There are some juicy (and nasty) stories about the band, but most of the book is about him dealing with endless hassles and roadblocks. His days are spent fighting the band’s management; he’s viewed by most everyone else as an annoying guy trying to tell them what to do. He envisioned the movie as a collaborative effort, which was a fool’s errand from the beginning.
It’s a wonder that the film ever saw the light of day.
I’ve been reading Richard Russo’s newest, That Old Cape Magic, and boy, is it dragging. I like him a lot, too. I don’t know why it’s not grabbing me, but it isn’t.
Others moved off the pile …
War Dances, the latest short story collection by Sherman Alexie. Again, I would say I’m a big fan of Alexie, and I wouldn’t say this was outstanding. It’s fine, I guess. A few high points, but overall not that great.
*Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War *by Tony Horwitz, which I know I’ve seen people talking about on the SDMB so that’s probably why I picked it up. I really enjoyed this, he spent one year exploring all the ways that the Civil War is still popping up in culture and society.
Last Call by Tim Powers. Urban fantasy, I think, set in Las Vegas and retelling the Fisher King legend with a poker theme. I enjoyed it fairly well considering that I am not usually too interested in this genre.
I’m about 3/4 of the way through Them by Jon Ronson. Pretty good book. No particular surprises; Neo-Nazis and Klansmen are fuck nutter insane. Knew that, but it’s a good read.
It is. Some of these people had no problem with him being Jewish, even though they believe in the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion and worldwide Jewish conspiracies, because he’s not one of “those Jews.”
But when he visited a Neo-Nazi stronghold in the Ozarks, that was frightening. They were sizing him up and asking about his genealogy, while blocking his car when he was preparing to leave.
I just finished Sky Woman Falling, a mystery set on the Oneida reservation and featuring FBI agent Anna Turnipseed and BIA agent Emmett Parker, both American Indian, but from different tribes.
A woman boards a passenger plane for the short hop from Syracuse to New York La Guardia, but never arrives. She falls to her death in a cornfield in rural New York…eight hours later.
Just finished *Midwinter *by Matthew Sturges. Mauritaine was a Captain in the Seelie Army and on the Queen’s Guard. He is unjustly sent to a remote prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Later his is recruited to go a top-secret mission for the Queen - one that even he doesn’t know the details to.
The book had potential, but rambled quite a bit with sidebar adventures that were often unrelated to the plot (and worse, rather uninteresting.) A few of the main plot lines seemed to be hurried to be resolved in the end - but I did like the big reveal of the top-secret plot at the very end.
I might recommend it as filler, but can’t say it was really good.
That was indeed bizarre. I’m cracking up at Jack and Stephen’s comments to Mrs. Williams at Lady Keith’s party. “Visigoth marble!” I love it when stupid, mean-spirited people get theirs, even when they don’t realize it’s happening.
In addition to Post Captain, I’m reading Rendezvous in Black by Cornell Woolrich. Wowza. This is a dark one.
I’m determined to get through more books this year than last.
Currently I’m reading Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. I am enjoying it although it’s not much of a secret. You guess almost immediatly what it is. I think sometimes when I pick up a Victorian novel I expect it to be highbrow. This is a real pot boiler.
The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher by Kate Summerscale, about the murder of a 3-year-old boy in England in 1860 and the origins of the art of detection. On several lists of best non-fiction books of 2008.
I’m well into Before They are Hanged, the second book in Joe Abercrombie’s The First Law trilogy. It’s very good, but the author is really hung up on teeth and it’s starting to distract me. One of the protagonists is missing several teeth, which greatly impacts his life, so it’s understandable for him to dwell on that fact. But the author’s favorite mannerism for *other *characters is to have them suck their teeth.
The writing is otherwise excellent, though. There is some deliberately repetitive phrasing which works well, representing characters’ recurring thoughts. So maybe the author is keeping teeth in the reader’s mind for a reason.
I read about half of Saint Mary Blue, by Barry Longyear. It’s fiction about drug addicts and alcoholics in a rehab. It was okay, but the characters weren’t really grabbing me, so I set it aside.
Skimmed a couple of books on Asperger’s Syndrome. My daughter has one or two symptoms, but for the most part the books weren’t really relevant.
Then I read a couple of short stories by Raymond Carver, and decided not to force myself through any more.
Rendezvous in Black was excellent! It’s about a young man who takes revenge on five men who were responsible for the death of his fiancee. He doesn’t kill them – that’d be too easy.
I haven’t read a book with this much tension for many years. I was even able to read it in the living room with the TV on. I never do that.
As soon as I finished the book I went looking for the movie/TV version. There had to be one! As near as I can tell, it was adapted for Playhouse 90 (no DVD) and it’s been optioned for a film – John Woo is doing it.
If anyone’s in a slump (Dung Beetle), this’ll get you out of it.
For a more lighthearted revenge tale, I recommend Jeffrey Archer’s Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less, about a group of otherwise-unrelated people who realize they were all bilked by the same con man. They decide to take revenge, con him back and extract… well, now you know the reason for the title. It’s a very readable and fun book with some great twists and turns.
Glad you liked it, delphica. It was just nominated for a Dilys Winn award by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association, defined as the book the members “most enjoyed handselling over the past year,” which I guess means actually talking to customers and recommending books as opposed to just ringing up a sale. The winner will be announced in March. The other nominees are:
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, Alan Bradley The Dark Horse, Craig Johnson The Girl Who Played with Fire, Steig Larsson The Ghosts of Belfast, Stuart Neville The Brutal Telling, Louise Penny The Shanghai Moon, S.J. Rozan
The Mystery Writers of America also have announced their nominees for the Edgar Awards, to be presented April 29.
