Dragon

I've made it back from my TDY to Washington DC and if the success of the trip was judged by reading time, then it was quite successful.  Any other standard used would equate to a waste of time.  I found time to read two and a half books in just five days though so I'm happy.  I even had to buy an extra one at the airport due to a weather divert to St Louis, giving me even more time to read.

Dragon sounds like a fantasy novel of some kind or perhaps a documentary if you're a believer like I am.  However, this one refers to the ninth book in Mr Cussler's Dirk Pitt series.  I've read about six of these books now and it seems I've discovered a pattern.  The very early ones are a bit dry and then they get more and more fun to read, even if more and more improbable.  This one's main premise is that back near the end of WWII, a third aircraft was on its way to drop another atomic bomb on Japan but crashed in the sea short of its target.  The bomb remains intact through all these years until it becomes a handy plot device for Dirk Pitt and company. 

The novel is a bit dated, having been written back in 1990 when there was some concern over Japan's financial investments in the US, especially the many real estate aquisitions.  Several Japanese bad guys have a plan to smuggle nukes in to the US and use them to blackmail the president.  Just how they do that and what they plan to accomplish is where the improbable part comes in.  Add to that the author's approach to adventure writing (through a little of everything in there) and you have a fun novel to read as long as you can tolerate the ridculous nature of what's happening.  I mean, we have an underground discovery of stolen Nazi art, a human-hunting-human scenario, an undersea science base destroyed, two undersea rescues, an army of robots, and a host of other action-oriented events, many of them not really related to the others.  Mr Cussler even inserts himself in the story in a cameo role akin to Alfred Hitchcock in a scene depicting a classic automobile race.  It's a bit like watching a combination James Bond/Indiana Jones movie...so many over-the-top impossible scenes that there is no doubt that the hero can do absolutely anything and will survive yet again.  There is quite a bit of Japan bashing in here, I must say, but it's targeted at the more extreme elements who want to keep their culture "pure", unlike the melting pot of the US.

I still have four more Dirk Pitt novels on my shelf to read, (I picked them all up at a garage sale for a quarter each so figured I couldn't go wrong).  I've been avoiding them for the past couple of years, not really sure why but now I remember their nature and so when I'm in the mood for a good ol' never-ending action-oriented adventure story, I'll pick up another.

"The Red King" is the latest short story I read, once again in Jeffrey Archer's Cat O'Nine Tales collection.  This time Mr Archer tells the tale of a thief who got arrested and tried for the wrong crime, even though he deserved the jail time just the same.  This one is a complicated story of the theft of a chess piece, the Red King, in a particularly rare chess set.  Just how the caper plays out has many twists and turns and connecting the dots of the plot requires the reader's full and careful attention.  If you can stick with it, it's worth it in the end but that very thing marks this entry down one notch as compared to the other stories so far.

In a couple of days I'll write about the second book I completed on my trip, The Way of Shadows by Brent Weeks.

Among the Gently Mad

The full name of this book is Among the Gently Mad: Strategies and Perspectives for the Book Hunter in the 21st Century.  I read this one for my morning reading program, where I read a book every workday morning for about 20-30 minutes before I drive to work.  These usually tend to be non-fiction as it's easier to read those in little doses without losing  the thread of a plot line or character motivation, etc.  This book, by Nicholas Basbanes is a sort of follow-up to his lengthy but amazing 1999 book, A Gentle Madness, where he goes through the history of bibliofilia and provides numerous examples of book collectors throughout history. 

This time, the book is much shorter but no less interesting as Mr Basbanes focuses a bit more on how to collect books, emphasizing that book collecting is not just about finding and collecting rare and valuable books but also about accumulating that which interests any particular collector.  In other words, for every book afficianado out there that is looking for a quality first edition of Catcher in the Rye there is also a collector of pop-up children's books through history or a collector of all books with the name "Billy" in the title.  He sprinkles numerous anecdotes about the collectors themselves, many of whom he had interviewed for the first book and also offers lots of tips for how to go about starting a collection of your own.  He examines book fairs, auctions, catalogues, etc. and also provides a thorough discussion on the pros and cons of the impact of the internet on modern book collecting.

Just as when I read the first book, I found myself wondering if I am a book collector at all.  I am first and foremost a book reader and consequently I tend to accumulate lots of books but I can't say I've ever searched for a book based on its monetary value and I probably never will.  It would be fun to do so, especially for some area I really like, perhaps the early pulp fiction era, but I suspect I'm too frugal to spend the kind of money I would need to do so.  I certainly don't mind if others choose to collect books that they have no intention of reading but that's just not me.  After I read a particular book, I do tend to cherish it and I love looking at my book shelves, reminiscing about the memories.  I suppose I could categorize myself as a collector of "books I like to read" but that seems rather silly, even though I own and catalog over 7,000 books in my house. (Yes, I fit the description of a "gently mad" person).  I think it's pretty good that I only have ~300 still unread although I can't seem to get that number much lower.

Anyway, I very much enjoy Mr Basbanes' books; they leave me with a deep sense of satisfaction and I always love books about books or book people.  He has more published so I hope to add them to my "collection" one day.

The Steps Up the Chimney

I'm certainly no expert on young adult novels.  I read several each year largely because my children have read them and talk about them and so I get interested in them.  I've also played with the idea of trying to write one some day and therefore ought to read them.  And, I will say, that I keep reading them because I flat out enjoy them.  But while reading The Steps Up the Chimney by William Corlett I began to ponder just what makes a novel a "young adult" novel.  It's not that they're simplified for a less sophisticated audience (at least they shouldn't be and I don't think the better ones are).  The main characters are usually young people and perhaps that is the only criteria.  I suppose they should have a "PG" type rating, not "R" but is that the only criteria?

Anyway, I enjoyed this book pretty well.  It's the first of a four part series revolving around the adventures of three siblings, ages 7-12, who are staying with their Uncle and his girlfriend (who's pregnant).  Their house is in the rural English countryside and is intriguing in a mysterious sort of way, with secret staircases, a secret room, and a magician.  The children find they can inhabit the bodies of various animals around the house, able to run with a fox or see through the eyes of an owl, etc.  There is adventure, mystery, and fantasy as well as some frightening situations.  I felt the plot was well thought out and executed but I did have an issue with the way the children simply accepted the fantasy elements with very little question.  For example, when the kids first meet the magician they take him at his word and simply believe he can perform magical acts.  I would think there should have been more of a "prove it to me" attitude.  They are children so may be a tad more accepting than a jaded adult but not quite that much.  As a reader, I can easily overlook that problem though and I do look forward to the rest of the series.  The author has won quite a few writing awards and not all for young adult literature so I should be able to learn from him.

During my lunch break (way too short today I must add; maybe I should be glad I get to take one at all), I completed the next short story in the Jeffrey Archer collection, Cat O'Nine Tales.  "Is it October Already?" is another cute story but this time is written in a more tradtional mode than the previous entries; i.e. like most published fiction with dialogue, etc.  It's about a rather simple-minded fellow in London who each October finds a way to break the law so that he can be sentenced to 6 months in jail.  This keeps him in a warm place with food and shelter during the cold winter months.  Each October he does it again and if he only gets sentenced to 3 months he either aggravates the judge and thereby gets more or else he commits some minor infraction in jail to get his sentence lengthened.  This is a true story as told to the author, who was his cell mate briefly, and is a fine example of "you couldn't make this stuff up."

I'll be going TDY to Washinton DC next week so I'll take a couple of books with me including my next read: Dragon by Clive Cussler.