The Call of the Canyon

Another Zane Grey Western Romance. This one set in New York City and a canyon in Arizona within view of the Painted Desert. Emphasis here on romance with the landscape coming a definite distant second. Much of the North-Eastern Section of Arizona is the territory to which many Indian Bands were exiled, the Painted Desert is just to the south near the New Mexico Border. As the book begins Glenn has just returned from WW#1 where he was gassed and endured unconscionable hardships that left him sick and injured in mind, body, and soul. To recover he headed west to recover his health. That he does is a minor miracle and one that weds him to this rough and ready frontier life. The storyline then revolves around whether or not his betrothed Carley can persuade him to come back East to the life of ease and luxury that is her milieu or if the lure of adventure, wide open spaces, and Glenn’s love can tempt Carley to give it all up and move into a rude cabin with Glenn. To add spice there’s girl he met out west and a cowboy who loves that girl. I fear I’ve read one too many Western Romances to fully enjoy this but the quality of Grey’s writing holds up throughout.

American Boy

I have an initial problem with Larry Watson’s book. I find it difficult to believe that any reputable doctor would take two teenage boys into his examination room to view a naked comatose female patient. That quibble aside this is a typical Larry Watson novel. Raw, unflinching, true to life.

Matthew Garth is a fatherless boy from the wrong side of the tracks who is befriended by a classmate, the doctor’s son in a small town where a doctor is held in high esteem. While treated like a member of his friend’s family he is never unaware of his place in the scheme of things. The boys indulge in the usual teenage hijinks: drinking, racing cars, and fantasizing about girls. In the end though Matthew displays remarkable maturity for a 17-year-old. Make no mistake, this is an adult novel.

The Rockin' Chair

By Steven Manchester

A bit too sentimental and mushy for some tastes. After his wife of many years dies of Alzheimers an old Farmer sits in the Rocking Chair on his front porch and ruminates about his estranged relationship with his only son and the lives of his three grandchildren. His mainstay has been his daughter-in-law. The book’s most poignant insights are into the nature of the relationships between fathers and sons. We are dealing with 3 adult generations here. Teenage sons feel obligated to rebel against their parents but maintain an easy relationship with their grandparents. The issue would seem to be finding a means of severing the familial bond of dependency without creating a permanent rift.

Little House in the Big Woods

I will confess to having not seen any of the 205 episodes of Little House on the Prairie but I am curious to read at least one of her books after driving through Laura Ingalls Wilder Territory. I say this because I was fascinated to discover that no less than 5 locations claim to be her birthplace. I’ve heard of being born again but this is ridiculous. It would seem that her father was extremely peripatetic as I encountered at least a score of locations that claim some relationship with her as her homestead or place of residence. I remember commenting at the time that if she was going to become famous it was good of her to spread the wealth around.

Many of the activities described remind me of my own years on a country farm in Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia. Our woods wasn’t quite as all-pervasive and we weren’t threatened by wolves, cougars or bears but we did churn our own butter, make our own bread, do our own butchering, pickle and smoke meat to preserve it. We did not use a fire place and we had a hand pump but almost everything else seems familiar.

The book reads somewhat like a museum piece and seems somewhat idealized as seen through the eyes of a child. Don’t expect it to be too much like the TV Show. The most lasting impression one is left with is the fact that these people had none of the labour-saving devices we take for granted today. They would have balked at being termed poor but they lived a subsistence existence producing everything they needed save for the coffee, tea, and molasses that wouldn’t grow in Northern Minnesota. Tapping maple trees to make sugar, sewing and knitting their own clothes, making lye soap, heating water to have a bath in a metal tub. They may have been self-reliant but they spent nearly every waking hour seeing to the essentials of life. There was little time to read, playing the violin was a luxury and family gatherings and dances were a rare treat. No wonder young adults looked back so fondly at their years of childhood play!

The Lightning Thief

In this young adult novel twelve-year-old misfit student Percy learns that he is an immortal, or at least a demi-god. This is the year that Charles Philip Arthur George Windsor becomes a senior citizen. If he manages to outlive his mother Elizabeth Alexandra Mary now 87 whose mother lived to 102 he will become king or failing that his son William Philip Arthur Louis age 31. Now imagine that you are the offspring of Zeus or Jupiter. These Greek or Roman Gods are immortal. As such succession is an impossibility. What’s a bored immortal godling to do? Hanky panky with humans is one possible amusement; hence we have Percy. Quite a mouthful to swallow just after escaping the horns of the Minotaur. Now imagine Mount Olympus on Long Island.

Restored and healed by water and having an ability for sword-play he had no idea he possessed Perseus, Lightning Thief is sent on a quest. If you think these kids get into a great deal of trouble along the way remember these are twelve-year-olds out on their own. Their curiosity and sense of adventure keep them constantly in hot water. Not a great book but moderately interesting if for nothing else it’s treatment of Greek Myth.

Hamfist Over Hanoi

The third in this trilogy of books as Ham trains to fly F-4 fighter jets we are exposed to the more highly technical jargon then ever before. Unless you have some understanding of avionics most of this language will be well over your head. The author isn’t afraid to go into mundane details like the line-up to use the facilities before flight-ops, even 25-year-old hot-shot fighter pilots can’t hold it indefinitely. When flying at Mach 2 things can go terribly wrong terribly fast. Minor slip-ups can become major screw-ups rather quickly. Although the book may be told from the chief protagonist’s point of view he freely admits to being an average fighter pilot and cops to the successes that were pure dumb luck. If you can get past the air force jargon this is a great read.

My Name is Hardly

Living situations defined Hardly’s life. First the couple who gave him life but should never have been parents; then the Father of his best friend who took him in; and finally the Commanding Officer who provided him with his first father-figure. This tiny Scot was fortunate in having a CO who guided him not by meting out punishment for his misdeeds but in leading him toward better choices first away from a life of alcoholism and then with the support of his Scottish buddies to a purpose in life in the attics of Ireland and later as a Lance Corporal in charge of training in Britain. This book is not so much about army life as its affect upon the men who populate its ranks. Hardly whether he knows it or not should be eternally grateful for having had a CO who for whatever reason took a liking to him and ensured his confidence in himself was built, the he remained the ranking officer in his enterprises, and received assignments he could handle. This book is rare in giving a positive outlook on a grunts eye view of the army.

Like so many books I’ve read lately the story does not unfold in a linear fashion but jumps ahead and gives us background through lengthy flashbacks. Although the “Troubles” in Northern Island figure here it is the inner turmoil these characters experience that is paramount.

The Rainbow Trail

A follow up story to Riders of the Purple Sage this book takes a young lapsed minister to the cañons of Utah where he encounters a community of sequestered Mormon wives that includes Fay Larkin. They eventually end up in Surprise Valley with Jane and Lassiter. Not a bad tale if you can get past the polemic against Mormon polygamy.

The Virginian

Owen Wister’s classic 1902 Western tale is told from the point of view of an unnamed Tenderfoot visitor to the Judge Henry’s Sunk Creek Spread near Medicine Bow, Wyoming who is babysat by his host’s Trusted Man the Virginian. We get little description of the Virginian save that he is young and lithe, a giant of a man pretty as a picture and appears tall in the saddle and has shiny black hair. Those who are good at their jobs do them with an economy of motion, with a grace and ease that make what they do look easy until someone else tries to do it. So it is with the Virginian. There’s a confidence and competence that for example let’s fellow card players know when he lays a gun on the table that if forced to he will know how and not hesitate to use it.

The book unfolds at a lazy pace and documents through anecdotes the friendship that develops between the author and the Virginian. The land and the creatures that inhabit it get more detailed descriptions than the people who intrude on it. The demise of open range caused by fences and farming figures prominently. Texas is still a state that requires crop growers to protect their fields from wandering cattle. Interstates are fenced and their ramps protected by Texas Gates.

The author indulges in entire chapters that provide back-story and biographical material on his characters but do nothing to move the story along. One gets the sense that the tenderfoot who narrates the tale is the author himself with his Eastern Civilized Sensibilities. He muses about the brutality inherent in a cattle operation and is scandalized at the fact that some take pleasure in such brutality and ill-treat their animals, particularly their horses. He dwells upon frontier justice at a time when cattle rustling and horse thievery were hanging offences and lynchings were staged in the field lest lawyers and town juries let the miscreants walk. If we find it hard to think that this frontier is only a century behind us we must remember that it was even more recent that a white jury in the South would not have convicted a white of killing a black.

Would it be an offense to reveal that the book ends with a Honeymoon Camping Trip in the Mountains?

Street Cred

As another reviewer has written, free or not, not worth the download. One is forced to believe that if this man still works for the police he writes under a pen name and that the authour photo is faked. The police service he describes is too busy chasing its own tail to fight crime. Given that police services are run by human beings and manned by officers with the same failings this officer sees conspiracy behind every doorway. In the first place it would seem their psychological profiling system has failed them or they would never have hired someone whose childhood years left him as screwed up as this person describes his as being. After reading the first couple chapters I was forced to decided this book just wasn’t worth my time.

