The Shotgun Rule - Charlie Huston

I don't usually read the endorsement quotes from famous writers that appear on books, but this one caught my eye. It was a blurb from Stephen King about how "unputdownable" this book was. And, I was looking for something in the thriller genre, not necessarily scary, but fast-paced and a little mindless, so I thought this might work. The Shotgun Rule is about four high school friends who pass their days riding their bikes around town, getting high, and figuring out not-so-legal ways to make a few extra dollars. When they break into the house of a rival gang, they stumble upon a meth lab, and steal a bag of crystal meth, hoping to find a way to sell it off. The boys, as you might expect, get more than they bargained for, and suddenly find themselves in a little over their heads. In addition to the drug deal plot, a couple of the kids have mini-sub-plots about their relationships with their parents that I found much more interesting than the main story. I'm not sure if I agree with King that this book was unputdownable, but I did read it in one long session on the elliptical machine. It made the time pass more quickly than it otherwise would have, but I don't think this one would have been worth spending pure reading time on.

God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything - Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens is a complicated man. He is a prolific writer who contributes regularly to Vanity Fair. Politically, he has come out as quite conservative - against abortion, critical of Clinton, and in favor of the war in Iraq. I picked up this book, not because I could think of a single thing I might have in common with this man, but because the title is quite controversial. God is Not Great is Hitchens's all-out attack on religion - of all kinds. Hitchens brings out every argument that is already familiar to everyone - believers and non-believers alike. He goes straight to the texts of the Old Testament, The New Testament and the Koran to point out the logical fallacies inherent in each. He argues against intelligent design. His best arguments (though by the time I got to them, I wasn't really primed to buy anything he was selling) lay in the subtitle of his book, and argued about why and how religion poisons everything. Hitchens talks about the hypocrisy of many religious leaders (and followers) and the heinous crimes that are perpetrated in the name of religion -from holy wars to child abuse. These are ideas that I can get behind, but to me they speak more to the people corrupting religion than they do to religion itself. Ockam's Razor plays big in this book - as it did in Richard Russo's fiction novel The Straight Man, which I read several months ago. It's the principal that the most simple solution is usually the right one - and for Hitchens, attaching the religious myth of creation to what we know is actually science, is hardly simple at all. A recent NY Times Book Review of Hitchens's missive points out that Hitchens is a good friend of Salman Rushdie - a man whose treatment by the Muslim world for writing The Satanic Verses is enough to make anyone question how people can follow any religion - Islam, Judaism, Christianity, or otherwise - which preaches hatred of any kind. I didn't think this book was particularly well written. There were hundreds of ideas with all kinds of support, but they didn't always seem to follow from one paragraph to the next. I suppose in the end, I just found the book a bit frustrating - Hitchens is clearly a man who is so tired of his religious friends giving him grief for not believing. But, to come out swinging against them seems so unnecessary. I don't see his words converting anyone to atheism, though maybe in preaching to his own choir, he'll make some of his members feel a bit more superior. I get his sentiments - it is painful to see so much evil in this world committed by those who claim to act for a higher power, but somehow this just didn't seem to be the solution I was looking for. Clearly, however, it did get me thinking.

100 Best Novels

I thought this was an interesting list to share:

http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100bestnovels.html

I've only read 21 from The Board's List and 25 from The Reader's List. I was surprised by some of the choices. But, it's a good list for getting ideas of books to read.

A Death in the Family* - James Agee

My goal this month was to read books by authors that start with the letter "A." I haven't done that well - but this one also satisfied my desire to read more winners of the Pulitzer Prize. A Death in the Family was published after Agee's death - when it was not quite in final form. Sections of the manuscript didn't seem to make sense, and so portions are published in italics - indicating where folks believed Agee would have placed the material in a final draft. Apparently, Agee was also a notorious re-writer, so it's possible half of this would have ended up on the cutting room floor. Whatever the case, it is an interesting well-written book, but quite slow - it reminded me quite a bit of A Summons to Memphis. The basic premise is that a man is called home to visit his dying father. Only, it turns out his father is fine, and on the drive back home to see his family, the man is in a fatal car accident. The remainder of the book focuses on his widow, their two children, and the widow's family who try to help her cope with her loss. There is significant dialogue in the novel, but also something about the descriptions made me think that this would be better presented as a play. After thinking this, I looked Agee up on www.wikipedia.org and leared that he was in fact a screenwriter. He suffered from alcoholism, and died at the age of 45 following two heart attacks.

(* - Winner of the 1958 Pulitzer Prize - awarded post-humously)

The Thirteenth Tale - Diane Setterfield

This was another book I saw on the shelves at the library that just looked good to me - judging books by their covers lately has been working out well. The Thirteenth Tale is the story of Margaret, a bookseller in England. She receives a letter from the reclusive Vida Winter, the world's most popular and prolific living author. Winter tells Margaret that she wants her to write her biography, and that after decades of spinning stories to journalists about her life, she's finally ready to tell the truth. Reluctantly, Margaret pays Winter a visit - and listens as a gothic tale of generations, strange twins, and the unnatural unfolds. This reminded me a lot of The Shadow of the Wind, for the gothic characteristics, and in the way it drew me completely into the story right from the beginning. I've noticed lately that I've been reading a lot of books in which the main characters are writers or voracious readers. Clearly, I can see why I am drawn to such books, but I'm wondering if there are more of them out there lately for some reason. I was also thinking that this was a great book to read right before Halloween, because it was so creepy/spooky. It made me think that I should read Stephen King's The Shining next - another scary book where the main character is a writer. But, I think that would be far too scary for me. This has been one of my favorite books for the year.

The Book of Lost Things - John Connelly

I saw this on the new book shelf on the library and it looked kind of fun...it's the story of 12-year old David whose mother has just passed away and whose father has remarried and had another child. Feeling left out, David retreats into his world of books - in particular the fairy tales he used to enjoy reading with his mom. Slowly, the line between the real world and David's book world begins to blur and he finds himself drawn into an Other Land - populated by a Woodsman, the sinister Crooked Man, packs of wolves, and an ailing King. As David tries to find his way back home, he is told grizzlier versions of the fairy tales he learned as a child, and encounters, among others, trolls, the seven dwarves, and sleeping beauties. This was a really fun book - definitely for adults, but a journey back to the tales I loved, and was a little scared of, as a kid.

The Rule of Four - Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason

My brother suggested I read this years ago when everyone (including me) was going through The DaVinci Code phase. But, for some reason, I put it off until now. This is the story of four seniors at Princeton, two of whom are obsessed with a little known Renaissance text that several scholars have spent their lifetimes trying to decode. The main character, Thomas, is obsessed with the book, to the detriment of his relationship with the one possible true love of his life. As Thomas's roommate Paul gets closer and closer to solving the mystery of the book, people around campus begin dying mysterious, yet inter-related, deaths. This book is a page-turner, but no where near as complex as The DaVinci Code. The puzzles within the book are not as interesting, and in the end what I found most compelling were the friendships among the four students, rather than the underlying secret of the text. I think this would be a good book for passing the time on a long airplane flight.