Modoc: the True Story of the Greatest Elephant That Ever Lived by Ralph Helfer

I had high hopes for this book -- what's not to love about elephants?  And the "true story" of an amazing elephant and his lifelong friendship with a trainer?  Well, it would be amazing, if it were, in fact, all true.  But sadly, not so much.

This book out pretty interesting, with a fairly good narrative.  Basically, it's the story of a young boy, Bram, who was raised with a circus elephant, and spent most of his life with her throughout fantastic events -- both wonderful and tragic -- around the globe.  There are ocean voyages, a shipwreck, mystical encounters in faraway lands, bandits, benevolent royalty, wars -- you name it.

But as I read this amazing narrative -- complete with dialogue, which is always slightly suspect in a book that's reporting elements of years ago -- I was slightly put off by the writing and its insider knowledge of people's thoughts and feelings.  And a lot of the events are so fantastic that they just don't ring true.  Plus, this story is oddly lacking in concrete details.  For starters, the date of this miraculous birth is never mentioned -- not even the year!  The reader can only assume that it is sometime in the early part of the 20th century.  In fact, there's not an actual date mentioned in the entire book.  The more I read this book, the more it started to feel like a fable or fantastic folk tale, not nonfiction.

Since I am a curious person (and because I spend far too much time surfing the internet) after I finished the book, I began Googling for actual facts.  It quickly became obvious that Ralph Helfer studied at the James Frey School of Nonfiction Writing -- that is, playing pretty fast and loose with the facts.  Modoc seems like an amalgamation of a lot of different stories, different elephants, etc.

If Helfer had just said the story was inspired by actual events, I might have bought it -- the story, though flawed and over-the-top, would probably have found some satisfied readers.  But the fact that he's trying to pass this as a TRUE STORY is just so irritating, it's really taken away from the experience of reading the book. (The fact that it is listed as nonfiction by the library is just eye-rolling).

I really need to be a little more discerning when I choose nonfiction.  I did take another look at the Goodreads reviews for the rest of the books on my TBR Pile Challenge List, which is all nonfiction, and it seems like those that aren't memoirs are fairly respected -- there are obviously some aren't necessarily universally loved, but they actually have footnotes, indices, and/or bibliographies.

Memoirs are another story altogether.  If an author states at the beginning, that basically, this is how I remember this incident, or that certain characters or events may have been combined, I might be forgiving.  How can someone remember an entire conversation years later?  It's different than if they're quoting a print document like a letter.  Essentially, the reader has to assume that this is the writer's memory (or interpretation) of certain events.  Looking back on my TBR Pile Challenge list, I realized that exactly half of these books are essentially memoirs or opinions.

As I've mentioned, I've been reading a lot more nonfiction in the past few years -- maybe this also means I need to be more selective.  Does the popularity of nonfiction also mean an increase in thinly veiled fiction?  (And is it really more popular, or do I just think so because I've finally embraced nonfiction?)  Bloggers, how discriminating are you about your nonfiction?  Are there any "true stories" that you later found out weren't completely accurate?

The Girls From Winnetka by Marcia Chellis

Well, that was disappointing.

I was really looking forward to starting my TBR Pile Challenge reading list for 2015.  After finishing one giant doorstopper of a book (which I loved), and having about another 20 audio discs to go on a second, I naturally looked through the pile and chose the shortest book.  I have a really hard time leaping from one enormous book to another.  My choice was The Girls From Winnetka by Marcia Chellis. I received this as a prize drawing gift from another blogger back in 2010.   Unfortunately, I wasn't nearly as enamored of this book as she was.  

This is the true story of five friends, women who graduate in the same high school class in Winnetka, Illinois, an upscale Chicago suburb, in the late 1950s:  Annie, Margo, Barbie, Laura, and Brooke.  (No last names are given in this story; we don't even know the actual year they graduated).  The book covers their changing lives throughout the decades and examines them in light of the social upheaval of the 1960s and 70s, and the changing role of women.  Each chapter is split up between the five women as they live through different decades, from the 1950s through the 20th century, beginning and ending with a reunion of these lifelong friends.

I was particularly intrigued by this book because I love nonfiction (my entire TBR Pile Challenge list is nonfiction this year!) and because I lived for about ten years in Chicago and the suburbs.  I've been to Winnetka many times and actually know people who graduated from this very high school, New Trier. I also attended the same university as one of the women in the book, and I really hoped that this book would really connect with me.  

