Book Log 2010 #30: The Cavalier of the Apocalypse by Susanne Alleyn

As best as I can tell, Susanne Alleyn likes to work out of sequence. This is the third book in her historical mystery series, which is set in revolutionary France and features writer-turned-detective Aristide Ravel, but is chronologically the first. The first and second released books are third and fourth chronologically, while her upcoming book, the fourth in the series, happens second. This bothers me more than it should, as I like to read series in order.

But as much as it may bother me, I wills say I enjoyed this book quite a bit. We're introduced to Ravel as a potential suspect in what appear to be Masonically-tinged killings. Ravel has to work to clear his name, and in the process teams up with a police inspector who will become his partner in future books. And while I'm not particularly interested in the French Revolution, it's a smart period to set a mystery series, what with the increased violence and all.

Solid start to a series, certainly enough to have me continue along.

Book Log 2010 #29: The Daughters of Cain by Colin Dexter

Very good, as usual. I do think, on re-reading all of these, that I like the later books in the series a bit more than the earlier ones. I think it's having a fully developed Morse-Lewis relationship. Not sure.

Book Log 2010 #28:Salt by Mark Kurlansky

I'm a little torn about this book, as it's interesting and well written. It just may be a little too well written, as it takes great pains to present the story of salt from a large variety of historical and cultural viewpoints. It gets a little exhausting, and reminds me that one of the things I liked about Cod was its brevity. Granted, that was likely partly be necessity (I'm assuming there's not a lot of cod-related source material out there), but I thought the shorter length gave the story more impact.

Anyway, worth reading, certainly.

Book Log 2010 #27: The Essential Engineer by Henry Petroski

I've usually enjoyed Henry Petroski's writings on engineering and how it influences everyday life - The Evolution of Useful Things and The Pencil are classic examples of his ability to write about engineering in an engaging and accessible manner - so I was very interested in this, his newest book, as it promised (via its subtitle) to explain "[w]hy science alone will not solve our globabl problems."

Suffice it to say I'm still not sure that was every really explained. Petroski spends much of the book talking about the interaction between science and engineering, how each discipline relates to the other, and how science often builds off of engineering rather than vice versa.

From there I expected a discourse on various major problems and the ways engineering could address them where science cannot. And that kind of happened, but never very clearly, and not to the point I expected given the title. Disappointing.

Book log 2010 #26: The Dogs of Rome by Conor Fitzgerald

Very engaging debut novel featuring Alec Blume, an expatriate American working as an Italian police inspector who gets called in to solve the killing of an anti-dog fighting activist whose wife is a prominent politician and whose girlfriend is the daughter of a high-ranking mafioso.

The book does a nice job of displaying the nuance necessary to actually bring someone to justice, as Blume has to balance the political influence, institutional corruption and personal agendas that come out most strongly in a high profile case. Throw in issues related to a new love interest (who may have her own agenda) and potential links back to the killings of Blume's own parents, and you have the makings of an enjoyably complex mystery.

The one annoyance I had is that the cover touts this as "An Alec Blume Mystery," which made me think this was a later entry in a series rather than the first book. Not a huge thing, obviously.

Book Log 2010 #25: The Yugo by Jason Vuic

While the Yugo went down in history as potentially the worst car ever sold in the US (the guys on Car Talk dubbed it the worst car of the past millenium), this book gives much more of the detail surrounding its creation and failure, giving depth to a vehicle that is, to most people, merely a punch line (as witnessed by the Yugo jokes that start every chapter).

Beyond the car, we also get a good picture of the man who brought it to promenance, Malcolm Bricklin, a serial entrepreneur who was at both his best and worst when it came to car companies. He was great at launches, but never was able to develop and nurture his launch into a going concern. This had its most comical result with the Yugo, an underpowered and sub-standard vehicle produced by a facility that would never be able to produce a car that could compete in the US.

In addition to that, Vuic points out that the 1980s wasn't the best time to launch a small car, given the focus on personal excess and the fading memories of the oil crunches of the previous decade. I'm not sure that's fully correct - Hyundai first launched in the US at about the same time, with a small car of low price and marginal quality - but the shoddy standards of the Yugo certainly didn't help it fight off whatever social standards were in place at the time.

I enjoyed the book quite a bit, and would certainly recommend it, especially for children of the '80s and anyone interested in cars.

While procrastinating last night I wound up looking over the copy of my great grandfather's citizenship paperwork (made a while back when we were being all genealogical). He'd listed a Boston address as his residence at the time, but the location - Whitney Street - didn't ring a bell. What did look familiar was the Tremont Street address of one of his witnesses, as the house number is not all that far away from where I work.

So I did what anyone would do and typed "Whitney Street Boston MA" into Google Maps. No hits for Whitney, but I did get a South Whitney - located about a block from my office.

