Some of my best memories of my kids’ childhoods are of listening to the Series of Unfortunate Events with them in the car every morning on the way to school. (They also really dug The Witches, by Roald Dahl).
Curry is a great reader! The ones read by Mr. Snicket are less good, but the kids got a bang out of his attempt at female voices.
I liked the way the author focused on different secondary characters during each of Usrula’s lives. It kept the book from ever feeling repetitive.
I’m looking forward to Republic of Thieves, too. And I need to buy Naomi Novik’s new Temeraire book, Blood of Tyrants, as well as Charlie Huston’s new book, Skinner.
Finished Vulture Peak, by John Burdett, the fifth installment of his detective series. I believe Eleanor of Aquitaine and some others have also been reading the series, and I’m pleased to report Burdett seems to be back up to speed. Gone is the smarmy metaphysical crap that Burdett was starting to get bogged down in, and I have to wonder if this is a result of the very poor reviews the previous installment, The Godfather of Kathmandu, garnered. But I would rank this very close to his first one, Bangkok 8. This time it’s organ trafficking in Thailand, which I’m not aware the country is such a center of, but never mind, it makes a good story. The bad thing is the story turns rather stupid in the last 50 pages. But I still recommend it.
Some notes for fans of the series:
Dr. Supatra makes another appearance, and she is obviously a fictionalized version of the real-life Pornthip Rojanasunand.
Burdett previously used real bar names for the Nana Plaza red-light area, but this time he uses all fake names. One thing that is spot on though is the explosion in transvestite bars there in recent years. And they’re driven largely by the Japanese-businessman trade. The Japanese love them. I’ll never forget one time at Nana Plaza, I was sitting at Big Dog’s Bar right at the entrance of Nana, with a seat at the rail, watching the comings and goings. It’s a good view of the entrance. Here comes this little middle-aged Japanese guy from inside Nana, pulling behind him these two slender, tall Thai transvestites he’s just barfined from one of the bars. He’s positively running to the taxi, can’t wait to get his treasures back to the hotel, heh. 
So he’s right about that. But Burdett is wrong that until recently there were only heterosexual bars there, as Casanova Bar, the granddaddy (grandma?) of all transvestite bars predates even my time in Thailand. (Second floor, back in the left-hand corner.) From the book, Burdett’s description of the Lonesome Cowboy transvestite bar being on the ground floor toward the back tells me he really means Obsession Bar (google it if you dare, heh :D).
Patong Beach in Phuket is exactly as described. It’s almost as wild as Pattaya. Almost. And yes, Soi Crocodile is the street down there of all-transvestite bars. Odd that Burdett emphasises in a foreword that he describes a pre-tsunami Patong but then makes reference to the tsunami twice during the story. And Patong has pretty much snapped back from the disaster anyway.
His comparison of Bangkok and Pattaya is spot on. Bangkok contains sleaze, but it’s hidden to some extent. It’s possible to visit Bangkok and not ever see any sleaze. Or at least not much. But Pattaya is a modern-day, open-air, citywide, in-your-face, no-holds-barred Sodom and Gomorrah.
Reference is made to fin, which you can probably guess from the text means “opium.” Just to confirm. And it’s actually pronounced feen.
The hero and another cop visit the fictional Shangri-La Bar in Patpong 1 (not to be confused with Patong down in Phuket). There really aren’t any flash bars anymore in Patpong 1 like the one they visit. They’re all looking rather old and dismal. Soi Cowboy and Nana Plaza are the jumping places now, but old-timers such as myself do enjoy the relatively quiet atmosphere of Patpong, and we feel comfortable there. The only bars that could even come close to what Burdett describes as the one they visit on Patpong 1 are actually on Patpong 2: Bada Bing (yes, like in The Sopranos, Club Electric Blue and The Strip. But then they leave and go to Patpong 2, and here Burdett does something interesting. They go to a blowjob bar called Wallabi upstairs in Patpong 2. Now, there is a blowjob bar upstairs in Patpong 2, and it’s called Linda’s Place. However, he uses the name Wallabi, which I feel is a nod to the long-running Kangaroo Club blowjob bar back over in Patpong 1. An institution, the Kangaroo is accessed from the ground floor, but then you walk up a flight of stairs immediately. Even though he’s a block off, I’d bet money Wallabi is supposed to be Kangaroo Club.