Lizardskin

Carsten Stroud writes police procedurals from the perspective of the patrolman on the beat. They encounter life at its rawest and most primal and the author does nothing to spare the reader the gory details of man’s inhumanity to man. The present opus was published over 2 decades ago. Somehow I cringe at the Female District Attorney’s admonition that if you’re going to be forced to shoot a perp, shoot to kill and spare the county the cost of settling the ensuing lawsuit out of court; burial costs are cheaper.

Like so many books written since the arrival of computer word-processors this one suffers from word-bloat. The author waxes lyrical describing landscapes and people and how they dress. He digresses frequently at length to pages of background history which tends to make the story drag. It often takes him a long to get where he intends to go. A less is more approach would tauten the storyline.

Code of the West

[Some may consider some of this content spoilers.]

Texan Jimmy Goodnight makes a name for himself by pulling an ax out of an anvil at the fair winning $1000 prize money. Roping a one-ton buffalo doesn’t sound very smart but having your buddy tie your feet to your stirrups after you get paralyzed when the beast knocks you off your horse doesn’t sound too intelligent either. Life in Early West Texas was rough and ready but certainly not boring. The bulk of the novel is set in a caňon along the Red River which forms the border between Texas and Oklahoma in the East. Palo Duro Texas State Park marks the location.

It is said that Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did on the dance floor but she did it backwards. Given the nature of dance that could hardly be avoided but making a woman ride side-saddle seems unnatural for both the horse and the lady, isn’t that why God made culottes for women? Taking an Eastern Lady and putting her in the middle of a gang of ranch hands 100 miles from the nearest settlement is quite something else.

The camaraderie of the bunk house among grown men one hundred miles from the nearest civilization may not have attained to the extremes of Brokeback Mountain but the relationship between the less than good looking Jimmy and the stunningly handsome Jack attained at least to brotherly love. That Jack is the better cowboy in every possible way makes his playing second fiddle a strain. Bringing a beautiful wife into a situation where isolated men lived in close quarters seems an act of cruelty. That Jimmy fails to see the attraction between his beautiful wife and the lady’s man Jack that drove the latter away seems hard to believe. [The book description refers to Arthur and Lancelot.]

The canker that has eaten away at Jimmy’s soul throughout his life is finally revealed in a flashback 2/3rds of the way through the book. We come to learn that’s Jimmy’s white family was largely killed in a Comanche raid on their stockade when he was ten and he was carted off as one of the spoils of war and eventually adopted by a Medicine Man. Seven Years later as a young brave he is spared when a white army and Texas Rangers wipe out another Comanche Raiding party. Years later his past comes back to haunt him. By this circumstance he was deprived of two families and eventually adopted by a surviving Uncle.

Five hundred pages is a long read and the first couple hundred are the most engaging. The book contains the rough language of cowpokes, graphic descriptions of their work, and of rape and cruelty. None of it is gratuitous.

If you don’t like the Arthur and Lancelot analogy Othello and Iago come to mind. Every great empire including cattle empires seem to have the seeds of their demise planted from the beginning.

Federico Garcia Lorca: Collected Poems

When writing in Spanish, a language where most nouns end in either an 'a' or an 'o' the greater challenge would be the attempt to avoid rhyme. In English his translators make no attempt to duplicate his rhyme scheme. I look forward to hearing this poetry read in its original Spanish. In English one gets only a sense of the poet's thought. The poems are deeply personal and reveal a rather depressive personality of one who is self-absorbed and obsessive. One begins to understand why he would not keep silent for his own good when he returned to Spain. Like so many dissidents before and after him he might have survived in exile but separation from his native soil would have been intolerable. Some men seem to be born to be martyrs.

There are notes supplied in an end appendix but since the poems are not numbered and there are only rough page references following them is not easy. I claim no expertize in Spanish but in rendering the title La balada del agua del mar rather than Seawater Ballad or Salt Water Ballad I’d have said Sea Chanty. These may be Lorca’s Collected Verse but what they most reveal is a rather undisciplined cluttered personality leaving many versions of the same poems with no definitive indications of his preference or even completed versions of most poems. An editor’s nightmare it would seem.

Lorca was born to wealth and privilege but was not ashamed to associate with the local peasants in the countryside surrounding Granada though beyond writing about it no mention is made of his efforts to improve their lot.

Everything about this book is monumental including the sixty-four page introduction. In paperback the binding cannot survive the reading of it.

Riders of the Purple Sage

Before last night Zane Grey was only a name known to me through TV’s Zane Grey Theatre. I now learn that Pearl Zane Grey was a dentist who wrote nearly 200 western-style novels and died 10 years before I was born. Until I started this novel I had not suspected a Mormon connection or the State of Utah as a setting. My knowledge of what constitutes the West in American mythology is limited but I’m learning that it was a moving target as civilization and manifest destiny moved westward. It has just been in the last days that I learned that Mexican Immigration was an issue in Arizona in 1914. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised as next to Texas it has the longest border and geography favours it as a crossing point. Driven out of Missouri at a time when the only good Mormon was considered a dead one the Brotherhood are here painted as being as intolerant of ‘Gentiles’ as the people who forced them to move west.

I’m finding this book a heavy read in spite of the fact that it’s under 150 pages. [Research shows the page count is out by 200 pages.] For one thing there are extended physical descriptions of the landscape and the people. As others have pointed out the dialogue is somewhat stilted and there seem to be long periods in which little seems to happen. Somehow a bit more economy of expression would have helped. Throwing the Mormons into the mix added nothing to the story which seems to be somewhat light on plot. The author really didn’t like Mormons!

Elsie

I recently reviewed Tony Danza’s memoir about spending a year teaching a single grade 10 English Class. Still in her teens my own mother set out to teach 11 grades in a one-room school in rural Nova Scotia. The present memoir tells of a twenty-something young lady who leaves the luxury of Long Beach California to teach in a homesteading community in Arizona in 1913, a year after the territory attained Statehood. She taught only five grades but the neighbourhood she lived in lacked running water, electricity, and central heat.

In her favour her neighbours welcomed she and her fellow teacher supplying them with accomodation, meals, and moral support. Her students were well-mannered and eager to learn. Letters home from their remote location took time and included a list of items they wanted sent on. The Sears and Roebuck Catalog gained well-worn pages. Travel in was by train, then stage coach, and even horseback. Roads?

The book contains editorial comment, excerpts from Elsie’s diary, letters home, and pictures from her Kodak Brownie Camera. The details are often repetitive and mundane. How often do we need to know she did her washing--albeit in the creek, or cooked. What begins as an interesting frontier adventure becomes somewhat mundane. Which may explain why I set it down for a couple months before resuming it.

In her second year of teaching she moves to a larger school in a more civilized setting. She taught through the years of WW#1 but lost friends to more prosaic things like disease and accident.

This book assembled by her granddaughter.

Last Resort

There really is a Green Acres Trailer Park in Bobcaygeon in the Kawartha Lakes Region of Ontario which today caters exclusively to seasonal campers. During his formative years Lindwood Barclay’s family owned and ran the place. I’ve been that camper attending to business only to discover there are no provisions in the stall I occupy. Linwood worked for a time for the Oakville Beaver before moving on to greener pastures at the Toronto Star. He still lives in Oakville. Despite the glowering appearance the photo on his website shows appropriate it would seem to his present occupation as a writer of crime fiction this memoir is written with loving humour.

Every eleven-year-old boy’s dream would be to have a John Deere Tractor lawnmower to ride around on, a power boat to tool around the lake in, a new set of playmates or potential girlfriends arriving weekly, and surrogate grandmothers to fawn over him and bake cookies. There were chores to perform in particular the bucket from the fish cleaning station but they weren’t all that onerous. The book reads like summers spent at the lake with friends. The troubles in his life are approached with the same sunny disposition.

Medicine River

My copy of Thomas King’s book was bought the year it came out in 1989, shameful that it has taken me 34 years to get around to reading it. To be fair the characters were much recycled on King’s Dead Dog Cafe Series aired on CBC and is still available for purchase on i-Tunes Canadian Site. For the record Medicine River runs out of Medicine Lake near Rocky Mountain House Alberta but no such community exists. The general neighbourhood is mid-way between Edmonton and Red Deer, Alberta and the other communities mentioned are real including Hobbema having the dubious distinction of being the most violent location in all Canada. Sad to say that the characters in this book speak of members of other tribes in the same racist terms used to describe First Nations Peoples by Whites.

Filled with colourful characters.

Monkey Beach

Eden Robinson’s first novel is a first-person narrative related by Lisa of her younger brother Jimmy lost at sea. Used as a pretext for describing her experience growing up in the Haisla First Nations community of Kitamaat. The author has a way of writing that makes one smell the foggy salt air and hear the waves slapping against the rocks on the shore. Can you hear the firehall siren wailing to warn of an approaching tsunami? Can you smell the cockles cooking on the stove or imagine one squirming live in your mouth as you eat it raw? It’s as if talking about the younger little brother who was forever following her around and for whose safety she was held responsible is her way of bringing him back to life. As the older sis she still feels responsible.