I then tried to look online for old maps and street indices, and while there is some good information out there (Tufts has a nice site of old Boston street maps and related information), I couldn't quite pin down if there was a relationship between the two streets.

Thankfully, at some point in the past someone at Wentworth decided to honor the history of our neighborhood and hang a series of old maps down the hall from my office. It was there, on the map for what was at the time Ward 22, that I was able to confirm that South Whitney is all that's left of Whitney Street. Most of the road was covered up by a large apartment building, which I've actually been in (there's a post office on the ground floor).

I'm a little bummed that the address is no longer available for me to visit, but I do find it sort of amazing that after more than a century I've kind of come full circle.

Book Log 2010 #24: The State of Jones by Sally Jenkins and John Stauffer

I remember hearing quite a bit during high school American history about copperheads, Northerners who wanted to end the Civil War. We did not hear much about Confederates who were against secession, if anything.

This book looks at one man, Newton Knight, and members of his family, who opposed the Confederacy, to the point where they deserted from the CSA army and, on occasions when the government tried to exert some authority over their corner of Mississippi, resort to violence.

The book reads very easily for a history, due I think to its creation as an offshoot from a movie project on the subject. And, as would also befit a book based on a movie (even a planned one), it likes to paint people into bright moral corners and not worry so much about factual nuances. There are plenty of places in the book where supposition has to take the place of actual events due to gaps in records, and the more I came across them the less enthralled I was with the book.

If you're really interested in the subject, I'd suggest finding one of the other books written about Knight and similar resisters. But if you want the overview without having to deal with grey areas, this might be OK.

I have been to exactly 100 of the 1000 places to go in Massachusetts, though I have to admit that it's been a while since I've been to some of them (for example, my lone visit to the Wenham Museum came as part of a grade school field trip). I will spare you a recounting of the other 99, other than to say I've not made it to two of the Beverly sites and one of the Manchester sites, which I should probably rectify at some point.

I will say that knocking off the other 900 sites seems like just the sort of thing I can torture current and future children with. It will be a sad Monday when they tell their school chums that they spent the weekend marveling at the likes of the Worthington Historic District.

Book Log 2010 #23: Food of a Younger Land by Mark Kurlansky

The Federal Writers Project, part of the Works Progress Administration, had as one of its planned projects a work called America Eats, which planned to look at American foodways in each of five regions (based on the Census). Each region was to have one major essay supported by some smaller pieces, all put together from primary accounts submitted by project writers. Except this never happened, as the project eventually shut down during World War II.

Enter Mark Kurlansky, who brought together the source material for America Eats and put together this book, which uses the same regional structure but allows the source material to stand on its own. This allows for a more direct recounting of what American food was like in the 1930s, when food couldn't help but be regional and seasonal. It can be a little discordant, with pieces ranging from longer essays to recipies to lists, but it's also often fascinating, given the great differences between food at that time and food today.

It can also be a little racist, as Kurlansky has opted to keep pieces in their original language, which can include some descriptors for people that are no longer considered appropriate, as well as dialog put into a regional/racial "dialect" which went out of style with Amos & Andy. As jarring as that might be to modern readers, I think it was the right call to leave this sort of thing in, as it gives a more complete picture of the time the pieces were written.

And the book can also be unintentionally hilarious, as evidenced by the poem Nebraskans Eat the Weiners. 

It's not the easiest book to read from front to back, and you may find that a state you wanted to read about gets scant coverage due to a lack of source material. Still, if you're into food history this is certainly worth a browse at least.

Book Log 2010 #22: Cowboys Full by James McManus

As much a study of how poker influences American society as it is a history of the game, this is a sprawling look at the game, starting with its European roots (both in game play and in the cards used) and continuing through its insinuation into American life to its current status as a home, casino, TV and online favorite.


It's not perfect. It is way too long, and would have benefited from spending less time either in the 19th/early 20th century or in trying to shoehorn poker metaphors into various non-poker walks of life. It's not as interesting as his earlier book Positively Fifth Street, which benefited from having two specific stories (McManus' run in the 2000 World Series of Poker's main event and the Teddy Binion murder) to work from. But it's certainly worth a look, if just to browse some of the more entertaining anecdotes.

Book Log 2010 #21: The Many Deaths Of the Firefly Brothers by Thomas Mullen

A pair of Depression-era robbers wake up after a job to discover that they are in police custody - sort of. Rather than being locked up, both are on slabs in the morgue, and have clearly taken enough punishment that waking up shouldn't have been an option.

So starts this tale that sees the pair criss-cross the Midwest to figure out just how they died (the first time). They also have to sort out contacting family and loved ones, all of whom have heard of their demise.  We also get a fair amount of back story, complete with a bit of a family mystery that helps explain how the brothers became wanted men.

