Powerful book, To Honor the Dead
I finished the very powerful 185 page book by Joseph W. Shaw, To Honor the Dead. Beautifully written, tension building in each page of this homecoming, redemptive novel of small town friendships and prejudices. Having family from western Oklahoma, the descriptions of place were particularly accurate and poignant, pointing out what has been lost in small town America and what never changes.
I was surprised how good this novel is. Colter Wayne Tyree accidentally ends up back in the place he has left many years ago. Still carrying all the baggage of the past he finds old friends; new and old enemies. How he handles his ghosts and redeems himself is quite a tale. I can certainly relate to Colter’s examination of a life less lived, or at least one that cannot live up to youthful expectations or self examination. I suspect we all have some sort of homecoming whether we ever leave home or not.
Oliver Wendall Holmes Lonewolf, Cheyenne Vietnam Veteran, Coyote, and catalyst for many of the events is indispensible to the telling. Shaw uses the sad stories of lingering prejudices toward Native Americans, the difference between rich and poor; women as second class and the ignoring of evil in our midst to develop a truly stunning first novel.
Joseph Shaw was born and grew up in Western Oklahoma. He does us proud.
Since I don’t want to spoil the book for anyone, I do have an issue with the ending, so if anyone wants to comment on what they thought, go ahead, I’d like to hear what you have to say.
A Christmas Carol, or it’s okay to be sappy
Every year around Christmas, I go back and read the Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, usually followed by several versions of it in movies. I know what could be more sappy but we all have a Christmas idiosyncrasy, mine just involves Scrooge. Sample this wikipedia entry to get the spirit:
“Contemporaries noted that the story’s popularity played a critical role in redefining the importance of Christmas and the major sentiments associated with the holiday. A Christmas Carol was written during a time of decline in the old Christmas traditions.[4] “If Christmas, with its ancient and hospitable customs, its social and charitable observances, were in danger of decay, this is the book that would give them a new lease”, said English poet Thomas Hood.[5"]]
This year I think I could use a new lease more than ever so enjoy.
Warren Ellis, Sex, Politics and a Love Story?
Just finished Warren Ellis’ Crooked Little Vein. Perverted sex, perverted politics, perverted perverts, there’s a lot of perversion in one tiny book. And running right through is the “boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl” story line, even if boy is an aging private detective with dubious skills and Trix, his side kick assistant, working on her thesis of weird sex practices. 
Some of the story is just plain gross and creepy, but the end of the story rescued it for me. The politics of manipulation of values by the political powers is still intriguing. The hunt for the old book containing the real “design of American society, and twenty-three Invisible Amendments”, the other Constitution, lays the groundwork for the adventure of Mike McGill and Trix. Information delivered by one scary presidential chief of staff and “men in black.” Along the journey are memorable characters, some disturbingly so but Zack Pickles, purveyor of porn, and honest news is my favorite.
Warren Ellis, best known for his graphic novels, Transmetropolitan, Planetary, Fell and Ministry of Space, which I feel I now must try, has given us a view of “mainstream” America that we would rather not know about, insanely corrupt government, which we do know about and a surprisely sweet love story.
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.
The Lace Reader, not for laundry day
The Lace Reader is definitely not a laundry day book, now I have a dryer full of wrinkled clothes and the washing machine needs to do another rinse cycle. It is definitely very good. Pick up a copy and when I’m done we can talk. Here’s the website, http://www.lacereader.com/ (I’m not much for book websites with whirligigs and flash players run wild, but the book is worth checking out.)
Oklahoma’s Arthur Conan Doyle, Will Thomas
Some may be surprised we have our own Arthur Conan Doyle, right here in Tulsa, Oklahoma, writing about a very authentic feeling Victorian England, covering the adventures of Cyrus Barker, enquiry agent and his assistant Thomas Llewelyn. While reminiscent of Holmes and our dear Dr. Watson, Will Thomas’ stories are able to stand on their own. I found a great site for reviews of his five novels, Heretical Ideas does a marvelous job of describing all five.
Will Thomas just happened to win the Oklahoma Book Award in the Fiction category in 2005 for Some Danger Involved.
Do they know what they’re doing or what. I think the first one is a must, getting your bearings with the characters, and atmosphere.
What I really like about the series is the handling of historical, ethnic and cultural issues, while serving up a good mystery.
Some Danger Involved, looks at anti-semitism in Victorian England; To Kingdom Come, Irish terrorists; The Limehouse Text, Chinese immigrants and culture in London; The Hellfire Conspiracy, child kidnapping, serial killings, and the Hellfire Club amid socio-economic minefields; and finally the Sicilian mafia, and the introduction of organized crime to the streets and docks of London, in The Black Hand.
This new one is out there now, start reading, but I think you will want to go back and pick up the others. I’m almost finished with my fifth.
Reading, T.G. & Y. and Romance
I believe in reading, not just the truly important works, or the socially significant ones, just the action of reading. So as I write in this blog sometimes you will just get titles or authors I’ve just picked up and read. My grandmother used to read westerns, I mean boxes of westerns, she and the next door neighbor ( a long distance truck driver) would swap them by the boxes full. So whenever I would go down to the T.G. & Y. (an earlier Oklahoma Walmart type store, where I spent a great deal of my childhood), 
Gran would say get me a few. While I was there I usually picked up some comics for myself as well, or a paperback or two. And so I just read, it’s hereditary and learned behavior. Not every book I mention will you want to read, some I’ll really go on about, some mention in passing.
Just read and the good will come to the top, the bad will be easily forgotten and you’ll enjoy yourself along the way.
P.S. Just finished a Jane Ann Krentz, romance lovers you can’t go wrong with her books. AKA Amanda Quick and Jayne Castle.
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.
Julius House, not Sookie, by Charlaine Harris
Saturday or Sunday is usually laundry day, so I think that calls for a Doing Laundry Books category. Of course it has to be a book you can put down and pick up again, nothing too intense so you can stop and move clothes from the washer into the dryer, nothing too unputdownable so the dryer clothes don’t remain there to become hopelessly wrinkled. This week it was a Charlaine Harris (of Sookie Stackhouse fame) book, The Julius House.
It is book four of her Aurora “Roe” Teagarden series. I know I read Three Bedrooms, One Corpse,
but it’s been awhile, I think that’s where she met her to-be-husband, wedded to him now in Julius House, it’s not entirely marital bliss.
“Well, if you really want to know—she asked me if it was really true that you were marrying a Yankee. I said, ‘Well, Miss Neecy, he is from Ohio.’ And she said, ‘Poor Aida. I know you’re worried. But there are some nice ones. Aurora will be all right, honey.’ ” p.72.
This was written before her southern vampire series, so sex is just alluded to and no gorgeous vampires appear. But it is what I think of as a southern cozy, which works for laundry day.
Chick-lit can also work but that can wait for another day.
I like the introduction of Angel and Shelby Youngblood. The mystery is all about a missing family, and what we know or don’t know about each other in any relationship.
I think Harris was developing her voice in these early titles and they are a bit uneven. She is certainly better now. But hey, it’s Laundry day.