It’s the kind of book you read slowly because you want to savour every detail. Uncles are fun because they tell naughty stories about your parents. Like the time the brothers rolled out their sleeping bags on the beach one warm night and awoke surrounded by one ton basking seals. Trapped in his bag one brother says, thought it was my wife hogging the covers as usual. The speaker appears to be free-associating experiences from her past with present day events or places she goes. Although the book is ostensibly about the search for a lost brother he is rarely present in memories related and we get few descriptions of him or a sense of his presence. It’s as if he’s already absent. There is the usual talk of residential schools, pre-teen smoking, booze, drugs, sex and dreams unrealized.

Ultimately the book is about Haisla culture and traditions and the landscape they inhabit. And life on the Rez where a friends bad tires can end up cosing you a trip to the Olympics.

Joe

A book by one of my two favourite authors, Larry Brown; Larry Watson being the second. Larry Brown writes from working class experience, he served years as a fireman. There are no good guys or happy families in this book. Not Joe Ransom who buys stamps at the Post Office he doesn’t need just so he can see his ex-wife who works there. Certainly not Gary Jone’s family whose alcoholic father wastes money his family of five needs for food on Old Crow Whiskey. Joe at least has a roof over his head and a job. There are no likable characters in this hard-drinking, hard-scrabble world but the story has a harsh authenticity about it.

Fay, written some years later is the story of Gary’s older sister who deserts the family in disgust and peddles her booty to Biloxi. Neither book is intended for the faint of heart or those with delicate sensibilities. Fay and her father Wade are the kind of amoral characters who give gypsies and vagabonds a bad name. Well written and highly recommended both so long as you feel up to it.

Big Cherry Holler

Perhaps there’s something about an author’s first book but there was something magical about Big Stone Gap the first in author Adriana Trigiani’s Blue Ridge Trilogy. It contained zingers like ‘he made Levi’s sing’, unfortunately for the smitten lover the hunk proved to be gay. Four-Fifths of the way through book two I put it away because I just couldn’t stand it anymore. Her writing had descended into the lowest level of Harlequin Romance Dime Store chic. The Blue Ridge is hardly a hotbed for woman’s liberation but Italy would seem to be the least likely alternative.

If you’re going to have a summer affair for comfort while the wife’s away don’t leave love notes in your pockets. And Italian women have hot tempers. I’ve read and heard about married couples throwing the dinnerware at one another but I was raised too poor and practical-minded to ever think of doing such a thing.

What comes through most vividly when Ave returns to the Gap is how stultifying and claustrophobic life in a small community can be when anonymity is impossible.

**Spoiler Alert**

What could be more embarrassing:

Your husband invites his Italian rival to dinner
They immediately hit it off like long-lost buddies
Your nine-year-old daughter is smitten with the guy
The town’s most inveterate gossip walks in in the middle of dinner.

As he of the singing Levis who calls in the middle of all this says, sexual tension is not a disease. It’s that kind of book.

Now how long before I read Milk Glass Moon?

Lando

Lando is one of Louis L’Amour’s 17-book Sacketts Series. Orlando Sackett sets out from his Hillbilly Log Cabin in the Blue Ridge to head West in part to escape a blood feud and to escape the family who swindled him out of his Father’s Spanish Gold. We learn about life in the hills, the brigands who haunt the Post Civil War back-country, and the perils of travel along the Mississippi. Distinguishing friend from foes is not always an obvious choice and being an obvious mark is dangerous.

Code of the West:

If you wear a gun folks will expect you to use it and you better be ready to.

You won’t be keeping what you can’t defend.

Not one of his best.

Out of Control

Few can match Louis L’Amour in his evocation of the American West. If you’re expecting John Wayne to step from the pages of Mary Connealy’s books you’ll probably find these touchy-feely boys too in touch with their feminine sides for your taste but even the master sprinkled romance in his tales. Expect more detailed physical descriptions of the characters and their experience of the terrain than the physical experience itself. Don’t get me wrong, these books are well-written, just different. Real cowboys cry, admit to being afraid, and even have mental breakdowns. This is book one of a series but there’s a back-story here that slowly emerges as the story progresses leaving the reader feeling that they’ve walked into a family conflict they don’t understand.

Rafe and his brother Ethan are very believable but the women, particularly Julia less so. Her obsession with fossils as others have observed borders on manic. Somehow Rafe deserves better. As I read on this book became heavy going. Unfortunately it was a book I could and did frequently put down. I’ll accept that the author has written good books but this is not one of them.

Firefly Beach

An accountant moves to a small coastal community in Maine to become an artist. A diary she accidentally finds renews long repressed memories and sends the reader on a quest to find the writer. A story to satisfy the snoop and sleuth in all of us. Remarkable how much local gossips can miss. Filled with well-characterized small-town eccentrics. After reading several e-Books plagued by typos, missing words, spelling errors and grammatical mistakes it is pleasant to find one that is properly edited. The book is a pleasure to read.

The Sea and The Silence

Set on the coastline of the Irish Sea among Anglo-Irish Catholics at home neither in Ireland nor England. People who send their progeny to private English Boarding Schools ensuring their continued alienation in the land of their birth. Told from a woman’s point of view Iz marries a man who proves to be a ne’er do well who philanders on the side. Irish tempers, red hair and freckles, pubs, priests, fishing, and country estates figure large in the storyline.

Around the halfway point after a significant crisis point we jump back nearly 30 years to Iz in her post-teen years at the time when she met her future husband. Her Father, it transpires, was no better manager of his affairs than her future husband. The question gets asked, should one accept an arranged marriage that assures one financial security, or should one marry for love. The Irish troubles seen from this point of view look different. English landlords given Irish Estates by Cromwell held large tracks of land often lying fallow as was Iz’s family home. Landless Irish peasants clamoured for land reform.

Then as now the promise of youth is squandered in battles on foreign shores. Duty vies with dreams for dubious outcomes. This is an Irish story, not one with happy endings. But it is well-written and worth your time.

Jarvisfield

At the end of book 3 of the Macquarie Trilogy we learn that it is to be stretched to a fourth book. I will not be acquiring book 4. At the end of Book 2 Lachlan Macquarie dies and leaves George Jarvis in charge of Jarvisfield. A few chapters into book 3 George is killed off in a riding accident leaving the estate in the hands of George’s wife and Elizabeth Macquarie the Laird’s widow. Raised without a strong male presence Lachlan Jr falls into the company of a his Godfather’s son and joins him in the army in a life of dissolute gambling and debauchery. Whereas his friend can afford to lose at cards Lachlan cannot and he throws away his inheritance and his happiness in the process. This book is not the engaging read the first two provided. It has its moments and it may be true to life but it lacks the moral compass provided by the two strong leads whose friendship was the driving force in books one and two.

Beneath the Wall

Perky red-haired photo-journalists always seem to fall for tall, dark, handsome narrow-hipped, wide-shouldered Adonises who look like the covermen for Muscle and Fitness and have corded muscles that demand exploring. If you can get past that cliché and the 9 grammatical errors I marked in the first 150 pages this is a great read. Eryn LaPlant has that knack that some writers possess for drawing your interest from page one and holding it unbroken as you flip the pages. There are books one plows through to get past the tedious bits but this one carries you along non-stop and it does it without leading you through non-stop adventure though that’s there as well. Anyone who has read The Bridges of Madison County will recognize the central MacGuffin of adult children discovering after her death that their mother had a past they’d never dreamed of. Few though discover that their frumpy parent spent her salad days dodging bullets in Vietnam and fending off the attentions of Marines starved for female company.

Another cliché of the genre is the arresting cover shot of model Jason Aaron Baca calculated to grab the attention of casual browsers or book store window gazers. There’s even a forgettable book by him highlighting the fact that only 1 in 20,000 wannabes make it in his world. Fortunately the present tome rises above it all to provide book lovers with a very readable action-adventure romance.

Dirty Work

Two of my favourite authors, Larry Brown and Larry Watson. Brown, a smoker who died of a heart attack in 2004, wrote this book a quarter-century ago. Two injured Vietnam Vets end up in adjoining beds in a VA Hospital. One a black man missing both arms and legs has been there for 22 years, the other missing most of his face is a 250 pound white man who suffers from black-outs caused by a bullet logged in his brain. What these two men have in common is what we learn over a two-day period. Somehow I just can’t get away from war lately. This book illustrates the lasting costs of war especially to those forced to participate. This author can make almost anything interesting. The book draws you in and holds your interest throughout. Makes you feel that sixth-grade bully got what was coming to him. Alas for poor working class grunts there don’t seem to be any happy endings.

This Side of Brightness

Set in New York City at the turn of the last century among the sandhogs who hand-dug the tunnels under New York for subways and other traffic and the homeless people who occupy them today. I’ve read and enjoyed McCann’s style in the past. Believe I find the sandhogs more sympathetic than the street-people.

