Nothing has ever made me wish for a canine companion quite this much.

Dog on It by Spencer Quinn


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
"Love it. Is this the life or what? I ask you?"

The plot is a fairly straightforward PI missing persons case. The twist is that it is told to us throught the POV of Chet, the best K-9 trained (though not certified) partner Bernie could ever want. Chet and Bernie go through a lot together, but they are the most steadfast of partners. While the plot is standard fair and relies a bit much on pure luck, the unfolding through the eyes of a dog (especially a dog who knows things that the humans around him don't) is refreshing. Also refreshing is Chet's exhuberance, his earnestness, his ability to forgive and forget, his love of "his guys" the "nation within a nation" of dogs. I don't know how well this will work as a series, but I really enjoyed this on audiobook and suggest it to anyone who loves mystery/crime fiction and/or dogs.

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Capital R, please.

I've been reading and discussing "The Rule" a lot lately it seems. Otherwise known as the Bechdel Test or the Bechdel/Wallace test, Wikipedia gives the following criteria for The Rule:

1.It has to have at least two women in it,
2.Who talk to each other,
3.About something besides a man.


The "it" in the original The Rule was for movies, but this criteria has been expanded to include any sort of media. I don't apply it to everything I consume, the last book I discussed on this blog would have failed miserably. But I think there is one genre of book that should have this Rule at the forefront of the reader's mind. Romance. I know that the main relationship in a traditional Romance is between the male and female protags, and that is fine. But, I've noticed if The Rule isn't followed than I find myself unable to suspend my disbelief. Romance, to me, without women's relationships with other women is weak and underdeveloped, and I wonder in what world do these characters live where the only thing women have to talk about is men? Women's lives, and therefore Women's fiction, includes many daily interactions with people, men and women, in which their lovelife is not discussed at all. Real, rounded characters, think about things other than their current romantic partner/situation. So, it is essential in Romance, to have full complete characters who have conversations (even offstage conversations) about something other than their relationship. I think from now on when I review or discuss Romance I will mention whether or not the book followed The Rule.


Another thing about Romance that I've noticed in my own reading is that if a story starts out from the male protag's pov and doesn't switch within the first chapter or two into the female protag's pov, I get bored and give up. I tried to read "Marriage Most Scandalous" by Johanna Lindsey both on audio and in they traditional mass market paperback form. It took me a while to figure out why, even though I like the writing, I couldn't get past the first few chapters. I thought back on other Romances that I wanted to read but couldn't get into, and the common thread is that I'm following the adventures of the man for ages and ages and what he's doing may or may not even be related to the actual story. And, I have absolutely no idea who the female protag is even going to be. She's the one I'm going to identify with, so why am I going to care what this random dude is doing...UNTIL HE MEETS THE LADY. So Romance authors, you get 2 chapters max to switch to the lady's pov or I'm probably out of there. Oh, and let her be a normal human having normal non-relationship-based conversations. Him too actually. I'd be equally creeped out if all the dudely protag could think about was lady protag.

So, I've been reading a lot of great Romance lately, particularly historicals by Julia Quinn, and they all pass Bechdel's test and my own. I don't even think it is all that hard to do, and most great Romance (IMHO and to be fair, I mostly like historical and contemporary so maybe this won't work for thrillers or all Romance subgenres) is just written that way.

The book just whizzed by so fast I couldn't blink, so I wrote a short review.

I'm not even brave enough to illegally download music. My major in undergrad was criminal justice (and anthropology)...Crime and the people who commit it and the people who try to stop it all fascinate me. This book enthralled me completely.

Beat the Reaper: A Novel by Josh Bazell


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Peter is a doctor. He's also a former mob-hitman turned informant who is having one hell of a bad day.

When reviews say that something is a fast-paced thrill ride, they should use this book as a platonic ideal. So gruesome it is hard to read in parts, but mostly filled with brilliant action and dialogue and a story that races from past to present moment at breakneck speed.


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Home Safe

Sometimes the perfect book hits at the perfect time. I read Home Safe the day after a trip to The San Fransisco Bay Area. Since the book involves that area and Chicago the conflict between those areas for the main character were palpable. And, because I'm struggling with writing group problems, parts of it felt like a message to me: not only to keep on writing, but also not to give up on the idea of a functional and healthy writing group. It was the perfect book for that particular day. But it is also one of the rare BOOKS I RECOMMEND TO MY MOM. Not because the mother daughter issues in the book reflect ours, but because I think she'll also feel like she and Helen and Tessa are just friends you haven't seen in a while.

Home Safe: A Novel by Elizabeth Berg


My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Helen, a successful writer, lost her husband, and after a year of emptiness and blank pages. She's turning all the energy she used to spend on writing and hr life towards interfering in her daughter, Tessa's, life instead. Then she finds out her husband was keeping a very big secret which involved removing most of their life savings. Reading this book is like having a long conversation about everything with an old friend you haven't talked to in a while. Helen and Tessa and their muddled relationship jump from the page. Since Helen can't write and is suddenly in more dire financial straits than she was prepared for she takes on teaching a writing class, and the class finally draws her out of herself.This book is one to suggest to most every mother, daughter, grandmother, or person who has ever lost anyone ever. Red Flags: The book groups are unrealistic and not as well drawn as they could be. Since it is a book about a writer other writers may find this jarring. If you don't like tidy endings you may not like this book.

