October, 2021: Readings "I wish that every day was Saturday and every month was October.” Charmaine Ford

Gotta do better this month reading-wise, no matter how much I'm writing.

Starting October with one of my favorite authors, Jim Shepard. His latest novel is pandemic-related but he conceived it before there was such a thing as COVID (which, epidemiologists were warning, was practically inevitable).

PHASE SIX took a chapter or two to hit its stride, but now it's zipping along just fine.

Finished Kim Gordon's memoir of her years with Sonic Youth, GIRL IN A BAND.

Candid, revealing, confessional and not a bit exploitative.

What else would you expect from one of rock 'n roll's ultra-cool people?

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian – Sherman Alexie
Audiobook narrated by the author. Illustrations by Ellen Forney.
5*****

This young adult novel tells the story of Junior Spirit, a Spokane Indian living on the reservation with his parents and older sister. Junior was born with hydrocephalus and has some lingering effects of brain damage, but he’s a good student, a talented artist and a pretty good basketball player. A mishap at school leads his teacher to tell Junior that he needs to get off the reservation and find his future elsewhere, and thus begins his journey.

I loved this book. I could not help but think of all the kids out there like Junior – kids with limited abilities in one aspect, but extraordinary abilities in other aspects. Kids who just need someone to believe in them, and for an adult to step in to stop the bullying and give them a chance to grow and excel.

Things do not go smoothly for Junior just because he decides – and is supported by his parents in this decision – to attend the white high school off the reservation. He loses his best friend as a result. He’s bullied and ostracized at his new school. He is under tremendous social pressure due to his poverty and his efforts to hide that poverty from his classmates. His family remains dysfunctional, with parents who drink to excess, and multiple deaths among those he loves. But he never gives up. He is determined to succeed and to make the most of the opportunity he has.

The audiobook is narrated by Alexie and I cannot imagine anyone else doing a better job. Outstanding!

NOTE: The text version I got was the 10th anniversary edition and had supplemental information, including an interview with the author, an early draft of the first chapter, a draft of a possible sequel focusing on Rowdy, an interview with the illustrator, and a heart-breaking eulogy to Alexie’s childhood friend (and the model for Rowdy). Greatly enjoyed this additional info (which was not included on the audio) and it made me appreciate the book even more.

Additionally, I am fully aware of the allegations made against the author. While I abhor the behavior, I am judging the book on its own merit.

The days are getting very much shorter here and I seem to have been treading water for the last few weeks. All I've been watching on TV is episodes of Bones and Castle, neither of which I think are good. Oh, and Foundation too. My reading also seems to have slowed down...

Finished The Pursuit of Love and liked it, although it did nothing to change my opinion the upper classes should be taken out and shot. The TV adaptation was good, although I wasn't sure about the use of contemporary songs in the soundtrack.

Then polished off a collection of short stories by Eric Brown, a friend of many years - The Ice Garden & Other Stories. Not his best work, and even now I'm having trouble remembering the individual stories.

Another Chris Beckett novel, Tomorrow. He seems to be banging them out with enviable regularity at the moment. This one is set in some invented South American country and feels like a very English attempt at Latin American magical realism (but is really science fiction), but I'm not entirely sure what to make of it. I remember reading in an interview somewhere how Michael Åkerfeldt of Opeth wrote songs - he would come up with riffs and guitar licks over a period, and then eventually structure them into a track. This novel feels like Beckett followed a similar process - lots of clever little set-pieces, but it didn't feel like they built up to anything in particular.

Next up was Civilisations by Laurent Binet, whose previous books - they're not really novels, but neither are they entirely fictional - I thought were excellent. This one is an extended alternate history, structured as short chapters describing historical events, beginning with the Viking discovery of the North American continent, through Columbus's death at the hands of the Incans, and leading up to an Incan-Aztec war in 16th century Europe. Recommended.