It was Henry David Thoreau who said, “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.” Colum McCann is able to find drama in the most mundane of lives and make us care for their joys and pains. They seem to come alive on the page and enter our field of vision.

As the story progresses we move from digging under the ground to high steel and the two story-lines meld into one. When a black man marries an Irish lass their chocolate coloured children arrive with crinkled flaming red hair. Practical minded rather than vindictive when hate messages wrapped around bricks crash through their apartment windows they rent an apartment too high for the bricks to reach.

The Shack

I found reading the book rather heavy going and not because of the heavy theological content. I’ve read Paul Tillich and Viktor Frankl. Guess I prefer my theological arguments straight up rather than in allegorical or fantasy formats. The chief protagonist in this piece is dealing with the abduction/murder of his youngest daughter and is invited to spend a weekend with God in three persons in a remote shack. A great deal of liberal theology gets covered here. If you don’t mind the format then this is a great book. To me a 300-page parable was rather too much of a good thing.

Hamfist Down

I want to thank Amazon for making the second part of this two-parter available as a free download. Read it in one afternoon. Part 2 follows Hamilton Hancock after he bails out over Laos and continues as he completes his deployment in Viet Nam. This is pure action/adventure and carries the reader along for the ride.

The Making of a Messiah

Little is known from the Biblical Record about the childhood of he who was born King of the Jews. In fact the cynical could reasonably claim that the mixed details available in the Synaptic Gospels were manufactured to fit Old Testament prophesy. It would appear that this child did not become self-aware and people start standing up and taking notice until after he began his itinerant preaching around Judea. We are told a great deal about his lineage, angel visitations, and the means of his birth. We hear much about his birth in Bethlehem, Angel Choirs, Shepherds and Wise Men and the events which place his birth around 4 BCE. He is named in the Temple at eight days. There is a flight into Egypt around the time he was two. And then nothing until his Visit to the Temple at age 12 and the trouble he caused his parents by staying behind.

The record is then a blank for the next 18 years until he joins his parents for the wedding to which his family were all invited at Cana. Before or after that he visits his cousin John the Baptizer in the River Jordan and wonders into the Wilderness to disappear again for a period of time. When he reappears for his 3-year peripatetic ministry of teaching, preaching and healing the sick at age 30 he is an old man at a time when life expectancies weren’t much higher than that. The teachings of a younger man would probably not have been given much credence.

In the Gospels details of time and place are often added in an attempt to give verisimilitude to the story. No attempt is made to fill in the blanks in his life story and it must be remembered that the first Gospel was probably written 3 centuries after his death. The present book is an attempt to fill those gaps by means of the anthropological record, other writings from that time period, and gospels that failed to make it into the canon. Since there are no written documents and the Bible in any case is a record of faith not history this needs-must be a work of fiction.

Items of interest:

This is not a childhood biography so aside from a few embellishments little is added to the list of known details I summarized in my opening paragraphs.

Jesus was a southpaw?

We are given a brief summary of Jewish History much as Jesus would have had it related which includes:
A revisionist version of the 10 plagues of Egypt
That Judea was emptied during the Babylonian Captivity rather than the more accepted assertion that it was her leaders and elite that were carried off into bondage, not the entire community.

We learn of Jesus’ moral upbringing and have cause to reflect that this was a very special couple chosen to raise God’s Son.

We learn of the scholarly influences he may have encountered and the philosophical and cultural systems in place during his growing years. Aramaic, Greek and Roman Latin.

The author takes it as a given that Jesus interacted with the Essene Community at Qumran along with his cousin John (the Baptist) taking particular delight in their library. It is also assumed that Jesus and his cousin John had a life-long friendship. John’s father Zechariah was of the priestly class and the knowledge he passed on to his son must have challenged the younger cousin though no mention is made of an interaction between Zechariah and Jesus.

The one issue the author does not confront is that of marriage. It would have been considered a given at the time that any good rabbi would have a wife.

This is not light reading. In a few short pages the author has summarized theological arguments and concepts that have occupied the best minds inside and outside Christendom for a millennium and filled entire libraries with their discourse.

Through Black Spruce

Joseph Boyden seems incapable of telling a narrative story from start to finish; rather he jumps around from the present to various points in the past moving his point of view from person to person. Makes for challenging reading. If you’re up for the challenge he tells a cracking good story. After working on this book for half a decade it finally clicked last night. Set in Moosonee and various points south it is filled with the usual references to alcohol abuse, residential schools, and living off the land. If you hadn’t guessed his subjects are Anishinabe and no attempt is made to varnish the hardships, pride, and challenges of their lives. The profanity somehow doesn’t seem jarring in this context but be ware that it is there.

Unspoke Abandonment

I’m considering another book, this time about WW#2 entitled The Deserters. Soldiers deserted because of fear and battle fatitue, to engage in ciminal black market activities, and out of disgust for the moral depravity of war.

And then there are the many who stick it out and collapse mentally and physically after their return due to post traumatic stress, Gulf War Syndrome, Battle Fatigue, or any of the many other names given the inability to cope after exposure to the battle environment. Some become Adrenalin Junkies and sign up to go back rather than attempt to cope with their new civilian lifestyle. Some repress their feelings so deeply they come to feel like actors in their own lives. And some become violent and take it out on others. Those affected are not only the vets but also their wives, families and children for in a sense they too go to war.

Bryan A. Wood, there is also an Australian Rules footballer and a graphic artist by that name, looks in his press photo as if he belongs in Junior High School. As we meet him he is working in Florida as a police officer. He then takes us via his journal to his experience in Afghanistan. The notes reveal a caring empathetic human being caught in an inhuman situation. He reaches that point where every day seems repititious and nothing that he would want to remember happens so he stops writing. All he wants is to get out of it all alive and return home. An injury sends him home and horror of horrors the rehabilitation centre is worse than the war. But he makes friends and gets some help.

Home is so frighteningly normal and the same as he left it but inside he has irrevocably changed. Everyone wants to hear about an experience the vet is desperately trying to put behind him. There are the usual nightmares and panic attacks, a wife who feels distant and explosive feelings bottled inside a man too strong to admit he is hurting and needs help and unable to find it. He tries to build a wall around the hurt and pain and anger and in so doing blocks out those around him but in attempting to run cannot escape from what is bottled up inside.

The author describes how writing about it worked for him and admits this book came out of that process. He manages to take the reader along for the ride. We get to feel the catharsis along with him.

This book has been unavailable for purchase in any format for a while now. Hopefully that means someone is giving it a thorough edit as the version I downloaded last April has a homonym error, missing word, awkward sentence structure, bad grammar, or spelling error on almost every page.

Rolling Thunder

It seems de rigueur for the writers of Vietnam Era literature to pepper their stories with technical jargon and acronyms. Chapter headings here read like military communiques. Having just read a Hamfist novel the contrast is striking. Whereas one is essentially an action adventure piece this book spices things up with the occasional bit of flight ops just to keep it interesting but is primarily concerned with ground-based operations, the men who make it happen, and the politics of war. The airforce jockeys want to believe they are fighting a winnable war, that their sacrifices and the deaths of their comrades count for something. The brass know that they are maintaining a holding pattern and that civilian political interference is making it impossible to pursue a winning strategy. They lack the cart blanche given a General Schwartzkoff years later to execute a ‘shock and awe campaign’. In other words the assertion is that America lost the war in Vietnam. There is no better summation of this than the following quote:

"Sir, respectfully, I must point out that as a target officer you are unschooled in basic Douhet principles; principles which clearly stipulate that piecemeal application of airpower is imprudent. Coupling that lack with the use of airpower which lacks mass, surprise, and consistency and you have a situation that wastes lives and money. This, in turn, fosters further contempt for this non-war in the opinion of the American people, and those of the rest of the world, while accomplishing exactly nothing."

Whether or not a Pentagon Official ever said this to his Commander-in-Chief the words pretty much sum up the “War in Vietnam”. After 37 years working for a Canadian Bureaucracy I have a saying of my own, “Why should reality interfere with policy.” It was similar control of the Grand Banks Fishery by politicians at 1500 miles remove that led to its collapse and a Newfoundland moratorium on fisheries.

Whether or not I believe America should have ever entered into a conflict in Indo-China by tying the hands of those in the field who knew better the politicians in Washington guaranteed that the effort would fail and thousands of lives were lost and forever maimed and damaged. Even more discouraging is the fact that we’re doing it all over again in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

As the book ends four returning vets are met by protesters shouting “Murders” who throw red dye at them. It is at this point that I learn there are four more books in the series. Don’t believe I’m ready for 1800 more pages of Vietnam though I believe the writer may have felt the need ot get it out of his system. The electronic copy of this book needs considerable editing to remove typos, missed words, and spelling errors.

