Book Report 3/20/14

Completed Reading (nonfiction): Detroit: An American Autopsy by Charlie LeDuff

Much like a book about the fall of Carthage (see Book Report 1/16/14), one about the decline of Detroit is not going to have much of a surprise ending. LeDuff continues to explore the deterioration of the city through a very personal lens, the impact of that decay on the lives of his family and people he has gotten to know in the city. I guess the title of the book is indicative of the story he wants to tell, but it might have been nice to balance the stories about promising young men gunned down in their prime with at least one example of personal achievement. LeDuff explores the history of his own family, how they came to Detroit and found success by hiding their racial identity. He explores the history of the city, and its own deep racial problems. (Fun Fact: In the 1920’s a KKK backed candidate won enough votes to be elected mayor of Detroit, but since it was a write-in campaign, 17,000 ballots were invalidated due to misspellings of the candidate’s name. Which proves that racists have always been morons.) There is a note of hope throughout LeDuff’s narrative, even as he tells one horrible story after another. It seems somewhere deep inside he still believes in his home town. The book ends with a visit to the place his sister died, a now overgrown field where he spies a deer feeding on the tall grass. He takes this a something of a hopeful sight, but I have to wonder how much hope there is in nature reclaiming the city from its failed human inhabitants. Detroit: An American Autopsy is a powerful, but often depressing book. A

Currently Reading (fiction): Blackbirds by Chuck Wendig

I have been following Chuck Wendig online for some time, reading his blog and tweets on a fairly regular basis. I have Kindle versions of his non-fiction 250 Things You Should Know About Writing and a fiction work titled Bait Dog. I tired of the list format before finishing 250 Things and have not yet had the opportunity to read Bait Dog, but recently purchased the novel Blackbirds during a special pricing promotion on Amazon. Blackbirds is about Miriam Black, a young woman with the strange ability to see the (future) death of any person that she touches. The book starts strong. Wendig is clearly in love with his style, his language and descriptions having a rather nasty edge to them. Nothing wrong with that, he uses language very effectively, but if you are easily offended you may wish to avoid his books. Miriam’s second major confrontation within the first few chapters of the book (a bar fight) has me wondering whether or not Wendig is picking these fights just to fill space and keep the action up. It’s as if he wrote “insert bar fight here” on his outline. I hope it has more relevance to the plot than that, though I doubt it. Still, an engaging start to what I hope will be an entertaining novel.

Book Report 2/27/14

Book Report 2/6/14
Book Report 1/30/14

Book Report 2/27/14

Completed Reading (fiction): The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Steig Larsson

Having viewed all of the films based on this series, there was little suspense with regard to the ultimate resolution of this novel. Of course in almost any novel it is a safe enough bet that the protagonist, while facing many obstacles and struggles, will ultimately win the day. (Unless, of course, that protagonist is named Stark and inhabits a novel written by George R.R. Martin.)  So it shouldn’t be much of a spoiler to reveal that Lisbeth Salander avoids both a prison sentence and confinement to a mental hospital. Still, even if one didn’t see this resolution coming based on the usual rules of fiction, the novel itself leaves little doubt as to the predicted outcome. The Section, a rogue cabal within the Swedish Secret Police, never really gets their act together with regards to their conspiracy against Salander. They want to silence her because of her father, a Soviet defector to Sweden who was handled by The Section in the 1980s and 90s. But for a group of spies they are notoriously ineffective. Salander’s ally, Mikael Blomkvist, and his associates always remain one step ahead of The Section, and that seriously undercuts the suspense. Slander’s lawyer makes short work of the prosecution and their star witness, the psychiatrist Teleborian, which leads to Salander’s acquittal and release. We are then subjected to an unnecessary sojourn to Gibraltar (sometimes telling is better than showing) before Salander finally gets her hands dirty in a confrontation that ties up the novel’s loose end. Nice to see her back in action, even if only for a small portion of the book. If you are well invested in the Millennium trilogy, and must know how the story ends, you probably won’t consider reading The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest a waste of time.

Currently Reading (nonfiction): Detroit: An American Autopsy by Charlie LeDuff

Bodies buried in ice in abandoned buildings. Families members ravaged by drug and alcohol abuse. First responders struggling with inadequate equipment, punished for looting if they take abandoned property. Corrupt and incompetent politicians growing more corrupt and incompetent by the day. The deterioration of old Detroit proceeds apace.

Currently Reading (fiction): Blackbirds by Chuck Wendig

Book Report 2/6/14
Book Report 1/30/14
Book Report 1/16/14

Book Report 2/20/14

Completed Reading (fiction): The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Steig Larsson

Currently Reading (nonfiction): Detroit: An American Autopsy by Charlie LeDuff

Finally finished off Hornet's Nest, and will post my final thoughts on that book next week. I will probably have completed the Detroit book by then as well. Too busy at the moment to compose my usual weekly Book Report, but look for fresh content (and new books) next week.