Simon the Coldheart is one of Georgette Heyer's few non-Regency historical novels. It's set in the early 1400s, and is the rags-to-riches story of the title character, the unrecognised bastard son of a minor baron who ends up Marshal of Normandy for King Henry V. All written in a cod Shakespearean that was hard to take seriously, and which took an abrupt swerve into the worst kind of romance (all male mastery and female submission) in the final few chapters. Interesting historical detail, but a forgettable work Heyer refused to have republished during her lifetime.

Now reading Robot Artists & Black Swans, Bruce Sterling's latest collection.

Just finished The Count of Monte Cristo. Very impressive edifice. Not sure about the values it embodies but it clearly is an accomplishment. Endlessly inventive and intricately constructed. It was a long telenovela, flat characters and all, but with a dense well crafted plot that never lost momentum. Many situations were implausible and the eyerolls were endless but the novel was mostly entertaining. Paris and the period were incredibly vivid. The book felt like a document of its time.

Can't say I liked the main character or his questionable values, (to be honest he became kind of a jerk), so I read the book emotionally detached. I was more impressed by the inventiveness, and with the world that was recreated. Interesting experience.

>4 iansales: I've been keeping my eye out for the Binet book. I loved his take on the life and assassination of Heydrich, HHhH. He was interviewed on our national radio arts program "Writers & Company" a few weeks ago. Here's the link:

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/writersandcompany/laurent-binet-turns-the-tables-on-eur...

Wrapped up David Mamet's THE CABIN, a memoir in the form of personal essays and reflections.

A good mix of material covering every period of his life, offered without the silly adornments of sentiment and nostalgia.

Recommended.

Out Of Africa – Isak Dinesen / Karen Blixen
5*****

I had a farm in Africa. One of the best opening lines.

What glorious writing. I first read this in 1998 and re-read it for my book club in 2013. I revisited it again in 2017 and now, here I am again. If you're expecting the movie, you'll be greatly disappointed - Denys Finch-Hatton is barely mentioned. No, the great love of her life was Africa itself.

While I still love Dineson’s writing and love the way she puts me right into early 20th century Africa, I am more attuned to social justice these days, and have to cringe a bit at some of the references to the indigenous tribes. The colonialists had such a superior attitude. But this a product of the era and of the social status of the writer, and we must give her her due. She worked long and hard to try to succeed in this doomed effort to grow coffee at too high an altitude, and with a husband who basically abandoned her as soon as she arrived.

Here are a couple of passages:
Night on the farm: It rained a little, but there was a moon; from time to time she put out her dim white face high up in the sky, behind layers and layers of thin clouds, and was then dimly mirrored in the white-flowering coffee-field.

The view from a plane: You have tremendous views as you get up above the African highlands, surprising combinations and changes of light and colouring, the rainbow on the green sunlit land, the gigantic upright clouds and big wild black storms, all swing round you in a race and a dance. … You may at other times fly low enough to see the animals on the plains and to feel towards them as God did when he had just created them, and before he commissioned Adam to give them names.

The view from the perfect spot: “To the South, far away, below the changing clouds lay the broken, dark blue foothills of Kilimanjaro. As we turned to the North the light increased, pale rays for a moment slanted in the sky and a streak of shining silver drew up the shoulder of Mount Kenya. Suddenly, much closer, to the East below us, was a little red spot in the grey and green, the only red there was, the tiled roof of my house on its cleared place in the forest. We did not have to go any further, we were in the right place.”

For this, my fourth re-read of this work, I choose to listen to the audible audio, performed by the marvelously talented Julie Harris. Unfortunately, this is an abridged version of Dinesen’s memoir. While I really enjoyed Harris’s performance, it’s worth the time to read the entire book.

>7 CliffBurns: The 7th Function of Language is also very good. The move adaptation of HHhH is entirely missable.

Finished THE OTTOMAN ENDGAME: WAR REVOLUTION AND THE MAKING OF THE MODERN MIDDLE EAST 1908-1923.

Comprehensive book covering a region and time thats history has always been a bit murky to me. The author does an excellent job of sifting through the records and archives and presenting readers with a fresh perspective on a crucial era.

Recommended.

THE WILD BUNCH: SAM PECKINPAH, A REVOLUTION IN HOLLYWOOD AND THE MAKING OF A LEGENDARY FILM by W.K. Stratton.