The Cloud Seeders

Thomas and his little brother Dustin inhabit a dystopian Orwellian World in which malevolent forces control the weather and water is as scare as it was in Frank Herbert’s Dune. Water cops enforce water conservation and issue fines or worse. Their parents, a scientist and a poet, the secret of whose death Thomas keeps from his brother, left behind the means of climate manipulation and a book of their mother’s poetry one of which prefaces each chapter.

The writing style feels awkward and it takes considerable time to warm to the characters and get involved in the story. As a book for young readers it contains too much profanity and sexual innuendo. The book’s strengths lie in the unfolding relationship between the brothers and to a lesser degree that between Thomas and his enigmatic girlfriend Jerusha as they embark on a treacherous road trip.

Sagebrush

Disingenuous of Amazon to simultaneously have for sale a paid and free edition of the same book especially when you have to scroll down to find the free edition. Since 12-year-old Michael is orphaned and isolated from other human contact for 6 years in hostile Indian Territory during pre-settlement times the story needs-must be told from his point of view at least in the opening chapters. But as others have complained the writing style is highly clinical much as one would expect if one were reading about a modern-day atrocity in the New York Times or Wall Street Journal. The author reports that a 12-year-old boy witnessed the murder of both his parents and their wagon train party, felt 18-year-old lust when he meets his first pretty Indian Girl, and precedes with the revenge killing of the four braves who butchered his parents with little or no emotional involvement in the experience. This detachment from his own life leaves the reader feeling detached as well.

It is difficult to believe that anyone, especially a 12-year-old, could survive 6 years of solitary confinement without irreparable emotional harm. The only literary equivalent would be Ayla in Clan of the Cave Bears. As the book progresses it becomes more a typical Western Oater with certain striking similarities to Carmac McCarthy’s Border Trilogy. The story has an all too typical happily ever after Hollywood ending.

Hamfist Over the Trail

Read this book as light reading after the Mandela autobiography. This is the first in a trilogy periodically offered for free to get one hooked. An airforce procedural it will introduce you to more acronyms than you can keep track of. The ‘Trail’ in question is the Ho Chi Minh Trail between North Viet Nam and the South. Half-way through the book Hamilton Hancock call sign Hamfist is still in training but already charged with disposing of his former room mate’s personal effects. The military presents the usual examples of hurry up and wait, intelligence, superstitions, and foul ups however this is Viet Nam and the bullets and artillery are real and people do die and get injured or worse captured by the enemy. Told matter of factly in the first person the story is fiction.

Just finished book one in a single day. This isn’t a three volume story, it’s a single story split in three part one ending a crisis point in the story to suck the reader into buying volume 2.

Long Walk to Freedom

Went looking for this after encountering the CBC's synthesis of the 50 hours of tapes recorded by Nelson Mandela before writing the book broadcast on Ideas. As in public life so in his own private biography Madiba is self-effacing, candid about his own short-comings, loyal to his supporters over the years. As the story continues we meet many of the people who would be active in the African National Congress in the future and his partners seeking freedom for Africans in South Africa.

At 658 pages in paper binding this is no light read but Mandela's writing style is engaging and serves to carry one along. We see his growth from a rural tribal background to life in a tribal chief's home. His friendship with his adopted brother, their mutual escape from their home to Johannesburg where Mandela begins his struggle to become a lawyer, copes with being an African among whites, and becomes politically aware. Any great man makes it to the top on the backs of others; it is good to see this man remember and acknowledge those who helped him reach that pinnacle.

By page 150 or part 3 we have reached Mandela’s political awakening and the beginnings of his involvement with the African National Congress, the ANC. Mandela expresses his own reluctance to get actively involved in politics and the advice of his legal mentors to stay out of it. His writing style somehow reflects that reluctance as at this point the book becomes clinical and less engaging.

Things pick up as we enter the middle section of the book. His political internship over he swings into gear as an orgnaizer and speaker. The screws of apartheid are tightened on Black South Africans and on those who would oppose it. It would seem the authorities were smart enough to realize that actually killing leaders would create martyrs so they ‘ban’ them restricting their ability to travel and attend meetings. Over 150 ANC members are rounded up and their trial for treason takes years to unfold. Mandela’s first marriage breaks down and he meets Winnie. Interestingly a man who promoted non-violent resistance practiced boxing as a means of blowing off steam and keeping fit.

The print version of this book obviously has dense text, after reading for hours one makes little headway percentage-wise in e-Book format, I note it is printed in two volumes in PB. Mandela goes on the lam to promote the militant wing of the ANC. Even before prison he suffered long periods of separation from his family. It is when he goes abroad in Africa that he learns that it is not enough to have good intentions, the perception of others is equally important. The competing PAC, Pan African Congress, are winning the publicity war because South Africa's Black neighbours are suspicious of the ANC's association with Whites, Coloureds, Indians, and the Communist Party. On the other hand a freedom fighter takes aid from whatever port he can obtain it and some of his neighbours are despots, they just happen to be Black despots. It is interesting to see how he describes these people.

Mandela is finally caught and imprisoned for 27 years or 10,000 days as the song goes. On Robben Island in solitary confinement, under hard labour, and in the company of fellow political prisoners he suffers isolation from the outside world and limited visits with family. Finally he is brought back to the mainland where a damp prison cell leads to tuberculosis. Finally he is released to less confined locations and allowed contact with his family and supporters and begins his negotiations with the White Apartheid Government of South Africa. However calculated or humane this process was when he is finally released the press of his cheering supporters scares even his military prison driver.

With the start of negotiations traditional tribal rivalries come back into play and in particular the Zulu Inkatha Freedom Party it is suspected supported by White Minority Police stage attacks on ANC townships. Mandela finally acknowledges the breakdown of his marriage to Winnie. While struggling to reach a consensus within his own party Mandela faces the divide and conquer tactics of the DeKlerk Government. Oliver Tambo dies of stroke and Chris Hani is murdered.

After all that reading the story seems to come to a rather rapid ending with Mandela’s election as president. After some reminiscence the book ends without covering his period as president. I had been hoping to discover if there was any veracity to the storyline followed in Clint Eastwood’s Invictus.

Historic Saint John Streets

My first surprise was the fact that the authors supplied no maps to locate the streets they were talking about. The book is useless for anyone intent on taking a walking tour because the entries are in alphabetical order meaning that there is no logical order for locating the streets on the ground by neighbourhood. Unless you already have a fairly good working knowledge of the city the book leaves you lost.

The Devil's Star

The Devil's Star

by

Jo Nesbø

A Norwegian Author of a series of Harry Hole books set in Oslo and translated into English.

I can claim no knowledge of real life but fictional detectives seem to tend toward alcoholic, divorced, eccentric loners who do not play well with others and have odd tastes in popular music. Think Ian Rankin's John Rebus. The reason their superiors put up with them is the results they get. Can't comment on the quality of the translation but will note that the author makes frequent jumps to totally new venues and unknown characters leaving the reader hanging and wondering, did I somehow jump into a different text? The reader of hard-copy book would just turn it

over and glance at the cover, not so easy in e-Book format. 

The book picks up after one gets accustomed to Nesbø's writing style and acclimatized to the setting and the characters. At 530 pages it takes a while to get engrossed in the storyline. As murder mysteries go this has the usual plot twists and red herrings. If Mysteries are your schtick you'll probably want to read more in the series and subsequent books should make the reader feel more at home.

A Death on the Wolf

Since I've been reading two much longer and heavier books decided to try something lighter. Was not expecting to encounter another story involving young men coming of age with issues of homosexuality. Nearly 16-year-old Nelson is coming to terms with the fact that his best friend loves him, in the Biblical sense that Jonathan loved David. Nelson, on the other hand, is coping with his first infatuation with the blind girl spending the summer with his Aunt next door. In the Mississippi of 1969 where the word 'nigger' was still thrown around with impunity and hippie was a term of derision Nelson fears for his friend's safety. Nelson is blessed with enlightened parental guardians in a part of the world where this was unusual at the time.

The book captures the daily drudgery of the routine on a working farm without itself seeming boring. Owning your own wheels as a means of getting out and being independent is a priority. You depend on your neighbours in a rural setting of necessity, whether you like them or not. And then there's the issue of being responsible for a younger sibling. Given the details the writer goes into about appearance and clothing I had to check to determine that GM Frazier was a male, not a woman. By coincidence I find myself reading this novel at the same time that I'm watching Michael Burk's The Mudge Boy which in a similarly rural setting reverses the roles. Frazier handles his material in a much less awkward fashion, but then Duncan Mudge's father is anything but understanding.

The historical events worked into the storyline help ground it. If everyone had a dad like Nelson's the world would be a far better place.Throwing in Free Masonry and the Presbyterian Church helps broaden the background. The forty-year later epilogue was a nice touch.