BEST NOVEL
The Missing by Tim Gautreaux (Random House - Alfred A. Knopf) The Odds by Kathleen George (Minotaur Books) The Last Child by John Hart (Minotaur Books) Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death by Charlie Huston (Random
House - Ballantine Books) Nemesis by Jo Nesbø, translated by Don Bartlett (HarperCollins) A Beautiful Place to Die by Malla Nunn (Simon & Schuster – Atria Books)
BEST FIRST NOVEL BY AN AMERICAN AUTHOR
The Girl She Used to Be by David Cristofano (Grand Central Publishing) Starvation Lake by Bryan Gruley (Simon & Schuster - Touchstone) The Weight of Silence by Heather Gudenkauf (MIRA Books) A Bad Day for Sorry by Sophie Littlefield (Minotaur Books – Thomas Dunne Books) Black Water Rising by Attica Locke (HarperCollins) In the Shadow of Gotham by Stefanie Pintoff (Minotaur Books)
BEST PAPERBACK ORIGINAL
Bury Me Deep by Megan Abbott (Simon & Schuster) Havana Lunar by Robert Arellano (Akashic Books) The Lord God Bird by Russell Hill (Pleasure Boat Studio – Caravel Books) Body Blows by Marc Strange (Dundurn Press – Castle Street Mysteries) The Herring-Seller’s Apprentice by L.C. Tyler (Felony & Mayhem Press)
BEST FACT CRIME
Columbine by Dave Cullen (Hachette Book Group - Twelve) Go Down Together: The True, Untold Story of Bonnie and Clyde
by Jeff Guinn (Simon & Schuster) The Fence: A Police Cover-Up Along Boston’s Racial Divide
by Dick Lehr (HarperCollins) Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art
by Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo (The Penguin Press) Vanished Smile: The Mysterious Theft of Mona Lisa by R.A. Scotti
(Random House - Alfred A. Knopf)
BEST CRITICAL/BIOGRAPHICAL
Talking About Detective Fiction by P.D. James (Random House - Alfred A. Knopf) The Lineup: The World’s Greatest Crime Writers Tell the Inside Story
of Their Greatest Detectives edited by Otto Penzler (Hachette Book
Group – Little, Brown and Company) Haunted Heart: The Life and Times of Stephen King
by Lisa Rogak (Thomas Dunne Books) The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of
Patricia Highsmith
by Joan Schenkar (St. Martin’s Press) The Stephen King Illustrated Companion
by Bev Vincent (Fall River Press)
BEST SHORT STORY
“Last Fair Deal Gone Down” – Crossroad Blues by Ace Atkins (Busted Flush Press)
“Femme Sole” – Boston Noir by Dana Cameron (Akashic Books)
“Digby, Attorney at Law” – Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine by Jim
Fusilli (Dell Magazines)
“Animal Rescue” – Boston Noir by Dennis Lehane (Akashic Books
“Amapola” – Phoenix Noir by Luis Alberto Urrea (Akashic Books)
BEST JUVENILE
The Case of the Case of Mistaken Identity by Mac Barnett
(Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers) The Red Blazer Girls: The Ring of Rocamadour by Michael D. Beil
(Random House Children’s Books – Alfred A. Knopf) Closed for the Season by Mary Downing Hahn (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Children’s Books) Creepy Crawly Crime by Aaron Reynolds (Henry Holt Books for Young Readers) The Case of the Cryptic Crinoline by Nancy Springer
(Penguin Young Readers Group – Philomel Books)
BEST YOUNG ADULT
Reality Check* by Peter Abrahams (HarperCollins Children’s Books – HarperTeen) If the Witness Lied by Caroline B. Cooney (Random House Children’s
Books – Delacorte Press) The Morgue and Me by John C. Ford (Penguin Young Readers Group –
Viking Children’s Books) Petronella Saves Nearly Everyone by Dene Low (Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt Children’s Books) Shadowed Summer by Saundra Mitchell (Random House Children’s Books –
Delacorte Press)
BEST TELEVISION EPISODE TELEPLAY
“Place of Execution,” Teleplay by Patrick Harbinson (PBS/WGBH Boston)
“Strike Three” – The Closer, Teleplay by Steven Kane (Warner Bros TV for TNT)
“Look What He Dug Up This Time” – Damages, Teleplay by Todd A.
Kessler, Glenn Kessler & Daniel Zelman (FX Networks)
“Grilled” – Breaking Bad, Teleplay by George Mastras (AMC/Sony)
“Living the Dream” – Dexter, Teleplay by Clyde Phillips (Showtime)
ROBERT L. FISH MEMORIAL AWARD
“A Dreadful Day” – Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine by Dan Warthman
(Dell Magazines)
GRAND MASTER
Dorothy Gilman
RAVEN AWARDS
Mystery Lovers Bookshop, Oakmont, Pennsylvania
Zev Buffman, International Mystery Writers’ Festival
ELLERY QUEEN AWARD
Poisoned Pen Press (Barbara Peters & Robert Rosenwald)
THE SIMON & SCHUSTER - MARY HIGGINS CLARK AWARD
(Presented at MWA’s Agents & Editors Party on Wednesday, April 28, 2010)
Awakening by S.J. Bolton (Minotaur Books) Cat Sitter on a Hot Tin Roof by Blaize Clement (Minotaur Books) Never Tell a Lie by Hallie Ephron (HarperCollins – William Morrow) Lethal Vintage by Nadia Gordon (Chronicle Books) Dial H for Hitchcock by Susan Kandel (HarperCollins)