Ian Rankin, new book, Exit Music
Ian Rankin is absolutely one of my favorite authors. I’ve checked out Exit Music, from the library, so don’t tell me anything until I’ve had time to read it. Rebus is always down and out, in dark crime ridden Edinburgh. I read on the dust jacket that this is the swansong for our Inspector. It looks like it’s true. “Say it ain’t so Joe [Ian].” Its been a long ride from Knots and Crosses to this 17th novel. 
It makes me want to go back and start from the beginning. I’ve never read his Jack Harvey novels, I’ve got to get those. He writes in his newsletter that he will have a new novel out in June 2009 and a graphic novel ‘Dark Entries’, which now has a publication date of September 09. We’ll have to see what Sadie at “Extremely Graphic Blog” has to say when it’s out.
Jim Lehrer, faux Okie
Finished Jim Leherer’s Mack to the Rescue, you know Jim Leherer
from his PBS television show, Newshour. What you probably don’t know is he seems to be able to hide out unobserved in the halls of Oklahoma’s state capitol, amid our politicians, observing their foibles and antics and report back to us through his hilariously funny political satire using 
One-Eyed Mack, Oklahoma’s fictional second in command to get his point across.
When the Governor “Buffalo Joe” Hayman calls for unilateral privatizing of state government, as he puts it on Sooner Sam Screams at Noon, Oklahoma’s primiere talk show, the notion of taking “government out of government” doesn’t set too well with One-Eyed Mack, our second in command, Lieutenant Governor. Mishaps occur to our poor Lt. Gov. and an unexpected and accidental, not to mention completely wrong, heart bypass surgery lays him low, before he can run against “Buffalo Joe” and counter his crazy ideas.
There’s an interesting commentary on tort reform, using his law suit against the hospital who did Mack wrong, also commentary on the salacious and destructive use of slander in political campaigning. Lehrer makes us think, and for us folks in Oklahoma, he gives us plenty to think about. If Lehrer isn’t an Okie, he’s the next best thing.
This is the eighth One-Eyed Mack book, you’ve also got to read Sooner Spy and Crown Oklahoma.
Couple of things, Angels & Demons movie coming out, Dr. Feaver
Day after Christmas, the morning news is all abuzz with the new tech toys eveyone received as presents. The one that caught my ear was one newsperson complaining about how to get her Kindle up and running. I felt quite superior since I had no trouble getting my book opened this morning. The joy of being a Luddite.
Also much ado about the new Angels & Demons movie starring Tom Hanks, with Ron Howard directing.
Angels & Demons was written before the DaVinci Code. If you haven’t read it yet, go back and get the introduction to the fictional professor, Robert Langdon. It looks like the movie won’t be out until May 2009, so you’ve got plenty of time.
I’ve been thinking about where I could use some improvement for the coming year. Notice, I’m not about to call it resolutions, that would be asking for failure. And I remembered an old college philosophy professor who I greatly respected, Dr. J. Clayton Feaver. Unfortunately I only had one short course under him. We went to his house one day, and I remember gathering around him and hanging on each word, a Plato delivering lectures to dull headed Aristotles. He was my first introduction to people like Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. But the one thing I was particularly taken with and still remember all these years later, was when he said we should read at least one book a day, anyone can ingest a 200 to 300 page book in a day. At the time it seems like some sort of impossibility, and I wonder at all the words he read and wished to be able to do the same, still do.
So if I could accomplish one feat for the coming year it would be to read more, maybe a book a day, and remember kind interesting people that inspire and attempt to make us better.
Dean Koontz’s Odd Thomas
I never thought I would read Dean Koontz, I’ve always been a little afraid of “horror books”, even though he is such a great speaker and kind autographer at major library events; like ALA (American Library Association) conference. So I surprised myself by picking up Odd Thomas. What a great choice, now I feel I’ve missed so much from this very talented writer. Mr. Koontz’s avatar speaks to you from his website. As I’ve said before I don’t really care for whirligigs and flash on websites, but I think this one works. It’s just pleasant and strangely welcoming. He has a video on the Barnes & Noble website talking directly to his fans, he seems to actually enjoy fans, answering questions and of course promoting a new book.
Well anyway, Odd Thomas, has all the big social issues, battles of good vs. evil in the insanity of our world, but it also includes very intimate issues of love, companionship, loyalty, and the true nature of family. Koontz has the ability to question or strengthen our ”moral compass”, while turning out a really good tale, complete with unexpected events, good plot, and great characters and best of all making it a series.
Odd Thomas has a facebook page , a myspace page, a graphic novel, and a podcast. There’s definitely an appeal to a younger audience.
However, I think it’s all pretty cool and am now a fan.
The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry
Back to the Lace Reader, Brunonia Barry certainly knows how to evoke setting, Salem comes alive, today and Salem of the witch hunts. Women and needlework, the telling of our stories, lacemaking comes front and center in the lives, secrets and betrayals of this New England family and those whom they touch.
In a library book I picked up, Lace: The Elegant Veil by Janine Montupet and Ghislaine Schoeller, it states the first American lacemaking center was located in Ipswich, Massachusetts, a town founded by colonists in 1634. These colonists came from places in England, where bobbin lace was made and so brought their craft to America. Needlework was the bridge between the past and the new future. The ladies on Yellow Dog Island, use the lace to remake their lives, to forget the past and accept a new future.
The Lace Reader is a wild mix of a story; mystery, historical, fortune-telling by lace, romance, abuse, religious zealots, family secrets and recovery. Narrative changes tense and people with frequency. The end sweeps the reader along like the tide, pulling and pushing the reader with it.
Occasionally its seems too much, like everything has to be included or lost, it does have plenty of surprises along the way but like gazing through the lace some characters lose definition. However I think it’s worth the read, and would recommend picking it up, and I would certainly read the next one, since Barry intends to make this a trilogy.
Day off from work and watching The Jane Austen Book Club
I watched the Jane Austen Book Club this afternoon, movie about books and romance, what more could you want. I think I’m more of the Ursula K. Le Guin girl than Jane Austen, but both could work. I’ve got to re-read Left Hand of Darkness. Somewhere in this house is a copy of Voices, that I haven’t read. And I need to read the Jane Austen Book Club by Fowler.