Burdett seems to feel Shanghai is more crowded than Bangkok, but I dunno. I’ve been in Shanghai, and I think Bangkok is more crowded.
So those are my notes. It’s a good story if you can forgive the last 50 pages. A worthy entry in the series. Oh, and I realized the other day I know a Thai with the same surname as the hero, Jitpleecheep. I’m not sure she’s aware of these books.
Next up: Inferno, by Dan Brown. I think it got a bad review in this or last month’s thread, but Brown always gets bad reviews, and we usually find him okay. Plus the book was on sale. The wife has read it first, and she said it was okay but didn’t want to discuss it until after I’d read it.
Sorry… but it is one of my favorite historical novels. Hope you like it.
Hard to overlook human sacrifice, to be sure, but Jennings makes the case that the “Flowery Wars” of the Aztecs were actually less bloody than the Spaniards’ methods of making war. The Aztecs also had much more advanced notions of hygiene, urban sanitation (no minor factor for a city as big as Tenochtitlan), folk medicine, etc.
I spent a long time on a bus yesterday, so I read Mo’ Meta Blues by ?uestlove (the drummer for The Roots). I didn’t get it just for the title, but I could’ve. It’s an idiosyncratic and fun read by a smart guy with an interesting voice. I expect that people who know more about The Roots and hip hop will get even more from it than I did, but how can you not love a book by a big music nerd who gets to go roller skating with Prince?
Tenochtitlan was an awesome city, no doubt about it. The Spanish themselves remarked on that.
However, the notion that the Aztec method of warfare was less bloody is, I think, a later romanticization.
The Aztecs did have an institution referred to as “Flower War”, but what that consisted of is not certain; and it most definitely was not their only or even primary method of war-making. Most of the time, the Aztecs acted as good old rough and ready imperialists, with the added nastiness that POWs were generally sacrificed.
That isn’t to say the Spanish were nice, exactly. However, it is notable that the Spanish conquest could not have happened, or at least, not as easily, without tens of thousands of local allies - who evidently judged between the Spanish and the Aztecs and supported the former, despite the superior hygene and flower wars of the Aztecs.
Now, it could easily be argued that in hindsight they made a mistake, but it does demonstrate that the Aztecs were not exactly loved. They do not come across as lovable, even in their own mythologised history.
One origin story they tell about the founding of their city is that they migrated down from the north and entered the service, as mercenaries, of a local city-state. To cement the alliance, the Aztecs asked for the daughter of the local ruler “for religious reasons”. He was happy to comply, thinking that the Aztecs wanted her to become a priestess.
He wasn’t so delighted when he saw an Aztec priest dancing around wearing her skin. Indeed, he made his displeasure known by driving them out into the swamps.
Interesting. This is re-created in Aztec. It happens to the protagonist’s daughter.
Thank you Broomstick for recommending Sailor of the Skysea by A.C.F. Crawford (aka iiiandyiii)
It’s a bit difficult to categorize - it’s not quite alt-history, not quite fantasy, but definitely entertaining. Ytzak Anan is a sailor with a shadowy past, who gets caught up in events not wholly of his making. He mostly just tries to get by and not stick his neck out, but his innate sense of what is right occasionally makes him into a hero. We follow his adventures across the land (kinda-sorta the Caribbean/Gulf Coast) as he follows his own course.