Unfortunately, it really didn't.  This book was published by a small independent publishing company, and it really showed.  I found the quality of the writing really lacking, with some serious errors in punctuation, and the style just felt amateurish.  (I should confess upfront that I am a person who becomes easily annoyed by the misuse of an apostrophe.) Maybe I'm especially nitpicky, but it really bugged me that the author (or editor) misused commas and italics repeatedly -- basic stuff that any middle school teacher would mark down.  I know my blog posts aren't always perfect, but I'm not asking anybody to pay to read my stuff. 

The story was also quite disjointed, with huge gaps in the narrative.   I think these women really did have interesting lives, and I'm quite sure I would have gotten more out of this book if it were better written.  I just couldn't get past the poor quality of the writing and editing.  It really seemed like a first draft to me.  It was only 240 pages, so it was a fast read, but I'm sure I would have liked it much better if it were longer and the women's histories were expanded.  

However, I won't be discouraged with the rest of my TBR Pile list; I've just started the next book on my list, and the first twelve pages of the prologue were infinitely better written than The Girls From Winnetka.  I've heard excellent things about nearly all of the other 11 books on the list, and the two alternates, so if nothing else I knocked the worst one off the list first.  

Nana by Emile Zola

Well, I didn't think it could happen, but it did.  Zola has disappointed me, in a very big way.  Nana is the twelfth book by Zola that I've completed, and the tenth in his epic Rougon-Macquart cycle, and this is the one I've liked the least, by far.  It's also the one that took me the longest.  Usually I zip through a Zola novel in a week, sometimes just a couple of days, but this one just dragged for me -- it was more than a month from start to finish, because I just couldn't get into it.

Nana is one of Zola's most famous novels, but for those who are not familiar, it's the eponymous story of a courtesan and sometime actress named Nana who becomes the most talked-about, scandalous woman in Paris.  She's kind of like a cross between Helen of Troy, Madonna and Kim Kardashian.  Men are obsessed by her, and she drives many of her lovers to financial ruin, or even worse.  Nana is an addiction, a succubus -- men are trapped by her spell, and will stop at nothing to satisfy her every whim.

Overall, I found this to be a really sordid, depressing tale.  I've read a dozen novels by Zola so far, and believe me, he is the master of writing about awful people in unpleasant situations.  However, I think this is the first book where I didn't care about a single one of the characters at all.  Usually there's someone whose story both repels and fascinates me enough to keep reading, but this book took me more than a month to finish, I was so disinterested.  Usually I'll finish a Zola book in a few days, normally not more than a week.  Nana just dragged on and on.  I hated everyone, and I thought they all deserved what was coming to them.  (I would have given up, but I kept hoping it would get better, so I finally plowed through it.)

I was also really disappointed by the writing.  Most of the time Zola writes really tight plotlines; this one seemed all over the place, lacking in focus. It started out in a theater, where a new production of a play is about to premiere.  Nana is described as not being able to act or sing, but somehow, her presence is so electrifying, people can't stop watching her.  Then the story shifts to Nana's sideline as a prostitute -- she's still turning tricks on the side, since she can't support herself as an actress.  There are subsequent chapters about Nana's love affair with a count, and how she essentially ruins his life.  The only chapter I actually liked is one where Nana and her entourage attend the races at Longchamps, which was very interesting and well-written (I've had a soft spot for horse racing ever since I read all the Dick Francis mysteries years ago.)  Finally, the last chapter was just wretched.

Another thing that really bothered me was an unpleasant sub-plot about Nana and her love affair with an abusive boyfriend.  It was really painful to read, and it just didn't seem to fit the character.  Even though she's vile, Nana is mostly a strong personality, strong enough to dominate men and bend them to her will, yet this horrible actor slaps her around and she seems to enjoy it.  I'm no expert on women in abusive relationships, but it just didn't make sense to me.  Plus, there are constant references to Nana's genitalia, and how she's using her sexuality to control men -- I just got tired of reading about it.  Zola has written some books that were very shocking for their time, but this one must have been the epitome of the racy French novel.  I got the feeling that Zola was writing some of it just for shock value.

I should really go and research more about the background of this book to get more of the metaphors.  (I usually go back and read the introduction until after I've finished a book, since I hate spoilers.)  I've heard this book is really a scathing satire about the decline of Paris during the time period, but I just don't care enough to find out.  If this were my first experience reading Zola, I don't think I'd ever read another one of his books again, ever.  I still own copies of three other Zola novels -- The Dream, The Debacle, and Money, and I'm really hoping that they're better than this one.

