The Dead and the Gone by Susan Beth Pfeffer
Boston : Graphia/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008.
1st U.S. ed.
321 p. ; 18 cm.
Pfeffer wrote this book as a parallel novel to her Life as We Knew It (see post below). The former takes place in rural Pennsylvania, while this one follows the same global catastrophe in New York City. This one is a bit grittier: main characters die, parents disappear, and there are bodies aplenty - yet the story is really very similar. I would recommend either one, but not necessarily both unless the patron reading one was hugely engaged with it.
Reading this one, I did think about City of Thieves by David Benioff as a far more realistic story of how a city starves to death (re. Leningrad during WWII), and a title to recommend to a mature reader who liked The Dead and the Gone and was interested.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Moonstruck
Life as We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer
Orlando, Fla. : Harcourt, c2006,
1st ed. 337 p. ; 22 cm.
After an implausible start - the moon getting kicked into a dramatically lower orbit by rather unspectacular asteroid impact - this book becomes a very satisfying catastrophe-survival novel. The moon's new orbit creates apocalyptic changes on earth - monster tsunamis, extreme volcanism, earthquakes, climate change, and the general collapse of civilization as we know it.
The story is told in journal entries - also a bit unrealistic due to the level of detail and quoted dialogue - that work well to push the narrative forward chronologically and reveal the thoughts and feelings of the protagonist, Miranda, 16. She and her family in rural Pennsylvania try to survive on the food, water and wood supplies that they have stocked up on while losing electricity, and dealing with a harsh, extended winter brought about by volcanic cooling of the atmosphere.
The novel resonates with the current zeitgeist of unease regarding energy woes, climate disaster, and the way in which disaster can reduce our advanced civilization to a primitive state in short order. Parts of the novel were surprisingly moving - as we follow Miranda and her Mom, college age brother and little brother fight the challenges and each other as they struggle for survival.
There's lots for students and teachers to reflect on. Would be a great supplement to an earth science class that could look at the accuracies and inaccuracies of the events in the novel.
I'd definitely recommend this book, especially for someone who likes apocalyptic fiction. Now I just have to read Cormac McCarthy's The Road and see how I like that one.
Orlando, Fla. : Harcourt, c2006,
1st ed. 337 p. ; 22 cm.
After an implausible start - the moon getting kicked into a dramatically lower orbit by rather unspectacular asteroid impact - this book becomes a very satisfying catastrophe-survival novel. The moon's new orbit creates apocalyptic changes on earth - monster tsunamis, extreme volcanism, earthquakes, climate change, and the general collapse of civilization as we know it.
The story is told in journal entries - also a bit unrealistic due to the level of detail and quoted dialogue - that work well to push the narrative forward chronologically and reveal the thoughts and feelings of the protagonist, Miranda, 16. She and her family in rural Pennsylvania try to survive on the food, water and wood supplies that they have stocked up on while losing electricity, and dealing with a harsh, extended winter brought about by volcanic cooling of the atmosphere.
The novel resonates with the current zeitgeist of unease regarding energy woes, climate disaster, and the way in which disaster can reduce our advanced civilization to a primitive state in short order. Parts of the novel were surprisingly moving - as we follow Miranda and her Mom, college age brother and little brother fight the challenges and each other as they struggle for survival.
There's lots for students and teachers to reflect on. Would be a great supplement to an earth science class that could look at the accuracies and inaccuracies of the events in the novel.
I'd definitely recommend this book, especially for someone who likes apocalyptic fiction. Now I just have to read Cormac McCarthy's The Road and see how I like that one.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Not For the Breakfast Table
The Monstrumologist by Rick Yance
New York : Simon & Schuster BFYR, c2009.
434 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.
This book is a Printz honor book - and it is a compelling read. This book would be a great step up for fans of the Cirque du Freak series. There is lot (and I mean lots) of gore and bloodshed. Because most of the violence is committed by monsters that are like humanoid great white sharks, it is more fantastical and less offensive than simple murder and mayhem stories.
The book is well-plotted and conceived, cleverly nested as a story from the late 1800s as conveyed in the journals of an old man who has passed away in a retirement home.