There’s not much of a plot, per se - more a series of events: Ytzak is very well-drawn as a character, and I found the world building quite satisfying. There is some magic along the way, but nothing too overdone; the fight scenes seemed quite realistic, and the supporting characters were as well-rounded as they needed to be. It’s a solid story along the lines Heinlein’s Glory Road, Niven’s Destiny Road and perhaps the less-overblown Conan tales. I’d be interested to read more along these lines from Crawford. It’s currently available for free in Kindle format.
Um, bit of a spoiler there, no…?
Malthus, the Aztecs were not beloved by most of their neighbors, it’s true. Check out the book, though, which is very well-researched and a cracking good read, and I think you’ll see that the Spaniards did not compare well to the Aztecs on several points. Factor in the Inquisition, cleric-approved slavery and forced conversions, and their flavor of Christianity was arguably no better than the Aztecs’ religion.
D’oh! :smack: You’re right. Sorry about that. The lateness of the hour must have impaired my judgment.
Started this morning on Anatomies: A Cultural History of the Human Body, by Hugh Aldersey-Williams. I don’t read much non-fiction these days, but if this guy writes much like Mary Roach I should do well.
I will - I get half of my reading purchase suggestions through this thread. 
Yeah, the conquest-era Spanish are certainly not poster-boys for the kinder, gentler aspects of civilization. 
My sole point was that if I were to choose a victim of colonialism to contrast and compare, in order to demonstrate how the alleged “barbarians” are really the more civilized … I don’t think I’d choose the Aztecs.
Unless I was Neil Young. 
Ohhhhhh you lucky duck! I’m dying to read this when it’s released on October 8!
No worries. I’ve asked a mod to spoiler-box it.
Please update us when you’re done - it sounds interesting.
Thanks so much for giving it a chance, and thanks for putting down your thoughts. I’m very glad you enjoyed it!
I have a recommendation for those of you that like YA:The Owl Service by Alan Garner. It’s about three adolescents who visit a valley in Wales for summer holiday and end up reliving the story of Bloddeuedd from the Mabinogion. Flowers become owls, owls become flowers, patterns disappear off of plates, and pictures vanish from walls. It’s very spooky and magical.
For David McCullough fans:
I’m on the Outer Banks this week, and just saw a poster for a McCullough speech at First Flight High School in Kill Devil Hills, N.C. next month - he’ll be speaking on the Wright Brothers, which will be the subject of his next book.
Thanks. :o
That should be excellent. We saw their plane at the Smithsonian last year. I still have a few of his past ones to read but will be looking forward to that.
I finally checked out American Canopy: Trees, Forests, and the Making of a Nation by Eric Rutkow based on Sigmagirl’s recommendation as well as an author interview on the Diane Rehm show back in May 2012 (it’s been on my ToRead list for awhile!).
I found it to be an engrossing look at how timber and trees impacted American (and to an extent) European history. Rutkow starts with the colonies supplying raw materials to the motherland - particularly ships’ masts during the height of the British Navy’s reign. He then expands on the use of timber as raw materials for the building of the country and how the vast expanses of forests helped establish the concept of limitless resources and Manifest Destiny.
Rutkow also spends quite a bit of time on the conservation movement; which complimented another recent read The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire that Saved America quite nicely. Rutkow segues into how timber was used in WWI and WWII and the Civilian Conservation Corps, wrapping up with the housing boom of the 1950’s. The book takes a lot of detours along the way, but ties them into the overarching theme quite well. I’m a sucker for thematic history - Salt: A World History, Consider the Fork, Color: A Natural History of the Palette etc. etc. - and this book is a well-researched, entertaining addition to that category. I can see this being added to a high-school or college history reading list and/or excerpts being used in an AP history class.
As a partner read, I just started A Splintered History of Wood: Belt Sander Races, Blind Woodworkers, and Baseball Bats by Spike Carlsen, which I apparently heard about on a History Channel show back in July 2012. While Rutkow’s focus was more on the living specimens; so far, Carlsen is examining the resulting commodity. I’m curious to see how much overlap I’ll notice between the two, or if there will be any conflicting info.