I am counting this as my Classic in Translation for the Back to the Classics Challenge.

The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen

Well, this book has been sitting on my TBR shelves for at least five years, and I finally started to read it about a month ago.  It took me a long time to get through it, and I was completely perplexed.  I just did not get this book at all.  

Here is the setup: set in 1930s London, sixteen-year-old Portia Quayne, who was recently orphaned, moves in with her much older half-brother Thomas and his wife Anna, who have no children.   Thomas' father left him and his mother when he was a teenager, after he'd had an affair with Portia's mother, who became pregnant.  The first Mrs. Quayne magnanimously decided it was better for everyone if Mr. Quayne divorced her and married his mistress, so that the unborn child would not be illegitimate.  Mr. Quayne, the second Mrs. Quayne, and Portia lived cheaply on the Continent, until Portia's parents died one after another and she was left with no one but Thomas.

Anyhow, now she's moved in with him and his wife, who are childless.  Thomas has an advertising agency, and a youngish friend of Anna's, Eddie, has gotten a job with Thomas' firm.  He's 23 but he starts hanging around Portia.  Basically, the story is about how Portia's innocence is lost.

It all sounds like it's going to be very sordid and scandalous, but basically, this is a book in which nothing happens.  My last book, Barnaby Rudge, was a book that was all plot and very little character development, and this one seemed like just the opposite -- it's all character's and dialogue, and very little action.  I kept waiting for something really shocking to happen, like the underage Portia having an affair with someone much older, but nothing like that happened.  The most shocking things are that Eddie is (gasp!) holding hands with another girl;  and . . . wait for it. . . Anna reads Portia's diary!!!!  Ye gods!!

Now, I know that this is a book that many people love.  Goodreads and the blogs are full of people who rave about it.  It has also been listed on Modern Library's Top 100 Books of the 20th Century, which is where I first heard of it.  It was not a difficult read, and I agree, some of the writing was very beautiful and insightful (I'll try to find a clever quotation to insert).  But most of the time I wanted to smack Portia and say Get over yourself!!!  There's a very brief mention of Mussolini at one point, and I wanted to scream at the characters, "Any day now, the Luftwaffe are going to start dropping bombs all over London.  Then you'll see what real problems are."  (Okay, that's unfair, since the book was published in 1938;  it's easy for me to make this judgement knowing what's about to happen since obviously Elizabeth Bowen couldn't.)

Of course, I had a relatively uneventful, boring childhood.  Nobody died, nobody had any affairs or divorces;  I don't have any illegitimate siblings anywhere, so maybe I have no right to complain.  Really, I didn't see why Anna and Thomas didn't just ship Portia off to boarding school.

And the ending just seemed very abrupt and unresolved.  Maybe I just need someone much less pragmatic to explain it all to me.  I don't feel like it was a complete waste of time, because parts of it were quite enjoyable.  I just don't see what the fuss is about.  If someone out there in the blogging universe is a huge fan, I apologize if I've offended you -- and please tell me if there's something obvious that I missed.

Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck

Since I run my library's book discussion group and I have all the power, I chose Tortilla Flat for our July read, because it's on my Classics Club list.  ( If nobody else suggests any titles, then I feel completely justified in being mercenary and picking books I want to read.) It's one of Steinbeck's early works, and it's fairly short, and we hadn't read any classics yet this year, so I thought it would be an interesting choice.  Plus, there were plenty of copies in the library catalog, so I thought it was perfect.

Well, maybe not.  We had a good turnout for the group, but I'm not sure the discussion went very well -- I think this was the most heated debate that I've ever seen in a book group!  Basically, one person hated them book and thought it was a complete waste of time.  The conversation ended up digressing into a debate about what people should or shouldn't read for pleasure.

But I'm digressing.  Here's the setup:  After World War I, a young slacker named Danny comes home to find that his grandfather has died and left him some property with two ramshackle houses in Tortilla Flat, an area in the hills around Monterey.  (Danny's no war hero; he spent the war breaking mules in Oklahoma.)  Danny moves into one house and lets his ne'er-do-well friends move into the other.  Told as series of vignettes, this is the story of Danny and his friends Pilon, Pablo, Jesus Maria, and Pirate, and how they spend their days basically drunk on red wine.  According to the introduction, it's loosely based on Arthurian legend; these guys are supposed to represent the Knights of the Round Table, but I didn't see much chivalrous behavior.  They drink and argue and spend most of their days trying to figure out how to get food and more wine without having to do any more work than is necessary.