The novel has also features a likable orphan protagonist and uses many of the stock in trade tricks of Gothic horror - gloomy midnights in graveyards, basement labs, and underground lairs where the last monsters must be hunted. The novel has some creative touches in references to the civil war period and to the gruesome habits of parasites (an interesting comparison could be made to Peeps in this regard.)
New York : Simon & Schuster BFYR, c2009.
434 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.
This book is a Printz honor book - and it is a compelling read. This book would be a great step up for fans of the Cirque du Freak series. There is lot (and I mean lots) of gore and bloodshed. Because most of the violence is committed by monsters that are like humanoid great white sharks, it is more fantastical and less offensive than simple murder and mayhem stories.
The book is well-plotted and conceived, cleverly nested as a story from the late 1800s as conveyed in the journals of an old man who has passed away in a retirement home.
The novel has also features a likable orphan protagonist and uses many of the stock in trade tricks of Gothic horror - gloomy midnights in graveyards, basement labs, and underground lairs where the last monsters must be hunted. The novel has some creative touches in references to the civil war period and to the gruesome habits of parasites (an interesting comparison could be made to Peeps in this regard.)
Monday, April 12, 2010
The Dispensables
The Unit by Ninni Holmqvist
New York : Other Press, c2008.
268 p. ; 22 cm.
This novel - translated from the Swedish - was a Booklist Editor's choice for 2009. It is a great read, set in a contemporary/future society where childless women (50 and older) and men (60 and older) in certain (usually artistic) jobs are categorized as "dispensable" and are relocated to a locked unit where they live in pampered luxury while being subjected to medical experiments that range from harmless to horrible and having their tissue and organs harvested for indispensables on the outside. Most resident inmates last about 2-3 years.
The novel follows Dorrit Weger as she enters her new life in the unit. We see her move from her initial shock and fear, to acceptance, to normalcy, and repulsion at life in the unit. Much of the novel revolves around relationships that she forms on the unit.
The novel raises many profound questions about contemporary life - what sacrifices are acceptable for the well being of the society at large, what are the values of the artistic life, what are the rights of the individual versus society, and what are the ethics surrounding tissue/organ donation and medical experiments.
The novel is a bleak and upsetting story to read through. It would appeal to readers who like dystopian fiction and reminded me a lot of Margaret Atwood's fiction. I would not recommend placing this on any curriculum reading lists for high school, given that its mature and controversial themes, and for some explicit - though not sensationalized - sex scenes.
New York : Other Press, c2008.
268 p. ; 22 cm.
This novel - translated from the Swedish - was a Booklist Editor's choice for 2009. It is a great read, set in a contemporary/future society where childless women (50 and older) and men (60 and older) in certain (usually artistic) jobs are categorized as "dispensable" and are relocated to a locked unit where they live in pampered luxury while being subjected to medical experiments that range from harmless to horrible and having their tissue and organs harvested for indispensables on the outside. Most resident inmates last about 2-3 years.
The novel follows Dorrit Weger as she enters her new life in the unit. We see her move from her initial shock and fear, to acceptance, to normalcy, and repulsion at life in the unit. Much of the novel revolves around relationships that she forms on the unit.
The novel raises many profound questions about contemporary life - what sacrifices are acceptable for the well being of the society at large, what are the values of the artistic life, what are the rights of the individual versus society, and what are the ethics surrounding tissue/organ donation and medical experiments.
The novel is a bleak and upsetting story to read through. It would appeal to readers who like dystopian fiction and reminded me a lot of Margaret Atwood's fiction. I would not recommend placing this on any curriculum reading lists for high school, given that its mature and controversial themes, and for some explicit - though not sensationalized - sex scenes.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
The Templars - Bias Revealed
The Templars: the secret history revealed by Barbara Frale.
New York : Arcade Pub., 2009.
xiv, 232 p. ; 22 cm.
I was hugely disappointed in this "history" of the Templars. Given the popularity of Dan Brown's books, I was hoping for a well-written, informative narrative of the Templars. Booklist reviewer Ray Olson called it "the first-choice primer on its legend-laden subject" and Library Journal's Daniel Harms praises the book as "the work is a solid contribution on a topic where misinformation is rife." I couldn't disagree more. The book begins with a great deal of religious legend dressed up as history, and much of the early narrative appears as little more than an apologia for the misdeeds of Christianity/Catholicism - with a generous helping of anti-Muslim cant thrown in for good measure. Her point of view is very positive toward the Crusaders of the late llth and early 12th century and simplifies and distorts their motives and behaviors to the point where one has to doubt everything that follows.