James Herriot: The lfe of A Country Vet

This book by Graham Lord rates 5 stars, all negative, or five road apples--horse turds for the uninitiated. I began this book with anticipation and was sorely disappointed; the book is still-born from the beginning. This was obviously not an authorized biography and the writer would seem to have been no friend of his subject. Although reference is made often to the journals Alf Wight kept from his earliest days it rapidly becomes apparent that the writer had no access to these diaries and other papers. Lacking this access the author consults the public record and Alf's contemporaries pestering them it would seem with repeated interviews. All this would be fine if the research had been synthesized into a readable biography of the subject. Unfortunately what we get is a history reporting the writer's research which comes off as turgid, stodgy, boring reading. The writer begins by poking fun at the inaccuracies promulgated in previous attempts and then proceeds to commit his own. You will note that I've studiously avoided using the word authour in describing this book. If this be an example of the quality of the man's writing style one is left to wander why any publisher wasted the paper on his 18 other books. After plowing through

over a hundred pages of this book I decided that life was too short to waste on such mush.

The Far Horizon

Being the second book in the MacQuarie Series. It bears mentioning that the books are written by a women because in finding his second wife our hero manages to be dumb to the fact that the woman he eventually stumbles over has placed herself under foot since he was 25 and she 13. When he comes back to England a widower he finds Elizabeth working in his Mother's Home and then later squires her around London without managing to take a tumble. In fact it isn't until she threatens to off to China as a missionary that he finally comes to his senses. All this by way of saying that even the greatest of men can miss matters of importance right in front of their noses.

As Military Governor of New Holland Lachlan MacQuarry had dictatorial powers and an army to back it up; communication with England took at least 16 months. The free-men who settled Botany Bay were given free land grants and the free labor of those transported at regular intervals backed up by the lash. The convicts arrived on a one-way ticket with a minimum sentence of seven years after which they had no means of return. Men who gained their freedom could attempt to find work but with boatloads of up to 500 free-labor arriving regularly their labor was not worth much. Girls so transported had little recourse but to enter the prostitution trade as a means of staying alive and with a military garrison at hand madams had no lack of clients. In attempting to break this tyranny the new governor invoked the wrath and opposition of the 'exclusives' who until his arrival had had things pretty much their way.

After several miss-carriages and the death of her first-born Elizabeth gives birth to a son with the aid of a transported doctor. George Jarvis who follows Lachlan to Australia, so-named by the governor himself, continues ably in his unofficial capacity as aide-de-camp. As Lachlan points out he is more useful to him in that capacity than if he joined the army. A strikingly handsome Indian Moslem walking the halls of Government house served to raise more than a few eyebrows and attract the attention of serving girls but lightning finally strikes in a love-at-first-sight scenario.

Above are the bald facts that inform this historical novel but the execution is done in such a way that the reader is given an insider's view of the events and the characters who inhabit government house with all their foibles and with a sense of humour that engages from start to finish. I sat down and read 3/4 of the book in one sitting. Lachlan is pragmatic, just, and caring, brooks no interference, and refuses to entertain fools. He gets things done. With George at one side and his military attache at the other, and a troop of guards at his back he rides out, assesses the situation, seeks advice, and sees things righted. That he uses transported ex-prisoners and even eats with them scandalizes the puffed up elite. He sounds almost a Christ-like figure and to many he probably was.

By Eastern Windows

A 15-year-old Scottish tenant farmer form the Isle of Mull leaves his mentally deficient older brother and widowed mother to join the British Army to support his family. From that humble beginning he would go on to serve with distinction in the West Indies, India, ending up as the governor of New South Wales and father of Australia. Along the way he meets his first wife Jane who dies in South-East Asia; acquires an Indian major-domo Bapoo; his wife's maid Marianne; and a slave boy whom he steals at gunpoint in a slave market where he is being whipped. The boy was adored on sight by Lachlan's wife and given the name George and his wife's maiden name Jarvis. Stationed back in England he brings the boy with him and sends him off to private school. Confronted with his choices for the future an ethnic if not practicing Indian Moslem pulls a copy of the Christian Bible foisted upon him at school and quotes the book of Ruth:

"Entreat me not to leave you, Or to turn back from following after you; For wherever you go, I will go; And wherever you lodge, I will lodge; Your people shall be my people, And your God, my God. 17 Where you die, I will die, And there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more also, If anything but death parts you and me."

in answer to a suggestion he return to India to avoid discrimination.

In the hands of a skilled writer such as this dry historical facts come to life and the characters jump off the page, or tablet as in my case. Book one of this trilogy by Gretta Curran Browne was offered free--I read it in one day; book two--The Far Horizon I bought and began reading last night; book three--Jarvisfield is yet to be published.

Dark Seraphine

Being the first in a trilogy by KaSonndra Leigh.

Seventeen-year-old Callum is a hunky, sexy looking jock with a distant father and a distracted mother. What's the point of academic success or sports prowess if the people you love most can't be bothered to notice or be supportive. Although he can seemingly have any girl he wants and has the long-term companionship of his best friend Kyle, there's an emptiness in his life. So far he sounds very much like your typical teen until you learn that he can see 'Walkers', creatures that only he can see. Turns out these creatures from a parallel universe are divided into two warring camps.

Told from Callum's point of view the storyline is as feckless as person who relates it, at times getting bogged down in teenage angst and lengthy petting scenes. The action only truly picks up in the last few chapters. Better than your average young adult novel the para-normal aspects are handled in a manner that makes them almost believable. You decide whether you want to read volumes 2 & 3.

High,Wide and Lonesome

Had I internet access right now I'd check to see if this was made into a movie. Because I went on the road reading this book took nearly 3 weeks.

Told from the point of view of a nine-year-old who is taken out of school and carted across half a continent to homestead half a section in the Colorado High Country so that his parents could prove a claim and gain title to the land. Drama is provided by range wars betweencattlemen, sheep herders, and homesteaders and the latter's barbed wire fences. The dangers and threats provided by lack of rain, prairie fires, rattlesnakes, poisonous plants, blinding blizzards, illness, and broken bones. The challenges of drought, starvation, biting cold, marauding cattle, debt, privation, solitude....

The book is filled with the characters attracted to this pioneering spirit way of life. Told with a naiveté and sense of humour and discovery only a child could bring to such a situation. Privation and danger are approached not so much as challenges but with a sense of adventure and newness. The land is his teacher and his books the prairie dog town and the ant hills. And every boy deserves a dog as his companion.

The story ends when the family proves up their claim and moves to a town where the boy returns to school and father returns to his trade as the printer of a country newspaper. In those times a newspaperman manually set his own type and printed his own papers.

The Cowboy and the Cossack

Clair Huffaker's book was published in 1973 so it's been around for a while. After just a few chapters I'm ready to say that I believe it deserves a wider audience. I've met long-horn cattle, herding 500 requires a sense of humour, managing that many on ship-board....? Taking them to Russia.... When the harbourmaster in Vladavostok decides to stall their boat's docking privileges the cowboys decide to swim their herd ashore. Persuading cowboys and their rides to jump into that cold sea water is one thing, getting the herd to is quite another. Once ashore drying out and feeding the cattle grain laced with wodka quite another tale. Now factor in a squad of fanatical Cossacks sent to guard the cattle and their not so enthusiastic minders. Throw in a morning spent having a funeral for a horse. Add names unpronounceable on both sides, the cultural and language barriers and you probably get the picture. And this all happens in just the opening chapters, the plot thickens as the story goes on.

One final note. Since I've read an electronic edition I didn't have the opportunity to find and read the dust cover notes until I'd finished. In spite of the way he spells his name the writer is male, moreover, he was a script writer for the likes of John Wayne. Knowing that little detail serves to stir up a lot of Siberian Dust.

The Farthest Shore

Book three of the Earthsea Series. Since book two at least 20 years have passed and Ged is Arch Mage of Roke. No explanation is supplied as to what transpired in the intervening period. A young princeling named Arran comes to Roke to meet with the Arch Mage Ged reporting disturbing developments. In an unprecedented move a non-magical person is invited to meet with Roke's inner circle in secret conclave in the inner sanctum. Even more remarkably the school's head master leaves Roke in his boat Lookfar accompanied only by this youthful non-magical prince against his peer's advice seeking he knows not what, he knows not where. Only knowing that witches are forgetting their spells and magicians are losing their powers. The ancient tongue which holds the real names of things is being lost by those who once spoke it and a malaise is strickening the islands of Earthsea. In an island archipelago journeys by sea are a given but the odyssey these two go on takes them beyond the edge of the known world.

Tehanu

Book Four of Earthsea.

As volume 4 begins Ged is no longer part of the picture. We meet the priestess of Atuan now an old woman who foreswore the practice of magic to be a plain farmer's housewife and raise a family. She saves a gypsy child beaten and left to burn in a fire and the two live a solitary life on the now widowed housewife's farm. Called to minister to the Mage of Gont, Ged's former mentor, she eases his way to the great beyond. When a dragon glides in she discovers an unconscious Ged riding at his neck.

Having spent himself saving the world of Earthsea in Book 3 Ged is faced with continuing to live without the abilities that formerly defined him. The story continues losing none of its appeal as the young prince who 7accompanied Ged into the underworld is crowned King of Earthsea and sets out to restore order in his Kingdom.