Parts of it were pretty funny, but I didn't get particularly attached to any of the characters until about midway through the book.  In fact, it was pretty much the same story over and over until that point in the book.  I was wondering how I was going to get through it and it's only about 200 or so pages long, one of Steinbeck's shorter works.

Eventually there was one episode that actually got me invested in one of the characters, so I began to enjoy it more and even laughed out loud a few times.  Frankly, for me, a bunch of guys sitting around drinking just isn't that entertaining, and I didn't much see the point of the book.  A few years ago I read Cannery Row, not long after I discovered Steinbeck, and it seemed to have a similar premise, about the lives of ordinary people in California, but I found that one much more interesting and entertaining -- from what I remember, at least the characters did something -- there's one episode about some guys frog hunting for a scientist which is absolutely hilarious.  (Apparently it's some kind of war metaphor, but even if you don't get that part it's still funny).

I'm no literary expert, but I get the definite impression that Steinbeck is kind of uneven -- some of his stuff is great, like The Grapes of Wrath, and some if it is just meh.  I really like his travel writing, like Travels with Charley and A Russian Journal, but I'm really unimpressed with the shorter stuff so far.  I thought Of Mice and Men and The Pearl were both unbelievably depressing, and I couldn't even get through The Red Pony.  I'm probably the only person in America who got through high school without reading any of those.

Tortilla Flat was okay.  I suppose if I knew anything about Arthurian legend I would have gotten more out of it.  I'm just glad it wasn't any longer.  My oldest daughter was assigned East of Eden for her summer reading, so I'm reading it along with her, and already I can tell it's much better.

Anyone else a Steinbeck fan?  Who's read Tortilla Flat?  Is it really a mediocre Steinbeck or am I just missing the point of the book entirely?

A Dance with Dragons by George R. R. Martin

Seriously, George R. R. Martin????  I mean, seriously?????

That is what I want to say to the author.  After more than 1000 pages, if you count the appendix, I am getting kind of disgusted with this series.  I've been reading this book off and on more more than a month, and the payoff was basically zilch.  I love the world of Westeros and all the characters, but really, this was extremely time-consuming, confusing, and with very little payoff.

If you've read the books, you'll know some of what I'm talking about, and you don't want any spoilers.  If you haven't read the series, you probably haven't read this far anyway.  So, there's no point in much of a synopsis.  Suffice to say there are more adventures of the various denizens of Westeros, from multiple viewpoints, but not all of the characters.  If you are looking for resolution and answers, there are few, and we must keep waiting.

First, I have to say that of the five books in this series, this one took by far the longest for me to read.  As I mentioned in previous posts, I was also caught up in books for three different book groups, plus I'd been listening to a monster work by Dickens on audio simultaneously, so shame on me.  But this book just did not grab me and obsess me like the others, not even A Feast for Crows which isn't as good as the first three.  It took me more than a month, compared to less than a week each for each of the other books, and compared to the rest, A Dance with Dragons is kind of a slogfest.  Here are some of my problems with the book.

1.  Too many characters.  That's right, from the woman who loves Dickens and can juggle multiple plot lines and characters, this book has too damn many.  After four volumes and more than 3600 pages of this series already, with hundreds of characters, you'd think that GRRM would have created enough, right???  Wrong; so very, very wrong.  Each book is told from multiple viewpoints, and having mastered the major players in earlier books, GRRM has decided it's important to elevate a whole bunch of minor characters to leading character status, so the people who engaged and involved you earlier have essentially disappeared.  Instead of chapters focusing on eight or nine revolving characters, like the earlier books, this one has chapters featuring about sixteen!!!  Some of them get a lot of time, some, just a little.  Martin throws the reader a bone now and then with a short little chapter to keep you from throwing the book across the room, but I got hundreds of pages about minor characters about whom I don't give a tiny little rat's behind.  Why is he wasting my time with these people???