A reread because I intend to watch "The Wild Bunch" again soon.

One of the finest "Making of..." books cinema has inspired.

Recommended.

My Invented Country– Isabel Allende
Audiobook narrated by Blair Brown
3.5***

In this memoir, Allende looks at her own family history as well as the history of her native country, Chile. She explores the social conventions, politics, natural terrain, geographical difficulties and advantages of this unique land. It’s a story full of mythology – from national legends, to her own family’s stories. Here are the roots of her ability to seamlessly weave elements of magical realism into her novels. Her own family history is rife with examples: a grandmother who could move furniture with her thoughts, ghosts and hauntings, and larger-than-life ancestors.

Blair Brown does a fine job of narrating this memoir. I’ve listened to her narrate a couple of Allende’s books and this is a good partnership.

Finished Steve Martin's memoir, BORN STANDING UP.

Funny, as you'd imagine, but also poignant and insightful. He's a good writer (has also penned plays, etc.) and the book zips along.

Recommended.

>13 CliffBurns: I've always thought that Steve Martin was probably a lot better actor than some of the material he was given to work with gave him credit for. (I am a particular fan of ROXANNE.) After all, there had to be some explanation of the disaster that was his attempt to fill the shoes of Phil Silvers as Bilko...

...or Peter Sellers as Clouseau.

But he was brilliant in "L.A. Story" and I'm told his new Amazon show is pretty good.

Finished Exhalation by Ted Chiang. The strength of the stories are the premises and their implications. Not the book to read if you are looking for strong plots and dramatic development. Many of the ideas are very powerful, and unsettling, in great part because of their currency or their plausibility. Not all of them kept my attention.

The first two stories are unquestionable masterpieces.

Another great cinema book, Mark Harris' PICTURES AT A REVOLUTION: FIVE MOVIES AND THE BIRTH OF THE NEW HOLLYWOOD.

It's 1967 and five very different movies are being made: "Bonnie & Clyde", "The Graduate", "In the Heat of the Night", "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" and "Dr. Doolittle".

The old Hollywood lions (the Warners, Cohns, Mayers, etc.) are gone, the film world (and audiences) irrevocably changing, demanding a new type of movie experience.

In depth and fascinating.

Currently reading Mrs Palfrey at the Claremont, which is good, but it does bring home how shit a place the UK was in the 1970s. I actually remember the decade and some of the details in the book very much match my memories.

Say You’re One of Them – Uwem Akpan
Digital audiobook (abridged) performed by Robin Miles & Dion Graham
4****

This is a collection of short stories, dealing with various social issues facing African people throughout numerous countries on the continent. One story may deal with the Rwandan genocide (My Parents’ Bedroom), while another explores the competing goals of a family at Christmas (An Ex-Mas Feast), and yet another shows how a desperate uncle raising children orphaned by AIDS is coerced into an agreement he cannot keep (Fattening for Gabon). Two stories deal with the differences between Muslims and Christians (Luxurious Hearses focuses on a Muslim youth living with his mother in Nigeria’s north who is hoping to reunite with his Christian father in the south, while two six-year-old Best Friends in Ethiopia try to understand why their parents now tell them they must not play with one another (What Language Is That?).

All are beautifully written even when heart-wrenchingly difficult to read. Uwem focuses an unblinking eye on serious issues and while the reader is fortunate to not have to face such dilemmas, the reactions of the characters are totally understandable and relatable. The local English dialect used in some of the stories was sometimes difficult to get used to, but really gave a sense of place to the narrative.

The audiobook is abridged, with narrators reading only three of the stories. Still, Robin Miles and Dion Graham do a wonderful job of performing the text. And it is sometimes easier to understand the local dialect by hearing it than reading it on the page.

Read an absolutely STUNNING short story collection, Craig Davidson's CASCADE.

Stories set in fictional "Cascade City", a dying community just across the border from the notorious Love Canal. The cast includes a variety of broken people and folks (also deeply flawed) trying to help them.

Suspenseful, affecting, one of the best collections I've read in awhile.