The Tombs of Atuan

As this book begins there is no mention of our friend Ged, the wizard. The storyline tends to drag somewhat especially since everyone here is new to us. All the characters in this storyline are female save for the Male Eunuch Slaves that serve them. In the last third of the book Ged finally makes a clandestine appearance and with his departure with the child high priestess in tow the Temple of the Tombs implodes and sinks into oblivion.

Dust

Arthur Slade grew up in rural Saskatchewan and lives and writes in Saskatoon. His novel Dust is one part historical memoir of the Dust Bowl years of the depression and one part fantasy. An albino drives into town and a twelve-year-old's younger brother disappears without a trace on a walk into town with 10¢ in his pocket to buy candy. In short order it's as if the child had never existed as no mention is made of him and the brother is avoided as an uncomfortable reminder. In a household where the Bible and Pilgrims Progress are the only acceptable reading his uncle, his mother's roguish brother slips him Jules Verne Novels and Comic Books hidden under his mattress. No one but his Uncle will listen to a twelve-year-old or give his suspicions of a butterfly raising albino any credence.

The aspects of growing up in the dust bowl years are aptly written, buying the fantasy as a metaphor for sexual abuse is quite another. It does serve to keep the novel "G-rated".

A Wizard of Earthsea

The first in Ursula K. Le Guin's 5-book Earthsea Series made into a TV mini-series of the same name the books are more character driven with less emphasis on adventure, fantasy and magic. Set in an imaginary island archipelago somewhere in the Irish Sea a great deal of sailing goes on in both books and movies. The principle characters are the orphaned goatherd Ged, son of a blacksmith and Vetch, an over-weight wizard in training from a remote island village. Ged is outdone by his own curiosity, pride, and an excitable nature. His friend Vetch is more level-headed and calm though no less lacking in ability. Written long before Harry Potter appeared on the scene these books are no less  

deserving of our attention.

Any Other Night

Any Other Night
By
Anne Pfefffer

This young adult novel is set among 16-year-olds in Malibu a satellite community of Los Angeles noted for residents associated with the movie industry. The contrast in lifestyle with that I experienced growing up could not be more stark. These kids live in mansions with bedrooms bigger than most third-world homes that have ensuite bathrooms. They get sports cars for their sixteenth birthdays. But they also get nannies and housekeepers who raise them in the absence of their pre-occupied parents.

I grew up in a small cape cod style 2-storey with outhouse in rural Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia. We had hand-pumped running water but no telephone until I was 10. We didn't have a gym but we did get to shovel up to 5-ft of snow from our quarter-mile-long driveway in winter and split firewood in summer. If you wanted mail delivery you had to make sure the rural mail driver, a cousin, could get to your box. Travel for me was by bicycle on dirt roads and I regularly made the 1.2 mile trip, a mile of it uphill to visit my grandfather's home. One winter I got storm-stayed there by a blizzard and didn't make it home until my Father came to get me with the horse and sleigh. I bought my first car with my own money when I was thirty, a Datsun B-210.

The lifestyle these poor little rich kids take for granted involves parents who feel an equal sense of entitlement. Their offspring are showered with every possible indulgence but their parent’s time and affection. Raising their own kids is not allowed to interfere with their own pursuit of happiness. Given parents who are rarely home and often divorced and separated their offspring feel a sense of detachment and resentment. This lack of communication leaves both with hurt feelings and a sense of helplessness and ingratitude. Where did I go wrong, what didn’t I give them? Add private schools, peer pressure, teenage angst, growing up, and sex to the mix and you have the recipe for this book.

Told from the point of view of Ryan a rather self-aware 16-year-old with adoring younger identical twin sisters we see this world though his eyes. The central tragedy of his young life is the death of his best friend whose parents couldn’t be bothered to return from Cannes on the occasion of their son’s earlier nearly fatal drug overdose. When he has ‘that’ talk with his father the concern is not about the fact that he’s sexually active but that he’s playing safe. When the inevitable confrontation comes it is the child that raises the parents though to his credit the father makes time to listen. Once more the author doesn’t seem to know how to bring her book to a conclusion leaving us with a typical happily after impression of things to come.

The Hunger Games Trilogy

I've now completed reading the entire trilogy. Book one tells the story of Katniss and Peeta's experience in their initial Hunger Games. Book two has them returning for the 75th annual event. Book three chronicles the revolt of the 13 districts after discovery of the clandestine underground bunkered District 13 and their nuclear weapons. Katniss having been rescued from the arena in book three is exploited as the face and symbol of the rebellion as the Mockingjay. The author reserves a few more surprises for the reader but the ending regrettably seems to just peter out.

The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games

by

Suzanne Collins

Made into a movie starring Liam Hemsworth better known for his sometime association with Miley Cyrus. The other ‘man’ is Josh Hutcherson who has a much larger acting experience and the girl at the centre of it all is played by Jennifer Lawrence. Picked up a copy of the DVD but decided to read the book first so back to it. By the way the individual books are a better buy in E-Book Format than the trilogy as a whole.

To stick with movie terminology for a moment this is  a high-concept novel written for young adults. Bucking the trend toward paranormal romance involving werewolves, vampires, and other magical creatures the people here are real but the reality they inhabit is a distopian society of an imaginary future. Genre bending it plays like a Reality TV Show the action playing out in the present with constant flashbacks to the past. Whether this be intended as a parody in the manner of Orwell’s 1984 is unclear.

The gender neutral names given the teens leaves their sex in doubt for several chapters however it soon becomes apparent that basic survival is nore important than romance here. Despite the hype surrounding Liam Hemsworth his part in the movie is played down even more than the character Gale in the book. As Jennifer Lawrence says in an interview in the supplements disk movie scripts tend to ruin the book. The reality TV Show analogy is apt, the action being to a large degree scripted, in this case totally so.

The book and the movie are so intertwined I’ll do a single blog entry regarding both. Whereas a book tells  you how it happened, a movie shows you; therefore a scene that may take several pages to set up in text passes in seconds on screen. On the other hand before CGI things the imagination can do are damn near impossible sometimes on screen. Holllywood loves young romance so it could not resist playing up the relationship between Peeta and Katniss.

Whether or not Suzanne Collins is aware of it the short story The Lottery by Shirley Jackson published in the June 26, 1948 edition of The New Yorker bears a striking resemblence to this plot line, or should I put it the other way round. The other parallel is The Most Dangerous Game based on a short story by Richard Connell that dates back to 1924 proving that there isn’t very much new under the sun.

Prince William: The Man Who Will Be King

Prince William: The Man Who Will Be King
By
Penny Junor

There is a certain irony to the fact that in reading this book I make myself an accessory to those who would invade the privacy of a man who, barring calamity, I am unlikely to ever see crowned King as his father, first in line, is only one year my elder. I cannot forget the date of his parent's wedding as they did it on my birthday. When that marriage began to fail I distinctly remember the advice attributed to the ghost of Prince Charles progenitor Henry VIII, "Off with her 'ead". His Royal Highness' uneasy relationship with the press was dramatically illustrated in the recent movie, The Queen, which dramatizes the circumstances of his mother's death. Both Charles and Diana were complicit in the publicity war that preceded her death.

The Royal Family have a love-hate relationship with the press. William's grandfather once famously turned a garden hose on a photographer. The Royals seek publicity as a means of communicating with their subjects and welcome coverage of their many civic duties. The Queen's Christmas Message is broadcast to millions. At the same time the tabloid press' obsession with celebrity makes any photo captured by the paparazzi especially if it is compromising worth tens of thousands. As any sports figure will tell you it's unsafe to adjust an athletic support or scratch an itch anywhere that a cell-phone or camera can capture it and the event can be on you-Tube today before the act has attained the desired relief.

Modern technology places our heroes right in our living rooms and the advertising that accompanies sporting events makes possible 8 figure salaries. TV and internet coverage makes these celebrities feel like part of the family and fuel our curiosity about their private lives. Where does a movie star or rock musician's desire for publicity end and the invasion of privacy begin. What limits should be placed on Fleet Street's desire to know. Where does our ownership of the Royal Family as the embodiment of our Nation end and their right to a private life begin. Modern technology has blurred that line and made them accessible as never before.

As is highlighted in this book the present Queen has lived a closeted life and was raised in an age in which a hands off mentality existed. Little is known of her personal preferences and private desires. Her grandson lives a more public life and finds privacy much more difficult to attain. Part of the allure of sovereignty has always been the mystery that has traditionally surrounded it. The degree to which familiarity can breed contempt endangers that allure. In an age when a determined terrorist who is not afraid to die in attaining his goals is almost impossible to stop a sovereign's Personal Protection Officers face a daunting task. It is an age when even the Pope feels obliged to ride in a bullet-proof 'popemobile'.