2.  Too much back story.  Not only does he constantly give us new characters, new travels, new adventures, there's tons and tons of back story and history and legends that I can't keep straight.  Sorry, George, I don't want to read about the legend of this goddess or this saint or the mythology of this new land.  I can hardly keep all these other people straight, and you want me to learn more?  It really seems like he's a little ADD.  Is he bored with all the important characters?  If you want to start a new series, fine, but please don't leave me hanging with all my favorite people.  At least don't pretend you're continuing the first series.

3.  Too many crazy names.  My biggest complaint about high fantasy in general is all the world building and all the new vocabulary.  At least most of the people in the original books had relatively easy names, like Jon and Robb and Arya and Eddard and Catelyn.  I can even manage Joffrey, Cersei, Tywin, Tyrion, Sansa, and Petyr.  Even the most exotic names, like Daenerys, Khal Drogo, and Jaqen H'gahr, fine.  But now we've moved into a whole new realm of weirdness with the land of Mireen and some really funky names that just tire me out.  Reznak, Hizdahr, and God help me, Yurkhaz zo Yunzak.  Yezzan zo Qaggaz!!  Seriously????  Is George Martin just trying to use up those high-scoring tiles in a A Game of Thrones Scrabble?  (He also loves names with apostrophes, which always irritates me.)  This book clocks in at more than 1000 pages, but fifty pages at the end are an appendix with names, so you can try and keep the characters straight.  Riiiiiiight.  Honestly, I think GRRM should have spent more time working on the story, and less time making up names for people.

4.  No map of the lands beyond Westeros.  The front and back end papers have a lovely and detailed map of Westeros with Kings Landing, Winterfell, the Wall, and the lands in between.  But half the story in the last two books (and parts of the other three) have taken place in other places -- Braavos, Mireen, Pentos, and on various sea voyages.  Don't you think it would be helpful to give us a map?  Where are these places, and how far away are they from Westeros?  Martin gives us 50 pages of character names, but no map?  Why not??

Anyway.  This book was a lot of work, and in the end, just a disappointment.  I admit I did know there are at least two more books on the horizon to finish the series, but basically, this book is 1000 pages long, and not much happens.  How is that possible?  I got sucked into this series a year ago after watching the excellent HBO adaptation of the first novel, and I've been saving this book for about six months.

Am I being too nitpicky?  Am I asking too much of the author -- but seriously, if the book is so complicated that I have to consult an online wiki while I'm reading it, then something is wrong here.  I love the characters and the land of Westeros, but I'm getting fed up.  And now I'll probably have to wait five years to find out what happens next.  If anything.

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski

I have very mixed feelings about this book.  Lately, I've been avoiding a lot of "literary fiction," e.g., book club books (except for my own book group's selections).  Somehow, if a book gets really hyped, I'm kinda turned off by it -- I have been so disappointed the past couple of years by books that Everyone Just Loved!  

I hope this doesn't mean I'm turning into some kind of literary snob. There have been some pleasant surprises -- for example, The Help, which I really liked.  On the other hand, there are quite a few that everyone else loved that I just hated, like Wicked, and The Memory Keeper's Daughter.  There's a long list, but I'll save it for another posting.

So, Edgar Sawtelle is the story of a youth, Edgar (obviously), growing up circa late 1960s - early 1970s, in rural Northern Wisconsin.  Edgar was born without the ability to speak, though he can hear perfectly well. He's very smart and learned sign language at a very early age.  He and his parents live on a farm where they raise very special dogs, which appear to be some sort of German Shepherd hybrid.  Most of the action in this book takes place when he's about 13, after his uncle Claude has reappeared and moved back to town and things get stirred up.

I hope it's not a major spoiler to mention that this book is a reworking of the Shakespeare play Hamlet. (highlight if you don't want to be surprised).  Someone at the book group last month mentioned this, but it's also all over the reviews and book jacket, so basically, the plot was pretty much spoiled for me -- I knew many of the major plot twists and how it was going to end.   Obviously, writers have been reusing plots over and over again.  And I don't know that I'm in a position to criticize, given that I've never even published a short story, much less a 576 page book like this one.  I just thought that this book would have been so much better if Wroblewski had come up with his own plot, which is the part I liked least.   I really liked most of the characters, the setting, and, as I am a dog lover, all the details about the dogs and their training.  I just hated the plot twists, and particularly, the ending, which seemed really rushed and action-packed compared to first several hundred pages, which moved much more leisurely.  I really wish I'd stopped reading at about page 500, since I basically knew Edgar's fate.