Book Report 2/6/14
Book Report 1/30/14
Book Report 1/16/14

Book Report 2/6/14

Currently Reading (fiction): The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Steig Larsson

I read through the resolution of Berger’s stalker subplot, which managed to involve Salander if not be directly related to her story. Again the hacker genius, with minimal resources and the help of her friend Plague, manages to do what no one else could, figure out who was stalking Berger and sending her all those nasty emails. The final resolution was rather dull. Nothing too original or enlightening here. And Salander’s skills with computers and information networks have a magical Deus Ex Machina quality that defies reality. We are told that she (or one of her compatriots) hacked into a computer and retrieved, or deleted or otherwise meddled with the data stored there, but the specifics of how this is done is rather vague. Of course we don’t really want to complicate an irrelevant subplot by adding exposition on the exact methods of the hack, but for the sake of reality these efforts might on occasion fail, or require more work and time than they appear to. And again, with this particular subplot, involving Salander does not make it relevant to the main plot. Sure the connection with Berger allowed her to warn Blomkvist about a secret meeting between the psychiatrist Teleborian and an intelligence operative, but that’s too weak a connection to justify padding such a long novel with a generally pointless subplot.

Currently Reading (nonfiction): Detroit: An American Autopsy by Charlie LeDuff

LeDuff continues his examination of the physical, psychological and political decline of Detroit in a manner that remains very personal (for the author).  He rides along with on a fire truck through a city that many of the residents seem eager to burn down, observing firefighters who do their best to extinguish fires with dilapidated equipment and little support from the city’s leaders. He continues to examine the corruption of local elected officials, many who come off as cartoon characters. They are almost as incompetent at being corrupt as they are running the city. He observes a coffin being removed from a cemetery, because even the dead are moving out of the city and into the suburbs, something he calls ‘dead flight’. Yet somehow, even as the facts presented point only to inevitable doom, there is a tone of optimism in the narrative, as if both the author and the people he writes about believe that there is still hope for the city. Then again, you don’t complete an autopsy on something that still has a chance to live.

Book Report 1/30/14

Book Report 1/16/14

Book Report 1/9/14

Book Report 1/30/14

Currently Reading (fiction): The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Steig Larsson

Not much new can I say about this novel other than that I have not read as much of it as I should have in the last week. I think I made it through three more chapters. It should be re-titled The Girl Whose Friends Attend Meetings since that has been the bulk of the action. Erika Berger did have new problems with her stalker/harasser, she cut her foot on some broken window glass and had the word ‘whore’ spray painted on an exterior wall of her house. In response to these problems she hired Armansky’s security company to protect her and her home. Still not sure why the Berger sub plot is given so much attention, and how it will tie into the resolution of Salander’s situation. Note to all novelists, your subplot cannot be irrelevant to your main plot.

Currently Reading (nonfiction): Detroit: An American Autopsy by Charlie LeDuff

I’ve read a few chapters into this book. So far LeDuff is taking a very personal look at the decline of Detroit, telling that story through the problems experienced by his family and friends. He explains his decision to move from Los Angeles and back to Detroit and his readjustment to life in his hometown. LeDuff appears to be a dedicated journalist, but his writing style is significantly more entertaining than the average journalist, and truly engages you with the stories of his family and Detroit. My expectations for the rest of this book are only positive.

Book Report 1/16/14
Book Report  1/9/14
Book Report 1/2/14

Book Report 1/16/14

Completed Reading (nonfiction): Carthage Must be Destroyed by Richard Miles

Spoiler Alert: Carthage was destroyed. Hannibal’s 15 year adventure in Italy, however brilliantly conceived and executed, was not enough to prevent the destruction of Carthage and the rise of Rome.  He never really pressed his advantages there, and a Roman army’s conquest of Barcid Spain cut him off from resources and reinforcements. Recalled to North Africa to defend Carthage from another Roman Army (under the command of Publius Cornelius Scipio) Hannibal was defeated at the Battle of Zama, and Carthage was marginalized as a power in the Western Mediterranean. It survived until the 3rd Punic War, an event largely contrived by the Romans to justify the total destruction of a broken enemy that still gave them paranoid nightmares. But Carthage survived symbolically (and to an extent still does) as the one adversary that helped Rome define itself. For anyone interested in ancient history and the rise of Rome, this book is a good read, very accessible to the amateur historian and general population.

Currently Reading (fiction): The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Steig Larsson

Still slogging through this one. Spent more of my reading hours finishing off Carthage than Salander. These Dragon Tattoo books are all somewhat overwritten, much longer than they ever needed to be, but this one is the worst, since there seems to be so little happening here. Talking heads everywhere. Our investment in Salander is largely the result of the first two books, but even if I hadn't seen the movie there’s not much suspense regarding the outcome of the novel. I’ll continue to read. Once I've started a book it has to be quite bad or boring to not finish it.

On the Horizon (nonfiction): Detroit: An American Autopsy by Charlie LeDuff

I accidentally received this book through the Quality Paperback Book Club when I failed to decline one of their featured selections. But it looks interesting, so I decided to keep it. It is about LeDuff’s return to his hometown, and a chronicle of its decent from one of the wealthiest cities in America to one of the poorest. First Carthage, now Detroit. I guess I’m fascinated by stories about the destruction of great cities.

Book Report 1/9/14

Book Report 1/2/14

Book Report 12/26/13