The book opens by dressing up theological wishful thinking as historical fact:
Interestingly, I did a brief bit of searching on Professor Frale, and found that she recently weighed in on the Shroud of Turin, declaring that it had the imprint of a "death certificate" for Jesus. Curious to say the least.
New York : Arcade Pub., 2009.
xiv, 232 p. ; 22 cm.
I was hugely disappointed in this "history" of the Templars. Given the popularity of Dan Brown's books, I was hoping for a well-written, informative narrative of the Templars. Booklist reviewer Ray Olson called it "the first-choice primer on its legend-laden subject" and Library Journal's Daniel Harms praises the book as "the work is a solid contribution on a topic where misinformation is rife." I couldn't disagree more. The book begins with a great deal of religious legend dressed up as history, and much of the early narrative appears as little more than an apologia for the misdeeds of Christianity/Catholicism - with a generous helping of anti-Muslim cant thrown in for good measure. Her point of view is very positive toward the Crusaders of the late llth and early 12th century and simplifies and distorts their motives and behaviors to the point where one has to doubt everything that follows.
The book opens by dressing up theological wishful thinking as historical fact:
- "Jesus, son of Mary, died in Jerusalem on April 7 in the year 790 after the founding of Rome...his disciples....soon resumed their religious activities with renewed enthusiasm, because they were certain that their master had risen from the dead..."
- "the disciples who remained in and around Jerusalem gathered up all the evidence of Christ's earthly passage and began preparing a well-ordered record of the events of his life...in accounts that bore the auspicious title that Jesus himself had suggested..."
- "In the fourth century...The empress mother Helen....conducted what amounted to an archaeological expedition...The result was the discovery of the the wood of the True Cross..."
- (in 1071) "Pilgrimages became extremely dangerous because the roads were infested with Muslim brigands..."
- (describing the horrendous slaughter of Jerusalem by crusaders in 1099) "the crusaders finally recaptured Jerusalem...but not without some committing heinous crimes at the expense of the Muslim population, despite orders from their leaders to protect..." (the rotten apple excuse).
- "the crusaders were unable to exercise complete control over the territory, and they were constantly exposed to to the risk of Muslim aggression."
Interestingly, I did a brief bit of searching on Professor Frale, and found that she recently weighed in on the Shroud of Turin, declaring that it had the imprint of a "death certificate" for Jesus. Curious to say the least.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Kipling's Choice
Kipling's Choice by Geert Spillebeen.
Boston : Graphia, 2005.
147 p. ; 19 cm.
This is a fine little novel about WWI. The plot centers around Rudyard Kipling's son, John and his yearning to be a soldier in the "Great War." The plot moves in and out of John's memories as he lies dying on a battlefield in Loos, France after being mortally wounded on his first day of combat.
His father is an uber-patriotic Englishman and, of course, the world famous Nobel Prize winning author. The story is in many ways a story of romantic ideals of war and patriotism crushed by the barbarity and grief of actual warfare.
John's remains are never found and this loss, the grievous toll of the war, and his own role in promoting war and his son's participation in it leave Rudyard a broken man.
This book would make a great companion read to Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun and Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front.
Boston : Graphia, 2005.
147 p. ; 19 cm.
This is a fine little novel about WWI. The plot centers around Rudyard Kipling's son, John and his yearning to be a soldier in the "Great War." The plot moves in and out of John's memories as he lies dying on a battlefield in Loos, France after being mortally wounded on his first day of combat.
His father is an uber-patriotic Englishman and, of course, the world famous Nobel Prize winning author. The story is in many ways a story of romantic ideals of war and patriotism crushed by the barbarity and grief of actual warfare.
John's remains are never found and this loss, the grievous toll of the war, and his own role in promoting war and his son's participation in it leave Rudyard a broken man.
This book would make a great companion read to Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun and Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front.
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