Also, there were a lot of unanswered questions in this book -- a lot of the middle deals with letters written back and forth between Edgar's father and grandfather and various dog-raising experts, which never seemed to mesh with the rest of the book.   Sometimes I need to be hit over the head with metaphor and symbolism, but I never figured out what the author was doing with all of this, which was annoying.

In general, I'm not overly impressed by authors who rework someone else's plot or characters.  Somehow it feels like cheating to me.  (Could be one reason I was not a fan of Wicked). I'm not saying I've never liked any book like this, it's just that they always seem to be few and far between.  Ahab's Wife by Sandra Jeter Naslund was excellent, and I've loved The Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, which is a 20th century prequel to Jane Eyre.  And the new horror mash-ups like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies just crack me up -- but I consider those more as a joke than anything else.  I just get tired of seeing yet another continuing story about one of Jane Austen's characters.

So -- I was mildly disappointed, but not so much that I wanted those hours of my life back, like when I read The Memory Keeper's Daughter or The Corrections.

Dead in the Family by Charlaine Harris

It is almost embarrassing to review this book.   Not what I'd call great literature, by a long shot.  I got sucked into reading the entire Sookie Stackhouse series last summer after I got hooked on watching True Blood (which I find infinitely superior to the books).  It's like a bag of potato chips -- I can't eat just one.

I give Charlaine Harris credit for writing a series that makes me want to read every book, no matter how ridiculous the plots and how annoying the characters have become. But the writing is honestly not good.  I think Harris believes that endless descriptions of Sookie's outfits and personal hygiene counts as good writing (I reeeallly don't need to know what nightshirt she's wearing today, or the fact that she shaved her legs.  Too. Much. Information!!)

And speaking of too much information, I think the books are just getting jammed with too many plots and too many characters.  Not every single character has to be in every single book.  Every subsequent book keeps adding plot and characters, and so much time is spent explaining backstory, that there's no time for the story to move forward.  It's the tenth in the series, and we already have vampires, werewolves, telepaths, shape-shifters, and now fairies;  also politics, wars between supernaturals, history, new babies, and Sookie's distant cousins that have come a-calling.  Seriously, how much can Harris cram into one 311-page volume?  I got through book 10 but afterward my head was spinning.  Each season of the TV series, which has already digressed significantly from the books, is broken up into several weeks, so it's somehow easier to digest.  Plus the writing is so much better, there's absolutely no comparison. [And Alexander Skarsgard, below.  Just sayin'].

I do realize this is a light fluffy read, and I shouldn't expect too much. I've already suspended disbelief with this story about vampires and other supernaturals who have come out of the closet, so to speak.  But the junk food analogy got me thinking:  this series is sort of like a a banana split at an all-you-can-eat ice cream buffet.  It started out nicely with some ice cream, fruit, syrup, and whipped cream.  But now there's waaaaay too much stuff on top -- there are so many sprinkles, gummi bears, chopped nuts, M&Ms, and cookie crumbles that I can't remember what's on the bottom.  It's just a huge gooey mishmash, and I forgot what the point was.  I'll probably keep reading the Sookie Stackhouse books, but I'll feel a little sick to my stomach afterwards.

The Man From Beijing by Henning Mankell

I will not mince words:  this book was a HUGE disappointment.  I was so excited when I finally got this from the library -- I'd been on the hold list forever.  And it was such a huge waste of time, I'm really annoyed.

But I should back up a bit -- is it just me, or are Scandinavian mysteries really hot right now?  I first started reading them a couple of years ago when a well-read library colleague recommended an Icelandic author, Arnaldur Indridason.  Icelandic -- who knew?  Well, turns out there are just a plethora of great mystery authors from Scandanavia, which sort of makes sense, as they have such long, dark, bleak winters.   Not much to do for several months except drink and contemplate horrific crimes, I suppose.   So, anyway, I read several from Indridason, which I loved, and I tried Stieg Larsson, who's very hot now because of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (though he is sadly dead and not writing any more); and then I found Henning Mankell, who was recently featured on a PBS Mystery! miniseries, Wallander starring the wonderful Kenneth Branagh. All very exciting.

But this book, not so much.  The title should have been a giveaway that this book would be different -- it does not feature Mankell's Detective Wallander.  No, this is a stand-alone novel, with a new sleuth who is actually an amatuer, a criminal court judge named Birgitta Roslin.  She finds herself involved in a horrific murder after nineteen bodies are discovered in a tiny remote village in the far north.  Though she's miles away in the big city, she realizes she's connected to the victims -- years ago, two of the victims were her mother's foster parents.  Intrigued and frightened, she begins to dig deeper and naturally finds out all kinds of stuff that the professional police miss, like the connection to the mysterious Man from Beijing, and possibly even his identity.

