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6 January 2004

• J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings: reread, of course, the first one I've permitted myself since the movies started coming out. Wait, this should really be on my favorites page....
  
  
• Dorothy Gilman, Kaleidoscope: a sequel to an older book, The Clairvoyant Countess, about the mysterious psychic Madame Karitska, and written in the same style, as a series of mysteries which prove to be intertwined and tell a larger story. As always, Gilman's writing is simple, yet vivid and fast-paced, creating a quick but interesting read.

Books read: 4

10 January 2004

• Anthony Trollope, The American Senator: not one of Trollope's more memorable novels, I'm afraid. I was far more interested in the plotline involving Arabella Trefoil, the scheming beauty who is the anti-heroine of the novel, than I was in the American senator himself or in the more run-of-the-mill love affair between Mary Masters and Reginald Morton. Arabella is an excellently written character, though, and the book was certainly worth reading.
  
  
• Nina Kiriki Hoffman, A Stir of Bones: a prequel to her A Red Heart of Memories and Past the Size of Dreaming - an atmospheric setting and vivid characters, but really too short.
  
  
• Walter Cunningham, The All-American Boys: a very entertaining and extremely candid book by one of the Apollo astronauts, much more frank about what went on behind the scenes than other astronaut memoirs.
  
  
• Chris Kraft, Flight: My Life in Mission Control: excellent, though occasionally vituperative, book about the space program by the original Flight Director.
  
  
• Liz Williams, The Poison Master: Alivet Dee, an alchemist, lives on the world of Latent Emanation, which is ruled by the Lords of Night, a non-human race who use humans as servants and slaves. In the process of trying to rescue her sister from the Lords, Alivet meets the mysterious Poison Master, who involves her in a plot to overthrow the Lords of Night. The combination of alien cultures and the Elizabethan-type human culture is intriguing, and the characters are vividly drawn, though the story occasionally bogs down a little in description.
  
  
• Meredith Ann Pierce, the Darkangel trilogy (The Darkangel, A Gathering of Gargoyles, The Pearl at the Soul of the World): In the first book, the servant girl Aeriel sets out to rescue her mistress, kidnapped by the dread Darkangel, and finds that she must choose between destroying the Darkangel and saving him. The later books go more deeply into Aeriel's world and explore her ultimate destiny. Pierce is one of the most imaginative fantasy writers I've read; her worlds are unique and beautifully described, her characters are strikingly memorable, and her writing is exceptionally lyrical and poetic. This trilogy was one of the best I've read in a long time.
  
  

Books read: 8

15 January 2004

• Benedict and Nancy Freedman, Mrs. Mike, The Search for Joyful: the first is a classic tearjerker, which I've read many times; the second is a much more recent sequel. I had actually forgotten how heart-wrenching Mrs. Mike is - someone seems to die every few pages - and I had a tough time reading it. The Search for Joyful was a disappointment; I was excited to hear that it had been written, but the story and the characters just aren't as involving as the first book.
  
  
• William F. Mellberg, Moon Missions: Mankind's First Voyages to Another World: full of interesting scientific and technical details.
  
  
• Charles R. Pellegrino and Joshua Stoff, Chariots for Apollo: The Untold Story Behind the Race to the Moon: an account focusing on Grumman Corporation and the making of the lunar lander (the Lunar Module, or LM). It's not intended to convey the full story of the moon missions, just the part of it that involved the LM, and as such, it's a fascinating read.
  
  
• Susan Coolidge, What Katy Did, What Katy Did at School, What Katy Did Next: if you like Louisa May Alcott, you'll like these - late 19th-century books about a girl and her family. A little preachy at times, like Alcott, but still charming.
  
  
• Lou Piniella with Maury Allen, Sweet Lou: Lou's autobiography, written in the mid-80's and thus largely covering his playing years rather than his managing years. A fun read, in Lou's very distinct voice, and I hope he writes another book someday about his managerial career.

Books read: 8

19 January 2004

• Will Shetterly, Dogland: a wonderful, many-layered book about a family who runs a tourist attraction (the Dogland of the title) in Florida in the 1950's. On one level, it's a coming-of-age story, on another, it's a look at race relations in that time and place, and on still another, a subtly magical fantasy.
  
  
• Nora Ephron, Heartburn: a fast and fairly amusing relationship book, though feeling rather dated now, 20 years after it was originally published.
  
  
• Wendy Lesser, Nothing Remains the Same: Rereading and Remembering: an insightful and intelligent collection of essays by the founder of the Threepenny Review, on books she's returned to after reading them long ago, ranging from Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle to Don Quixote, ending with an essay on Hitchcock's film "Vertigo", which I thought was one of the best of a generally good lot.
  
  
• Diane Johnson, Le Divorce: witty look at American vs. French culture, through the eyes of Isabel Walker, a young American woman who travels to Paris to be with her sister, who is married to a Frenchman, at a time of crisis. Certainly entertaining, though I don't understand the constant comparisons to Henry James, Edith Wharton, and other greats; the cultural comparisons in Le Divorce were less than profound, the characters are charming but not very fully developed (other than Isabel herself), and the violent events at the end were jarring. A fun read, but hardly the great work of literature a lot of the reviews are making it out to be.
  
  
• Mary Elizabeth Braddon, The Doctor's Wife: Braddon was the queen of Victorian sensation novels, like Lady Audley's Secret; although the heroine falls in love with a man who's not her husband, The Doctor's Wife isn't really a sensation novel. Braddon was clearly trying to transcend her genre in this story of Isabel Gilbert, the eponymous heroine, and her love for Roland Lansdell; their affair is pointedly not consummated, and Isabel's emotional and mental growth is really the main point of the story.

