that would scare the horns off the devil" . The behaviour of town council gives hicks a bad name, policing is strictly keystone cops. Inbreeding and family relationships interconnect all aspects of town life. Having attended Mississauga City Council meeting little would surprise me though I doubt back room bar meetings are broadcast on local cable in Maggody.

The Storyline switches from venue to venue, from sub-plot to sub-plot without warning or even a break in the text to indicate a change. The whole is so cornball as to seem laughable but one fears all too true to small-town life where speeding tickets fund city coffers.

Virus-free. www.avast.com

Something Like Summer

Will the Geeky Gay Kid get the Sexy Hunk Jock

Ben is gay and a non-athletic geek with above average intelligence. He has crushed on an unattainable jock he has seen out jogging in his neighbourhood. He is out and beyond notice in his clique in high school but will this jock notice him even were he a closeted gay? The premise behind this book is rather far-fetched and demands major suspension of disbelief to work.

Tim's parents are too typical of a wealthy couple who really didn't intend to have children but slipped. They give him everything including his good genes, his Camaro, but they do not give him themselves.

Ben's sister is a babblermouth. His parents are tolerant of his boyfriend sleeping over and even open about facilitating their relationship.

Out and proud geek teen and closeted jock. How do you expect this to go? But what happens when they meet up later in life?

This ends in a love triangle of the homoerotic kind. By the end I'd lost interest and was just glad it was over.

Virus-free. www.avast.com

Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer

Above 25,000 ft the human body is dying which begs the question as to why anyone would want to risk climbing to such heights. Surprising is the fact that the climb begins in Equatorial heat amid a riot of blooming shrubs and wildflowers. There is an element of unreality about the entire enterprise. Amid an ancient people and Buddhist Monks adventure seekers flock to climb their holy mountain. More incongruous is the concept of an expedition that daunts professional climbers being offered as a tourist attraction. 

Eye-witness accounts have proven to be notoriously unreliable and the majority of the people on that mountain were suffering hallucinations from lack of oxygen. The author makes a considered effort to defend his version of the events. Whatever your assessment the book is well written and makes good reading. Risk takers fall victim to their gambles as did adventurers here, the author made it back to write his account. 

All the Galland Men by Don Stratton

Before the US became ostensibly the world’s police force it’s foreign policy was essentially isolationist. Then as now the military establishment was more than happy to profit from supplying the matériel of war but it took the events of December 7, 1941 to bring America into the war and another two years before a substantial force could be mobilized and trained. The USS Arizona remains sunk in Pearl Harbour a graveyard for the men who served aboard her whose bodies were never recovered and a memorial to their sacrifice. This memoir tells the story of one of the few men who survived and uses archival material, diaries and letters to fill in the details. It serves to make history personal. The man whose memories were here transcribed by a ghost writer was 94 at time of publication. Most veterans are reluctant to dredge up old wounds and traumas. We are indebted to this man for sharing his.

A Torch Against the Night

Book 2 of An Ember in the Ashes. A pair of lovers flee for their lives in a classic picaresque novel in which it is us against the world and the odds are stacked heavily against them. Reading Book One first is a definite prerequisite. That said this book is eminently readable and the action will carry the reader along.

Loyalties are divided and serving those you do not respect and with those you despise and know spy on you.... Invented profanity is still swearing, just not the words with which we have become all too familiar. The story is told in the third person alternate chapters from Laia, Helene, and Elias' point of view. Life here is violent, blood runs in the streets and rivers run red.

Although the central pair achieve a certain resolution the causes of their distress remain unsettled. Will there be a book 3 in which the coming wars are fought?

Virus-free. www.avast.com