This book had some real potential, but after a few chapters it really went downhill.  After Birgitta discovers the connection (and shares it with the police, who naturally dismiss it as farfetched), there's a great flashback to the source of the Sweden/China connection, which goes back more than 100 years and is thousands of miles from either country.  But sadly, then for hundreds of pages the action jumps to characters in China (not a spoiler, folks, as it is The Man From Beijing) and there's a huge digression about what's going on with communism vs. capitalism in present-day China which goes on forever, and then the action shifts to Africa of all places, and there's a whole pan-global tirade about colonialism and capitalism and I think the book really lost focus.  It's as if Mankell had this great idea about a killer with an overdeveloped sense of vengeance, and while explaining the back story, he had another great idea for a novel about China and Africa, but decided to smash them both into one book. 

The protagonist Birgitta, who figures out the connection because of several fantastic coincidences, then turns into an idiot.  This woman, who has been a criminal court judge for years, does some really stupid things like telling complete strangers in various countries information about criminals she's investigating, trusting said strangers, not telling the police she's in danger. . . it goes on. Seriously, criminal court judges work with criminals -- you might learn a little something about the criminal mind!  I knew that just from watching Law & Order!  Plus, the horrific crime itself is barely explained -- there's all these loose ends that are never tied up.  I kept reading and hoping for some kind of explanation but all this stuff is just left out, like Mankell ran out of time. 

And now I'm really annoyed that I wasted half a weekend on this book.  I could have been doing something useful.  Like watching Law & Order.

Story Time by Edward Bloor

This is one weird book. Unfortunately, not weird in a good way.

This is not a book that had been recommended by anyone, or was on my to-read list, or even one I'd heard of. Lately, I've been trying to stick with my vast collection of unread books (which currently number more than 100), or books from one of my book groups, or even one of the hundreds on my Goodreads list. But this morning I was volunteering in the library and while I was shelving, Story Time just caught my eye in the Young Adult section (there's a funny little drawing of a demon on the cover). I thought I'd be spontaneous and started it right away. Sadly, it was not an undiscovered treasure, but a disappointment.

This book has a really interesting premise -- George, 11, and Kate, 13, have been accepted into the prestigious Whittaker Academy magnet school, which boasts that its students score highest on standardized tests than any other school in the country. George is eager to attend, since he doesn't fit in at the middle school -- he's smarter and smaller than everyone else in his grade. Kate is reluctant since she's a shoo-in for the lead in the school play, but agrees to go with him.

The school, which is in the basement of the an enormous historic city library, is sort of a cross between 1984 and Lemony Snicket's school from hell, The Austere Academy. In fact, I'd say this book was definitely influenced by The Series of Unfortunate Events -- the Whittaker family that administers the school are so horrible and surreal, they don't make sense, and there's no accountability by say, law enforcement or child protective services. But this book lacks the sly wit and clever wordplay of the Snicket series, and Kate and George aren't as endearing as the tragically funny Baudelaire siblings.

The book is labeled as a satirical, comedic look at the education and the growing emphasis on standardized test scoring, as the students at Whittaker aren't taught to learn or think, just to do well on the test. But this part of the story is quickly bypassed in favor of a plot development in which volumes of the rare book collection are harboring mischievous and murderous demons. Things continue to get weirder and more confusing as Kate and George explore rumors of mysterious deaths in the library. Then there are even more confusing and undeveloped plot elements, such as Kate's missing father, her agoraphobic mother, a librarian who speaks only in nursery rhymes, and a military death-ray. The whole thing gets wrapped up, sort of, during a disastrous visit from the First Lady.

I didn't find this book particularly amusing -- most of the characters are really nasty and mean-spirited, the subplots are too undeveloped, like the demons/ghosts -- and there were some violent and grotesque deaths. I found it just confusing, unsatisfying and oddly unsettling. There's just too much stuff packed into this story, and none of it is resolved very well. It's more than 400 pages, and it's not a difficult read, but I feel like I've wasted my time. bviously, there's a reason I hadn't heard of this book. Next time I'll disregard the clever artwork and stick with my to-read list.