Books read: 5

22 January 2004

• C.W. Ceram, Gods, Graves, and Scholars: a classic archaeology book, detailing the discovery and exploration of ancient cultures like Egypt, Assyria, Crete, and the Aztecs, as well as quite a few others. It was originally published over fifty years, so I expect that some of the information is out of date, but it's still a fascinating narrative.
  
  
• Jane Mendelsohn, Innocence: a dark and disturbing young adult novel.
  
  
• Robert Jordan, New Spring: a prequel to the Wheel of Time series, expanded from a novella that was originally included in Legends, edited by Robert Silverberg. There was a lot of new material in this book beyond what was in Legends, so it was definitely worth buying: lots of information about Moiraine, Siuan, and the White Tower, and even some point-of-view passages from Lan.
  
  
• M. Scott Carpenter and Kris Stoever, For Spacious Skies: The Uncommon Journey of a Mercury Astronaut: a well-written and researched book about one of the lesser known of the Mercury astronauts - one of the best I've read.
  
  
• Wally Schirra with Richard N. Billings, Schirra's Space: engaging story of one of the Mercury astronauts, but not really detailed enough to compare with For Spacious Skies or Deke!.
  
  
• Gordon Cooper with Bruce Henderson, Leap of Faith: An Astronaut's Journey into the Unknown: full of factual errors and kooky UFO theories, this is by far the worst of the Mercury astronauts' memoirs (of which I've read all but Glenn's). The accounts of his actual Mercury and Gemini missions are worth reading (if you can ignore the errors), but the last half of the book, about Cooper's dealings with UFOs, is just bizarre and slightly sad.

Books read: 6

25 January 2004

• Donald K. Slayton and Michael Cassutt, Deke!: this and Scott Carpenter's book are the best of the Mercury astronauts' memoirs. Deke's is particularly interesting because of his role as head of the astronaut office, assumed when he was kept from flying in space because of a heart condition (later cured, allowing him to fly in the Apollo-Soyuz mission). Cassutt does an outstanding of letting Deke's personality come through, as well as interspersing short bits of narrative from other sources, such as Deke's son and the other astronauts.
  
  
• Robert Silverberg, ed., Legends II: a collection of fantasy novellas by 11 well-known fantasy authors. I didn't read all of them, but I thought the two best were "Homecoming", by Robin Hobb, a prequel of sorts to her Liveship Traders trilogy, and "Threshold", by Elizabeth Haydon, which was so good that I'll certainly be seeking out her novels. I disliked Anne McCaffrey's contribution, "Beyond Between", which told what happened to the dragonrider Moreta (from the novel of that name) after she went between; I thought it really ruined the ending of the original novel (I can't really go into details without spoilers).

Books read: 2

26 January 2004

• Francis Spufford, The Child That Books Built: a journey through Spufford's childhood reading with fairly serious analyses of the books themselves (from C.S. Lewis and Tolkien to Laura Ingalls Wilder and Ursula Le Guin).

Books read: 1

28 January 2004

• Pamela Dean, the Secret Country trilogy: finally back in print, so I immediately bought new copies to replace my old worn-out ones. These belong on my favorites page.
  
  
• Martha Ackmann, The Mercury 13: The Untold Story of Thirteen American Women and the Dream of Space Flight: The Mercury 13 were a group of women who took many of the same physical and psychological tests as the prospective male Mercury astronauts and passed them, often with better results than the men; yet the women could not gain entrance into the space program. I had seen passing references to the Mercury 13 in other books and was glad to find this book on the subject, but I ended up a little disappointed.

  The reason NASA gave for not admitting women to the program was that they only wanted test pilots (more specifically, military test pilots for Mercury; for later groups, civilians were also accepted), and at the time, the military did not allow women to be test pilots. I think most people would agree that this was notably unfair and sexist on the part of the military. However, what I wanted to know was what the actual differences were between the experience of test pilots and other pilots and therefore whether, for NASA, it was reasonable to require that astronauts be test pilots. Clearly, the women were physically and psychologically just as qualified as the men, but did their lack of test pilot experience (and in most cases, lack of college degrees and experience flying jets) actually make a difference?

  Unfortunately, the book totally failed to satisfy me on this count. The physical and psychological testing was gone into in great (and interesting) detail, but there was no examination of any other qualifications, so I didn't feel that it presented a very balanced picture.
  
  

• Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly: horrifying but hilarious account of what actually goes on in restaurant kitchens, with a great deal of useful advice (such as never to order the fish special on Mondays, since it's likely to be left over from the weekend).
  
  

Books read: 5

31 January 2004

• Katherine Kurtz, The Bishop's Heir, The King's Justice, The Quest for Saint Camber, King Kelson's Bride: rereads.
  
  
• Edmond Rostand, translated by Christopher Fry, Cyrano de Bergerac: lovely verse translation.
  
  
• Lois McMaster Bujold, The Curse of Chalion: an excellent fantasy novel by an author who excels in creating believable worlds with sympathetic and engaging characters - highly recommended. The religious aspects of this novel are particularly fascinating, with gods and goddesses who intervene in the characters' lives believably, not as dei ex machina.
  
  

Books read: 6

Total books read this month: 45
Total books read this year: 45

Last updated 29 November 2005. All text and photographs © George Mitchell and Margaret Johnston, unless otherwise noted Comments, questions, suggestions to margaret@lonelymountain.net.