All this said I am as guilty as any in soaking up the juicy tidbits. I recently read the 60-page spread in MacLean's detailing the life of Canadian Royalty--Justin Trudeau. I was amused to read that the future head of the Church of England had to ask Mummy, what denomination am I? One can understand the reticence both William and Harry have in accepting new friends always wondering if there are ulterior motives. As is related in this tome many of their indiscretions are stories fabricated by associates in need of extra pocket money. Even their own press secretaries are not above using spin to make 'The Firm' look good. The discussion of the relevance of the monarchy in these modern times is the provenance of another discourse.

Interestingly enough I note that this book had come down in price since I bought it at a supposedly bargain price but has since been bumped up to $11.99. Whether you'd want to read it depends on your interest in the Monarchy. It adds little to what has not already been available to a follower of the Royals in the public record. At times in detailing the minutia of his life the book drags dreadfully, becomes tedious.

He has been so absent from the scene I'd forgotten Spencer's Eulogy in which he promised that his family would be active in the princes lives, that absence proves his oration was simply an attempt to embarrass the Royal Family before hundreds of millions.

The Royal Family no longer rule as such and are now considered to be above politics but they have discovered that through Royal Patronage they can have a positive influence upon the charities of their choice. Endeavours they support can be bolstered simply by their lending their names as Royal Patron and fund raising boosted if they make a carefully planned appearance as little as once a year. A Friend has met Prince Phillip several times because of his mentoring of Outward Bound. Princes Harry and William and now William's wife Kate have taken Patronage several steps further by sponsoring forums in which the charities they support meet in round table to share ideas and even participate in joint ventures. Their next step was to form a Foundation whose purpose is to provide seed money to fund the start-up of charities in areas of concern to the princes: disadvantaged youth, veterans, and conservation.

Twould have been a kindness if the series of pictures at the end of the book had been adapted to full page views for the electronic version, as it is they become very small on a tablet. The index forms fully 20% of the book.

Flame of Resistance

Flame of Resistance
by
Tracy Groot

The book begins in the cockpit of a fighter plane as the pilot is being shot down over German occupied Vichy France in 1944. The pilot is rescued and recruited by the French Resistance. The story continues with members of the French Underground and the brothel where intelligence gathering is carried on. The background highlights the privations suffered under the German occupation and the things those who live under it have to do to survive.

If this sounds like dry material blame this writer. The author makes it all sound compelling and leads the reader along as the tension builds in the lead up to an expected Allied Invasion and the operatives stress levels increase with fear of detection and torture.

This book has movie script written all over it. Can’t say who would play the very tall handsome blue-eyed, very blonde American Airman of Dutch Ancestry but the part has movie star written all over it.

Muscular Verse

The Root of Lightning
by
Michael Spring

This is muscular verse written by a man who works with his hands and trains others in the martial arts. It is so much easier to see other’s inconsistencies and incongruities. A builder turns concept into the concrete, a fighter attacks from stealth and surprise, a poet bares his soul making himself vulnerable. The lines in this book reveal all three qualities at once. Michael makes you sense the satisfaction a boxer feels when he trains and lands those blows on the heavy bag, the oneness with his own body and strength. The love and pride a father feels in seeing his son grow. The power of nature when a storm strikes. The empathy of a caring soul who sees pain and would ease it. This is verse to be experienced, not dissected. It benefits from being read aloud. Enjoy it as I have.

I’d Like to Apologize to Every Teacher I Ever Had: My Year as a Rookie Teacher at Northeast High

by Tony Danza, yes, that Tony Danza

If the lad suffered from Attention Deficit Disorder maybe that explains that rambling title.

The school is a multi-level colossus that even boasts its own police station. Everyone entering the building passes through metal detectors. The teachers are required to sign in each day with an amazon who acts as the gorgan at the gate. I realize that I last entered a Nova Scotia High School in the 60ies but it’s sad to think that it’s come to this. Really haven’t thought about the possibility that such measures prevail at Halifax’s new High School. I know for a fact that such conditions do not apply to the high school I visited in St. John’s NFLD or to schools in Austin Texas and certainly not to schools in Oakville.

The book is enimently readable though the final afterwords do become somewhat pedantic and preachy.

AWOL on the Appalachian Trail

As one who spent his working life walking 10 miles a day 5 days a week I find it hard to credit the number of blisters, bunions, and other foot problems this hiker talks about having. Now I realize we’re talking about a 42-year-old computer programmer but even so I can’t believe the amount of trouble he describes having with blisters, bunions, and infection. A picture I saw the other day reminds me of the hazards of having narrow hips and legs that chaff between the thighs literally creating friction that wears holes in the pant legs. Not a personal problem. After 70,000 miles of walking a mail route I can count only a few blisters, on my toes, not my heels. Mind you I know well enough to never start walking 10-miles a day with brand new boots. No matter what shoe stores may claim there is no such thing as a shoe that doesn’t require breaking in. One would have thought someone about to embark on a 2000-mile-hike would have started with a set of well-broken in boots he felt comfortable wearing. I can’t believe that someone started out on such a trek without having sorted out his footwear before he started. Walking a treadmill in runners hardly equates with hiking in the woods.

I have had mild cases of shin splints when I got on a route with a great number of steps up to each house. Certain neighbourhoods are notorious for this. It doesn’t take long in bad weather before one stops attempting to climb icy steps. In one neighbourhood ignoramuses compound the problem by tying their dogs up on gated doorsteps. Approaching a strange dog in a confined space is always a hazard. If someone in a car asks for their mail with a dog inside one must always ask them to reach out the window toward you, never the opposite. Believe I got side-tracked there. When there are ice storms Canada Post has had so many fall related injuries that Workman’s Comp threatens to refuse coverage due to the employee recklessly endangering himself.

The one issue I do have and one that continues is the build up of callus on my heels and along the edges of my soles. My soul probably has calluses as well but that’s another matter. Where some people have sweaty feet mine are dry and the build up of dry callus leads to cracking and even bleeding. When I’m on the road I miss the opportunity to soak my feet and scruff off excess skin.

There is a chapter or so devoted to the issue of defecating along the trail. No mention is made of avoiding poison ivy. Hikers carry a plastic trowel and a roll of tissue for the purpose. At least male hikers have the advantage of voiding liquid in an upright position. The writer describes the proces in the rudest of terms. All water consumed must be pumped through a filter or treated with purification tablets.

The Bruce Trail is 500 miles and at some time or other I have hiked most of it. End-to-enders have recorded hiking the entire stretch but most do not set out to do it in one season or as a through hike. The idea of completing a 2000-mile hike from start to finish is rather daunting. When one is backpacking everything one needs every ounce counts. An entire industry surrounds the provision of high tech light weight sleeping bags, tents, cooking utensils, stoves, water bottles and clothing. Food is freeze-dried and reconstituted by adding boiling water. If this sounds expensive you have the right idea. Backpacks even come with built-in solar panels. One of the writer’s fellow travelers had a cat that sat atop his pack and fed on the mice that infested the shelters along the trail. Combine crowded shelters and people eating in a confined area and vermin are bound to follow. Litter is quite another issue.

It may seem counter-intuitive but walking downhill causes more stress to the lower extremities than climbing up, the steeper the incline the more this is so. I am waiting for a chapter on the costs attached to hiking this trail. His pack, tent, tarp, clothing, rain gear, boots, dried food, cooking gear, restaurant food, lodging, car rentals, pay phone bills. I would expect a modern hiker to have a GPS enabled smartphone these days.

In his afterword the author talks about the practicalities of the trip. Aside from lost wages the trip cost him approximately $5000 plus about $1000 worth of gear he purchased in preparation for the trip. His most telling regret is not taking more pictures and allowing for more serendipity. In the end the journey’s the thing, not getting there. ..http://theatguide.com/NewGear.html

Beyond Band of Brothers

Were Richard Winters around to take my advice I’d try to tell him to get himself a better ghost writer--Sebastian Junger, for example. This one makes a lot of grammatical mistakes the editor seems to have been little better at catching and writes like a newspaper reporter. In the second place this present memoir adds little to what has already been published in Ambrose’ Band of Brothers and David Kenyon’s even better Parachute Infantry upon which the former seems largely based. Ironic that Kenyon’s book was unpublishable until Tom Hanks and Company made the mini-series. The present tome was written 60 years too late in reaction to the previously noted publications.

Somehow I managed to miss the fact that the same production team did a similar project on the war in the Pacific. Must check that out.

One thing an 80-something vet does feel free to write about is the number of friendly-fire deaths that occurred even during WW#2. Modern weapons and targeting technology makes hand to hand combat less frequent. Snipers can shoot miles, artillery hundreds, cruise missiles frightening distances, bombs can be dropped from 5 miles up, lasers can target from space. When you consider that NASA mis-programmed to miss Mars by 500,000 miles with a 10-billion dollar rocket the fact that unplanned targets get hit is not surprising.

If Winters wrote this memoir to ‘set the record straight’ then the one thing he does do is show how the writing of a good movie script serves to conflate characters, alter the order of events, and make selective use of the facts. A book tells you what happened, a movie shows you what happened. In the end, of course, as Winters points out the facts of the matter are those seen by the writer from his vantage point and each individual will have a different version of any one engagement.