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Magical and redemptive

Hoping for blogdemption:
I've fallen off the review wagon. These things happen. The holidays come around, the Law and Order marathons add up, you start actually planning that whole wedding thing, and suddenly you've read 20 books and haven't reviewed a single one of them. If by you I mean me, anyway. This makes writing a blog entry doubly hard because if I don't review books what exactly is this blog here to do? Ideally I'd have found a niche by now. Probably said niche can be found in same place I keep thinking I'm headed before I get distracted by other things and shy of public forums: awkwardness+customer oriented community-based vocation. That is to say: Awkward Librarianism. Again.


So here is an awkward transition to a discussion about pop culture featuring a quote from Sherman Alexie.


This brings me to Magical?

So Paul was certainly not addicted to the present day. on the contrary, Paul believed that the present, past, and future were all happening simultaneously, and that any era's pop culture was his pop culture. And sure, pop culture could be crass and manipulative, and sometimes evil, but it could also be magical and redemptive.

From "The Ballad of Paul Nonetheless" in "War Dances" by Sherman Alexie.



Maybe it is the anthropologist in me, but do you know what I love to imagine? I love to imagine people reading popular contemporary authors being read in classrooms and lecture halls and analyzed as "classics." I think that the Nicholas Sparks and Nora Roberts, as fun and palatable as they are, will not endure to that point. However, I like to think the Nick Hornbys, Sherman Alexies, and Audrey Niffeneggers (well, at least TTW) might just make it to that point.

The truth is, of course, I have no idea what piece of our pop culture will become a piece of future pop culture. It could be someone as yet undiscovered who is discovered to have written amazing pieces about now 10 years after they die. It could be that not a single title published in the past ten years is ever discussed by anyone 100 years from now. The zombiepocalypse may have happened and their may be no one left to discuss much of anything. Or maybe everyone will be reading Harry Potter and Twilight 500 years from now and making vast sweeping generalizations about everyone who was around at the end of the last millennium or the beginning of this one based on Hogwart's Sorting Cap and Bella Swan's insatiable use of adverbs.

But really, this is all just my awkward way of saying that I really liked the collection of short stories in War Dances. I like Sherman Alexie and I hope that his works endure and become part of the pop culture of the ages. Because, his books and stories don't just give me an escape for a few moments, but instead leaving me twisting with the ideas behind them and the characters and situations in them.

Whew, tied it all together there in the end, I hope.

Awkward* Reading in Twenty Ten

More of this.

• Nonfiction.


• Graphic Novels.


• High Fantasy.


• Bestsellers and book club choices.


• Essays, articles, books, blogs on writing by writers.


• Audiobooks. This is one area of my own RA and everyone else's where I have trouble. I know what I like when I hear it but very often it takes a special book to draw me in and keep me listening and that is hard to find.

Less of this.

• Superhero stories, until someone does something that really surprises me like "Hero" by Perry Moore did.


• Comfortable fluffy reads (for emergency use only.)


• Bizarrely addictive blogs where people laud appalling behavior. (I think you know what I mean.)


• TV. Seriously way too much of my reading time goes to the evil USA and TBS crime drama marathon monster.


• Blogs about publishing. Why do I obsess about how to write a query letter when I haven't even written anything worth inquiring about?

*The reading itself isn't awkward, but as usual, I am.

A bunch of stuff that isn't as interesting as whatever you are doing NYE.

I don't want to write you a run-down of the books I've read or how well I did in the Year of Dangeresque reading. Mostly because over the course of reading a lot of things I considered dangerous I managed to throw myself into depression. I will say I did read a lot of great stuff this year (Demon's Lexicon and The Sharing Knife being just two standouts), and I read a lot of stuff that I couldn't finish. So I'll leave out all the end of the year round up stuff and move on to other obligatory NYE post: "goals for next year."



So these are the things I think are worth doing in the Twenty-Ten:

• Working hard on revision and with the critiques for my critique groups.


• Write something everyday. Don't watch all the episodes in a Bones marathon instead, I've probably seen them all even if I don't remember. Reading is good and necessary but don't forget about the writing too. That includes this blog. 1 post a week isn't asking too much now is it?


• Remember the positive, in my critiques and in my life and groups. So many of us (Librarians) get down and out when the people we are trying to help are rude or snappish or don't understand that we have policies and procedures in place and can't just "x,y,z" for them. Some much of our critiquing energy is taken up with what we think the other writers are doing wrong (which is of course constructive, but also depressing.) So more positivity, yes. Hopefully this will cut down on some of the frustrations that any customer-service type job will have.


• I'm pretty good at guessing what patrons are getting at when they ask a question that is not really what they want to know. People don't like to come out and say what it is that they need or want and reference is often a cat and mouse game. Just because I'm "pretty good" at guessing what people mean when they ask a question doesn't mean that I should make assumptions that I know what they want. Make sure I take I know which thing the patron means before I try to answer their question.


• Take more pictures.


• Generally and overall, be healthier.

2009 has been one of the best years of my life. As I write this, my fiance is making dinner before he goes into work tonight. Unfortunately, he won't be here at midnight, and I'll be making pouring myself some sparkling grape juice and kissing the cats to ring in the new year. I don't really mind because I'll be sending out 2009 in the same way I've lived most of it: calmly and with a book in hand.