It's an entertaining story, with a good amount of period color as you'd expect. Worth the read.

Book Log 2010 #20: The Pontiff in Winter by John Cornwell

Written shortly before his death, this book seeks to set the terms to John Paul II's legacy, weighing the positive and negative aspects of his papacy against each other while also showing how his formative years helped to shape JP's complex, and sometimes contradictory, personality.

Generally, the argument is made that JP, by working to reduce the influence of Vatican II while consolidating power in Rome, forced the church to lose the benefit of local input and governance. This helped to exacerbate conflicts, from the strict orthodoxy required on certain teachings to the lack of local response when the sex abuse crisis first broke. On top of this there's a more personal issue where JP saw himself as a pivotal figure for the church, a viewpoint developed from his earlier study of mysticism, a devotion to Mary, the assassination attempt against him, and the secrets of Fatima.

All in all it's a fairly even-handed treatment, I think, and pretty readable to boot. I don't know that I agree with Cornwell in all things, but he does make a decent case that the benefits of JP's papacy may be outweighed over time by the conservative structure and strict adherence to orthodoxy that he left behind.

Book Log 2010 #19: City of Silver by Annamaria Alfieri

Set during the heydey of silver mining in Potosi, Bolivia (then part of the Viceroyalty of Peru), this mystery concerns the mysterious death of the elder daughter of the city's mayor, which occurs just as the King of Spain is sending investigators to look into the city's coinage, which is apparently less than 100 percent silver. Thrust into both issues is the Grand Inquisitor, who sees these events as a way to gain power over the city's lax bishop and potentially destroy an abbess who isn't Catholic enough for his tastes. It's up to the abbess (with help from her nuns and other Potosi residents, mostly women) to determine how the girl died while at the same time trying not to get convicted of heresy.

Pretty enjoyable mystery, between the usual plot twists and turns and the unique setting. I'd have liked to have seen the mystery around the coinage get a bit more attention (being a nerd like that), but overall no serious complaints.

Book Log 2010 #17 and #18: Satan in St. Mary's and The Crown in Darkness by PC Doherty

These are the first two books in a mystery series featuring Hugh Corbett, a government clerk in the time of Edward I who is tasked to investigate events that touch upon the safety of the crown (in these cases, a plot against the king led by apparent Satanists and the suspicious death of the Scottish king, respectively). 


The stories are both good, though the first book (the first in the series) is a little too obvious with some of its clues and the second book keeps us a bit too much in the dark. We do get the basics on Corbett - he's very professional, a bit dour (due at least partially from being a widower) and has, for the time, some strange notions of hygiene (he likes to wash every day!).

If you're looking for a new series to start you could do worse. Or you could choose from one of the four or five other series that Doherty has going.

Book Log 2010 #16: The Burning Land by Bernard Cornwell

The latest in the Saxon Tales series featuring Uhtred Ragnarson, the English-born but Dane-raised warrior who, in this book, decided to finally break from Alfred and retake his ancestral home, usurped by an uncle in the first book. His plan is derailed when Alfred's daughter, to whom he pledged his loyalty, asks him to return to fight for the nascent kingdom of Wessex.

Another solid entry in the series, a bit better than the last one I think.

Book Log 2010 #15: The First Fall Classic by Mike Vaccaro

Joe Posnanski mentioned this book about a hundred times on his blog (Vaccaro is a friend of his), and so I felt compelled to pick it up when I came across it at the library. It's a very entertaining recounting of the 1912 World Series between the Red Sox and the (then) New York Giants, a rematch of sorts as the teams were slated to play in the 1904 World Series that never happened (there's a pretty good book out there about that, too, which I think I read pre-Log). There's a fair bit about that in this book, of course, and it also gives a bit of a prelude to 1919, between the appearance of gamblers like Abe Rothstein and the team-owner tensions that run throughout the series.

My only quibble is that the book tries to take the Devil in the White City approach by juxtaposing a big criminal case of the time against the subject. In this case it was some sort of police-involved murder trial that I'd never heard of but was apparently a big deal to New Yorkers in 1912. It perhaps merited a mention for color, but wasn't of any particularly good use as a running theme.

Book Log 2010 #14: The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

During his tenure with the Arizona Cardinals, coach Dennis Green went a little crazy after blowing a lead and losing to the Chicago Bears, noting (among other things) that "they are who we thought they were." That's pretty much all you need to say about this book, as it's exactly what you thought it would be. Perhaps 10 percent less credulous than The DaVinci Code, but otherwise just the sort of conspiracy-lite mumbo jumbo with sides of unlikely plot twists, coincidental timing and random other crap that you get from Dan Brown. It will make a splendidly awful movie.

Book Log 2010 #13: Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson

I don't expect to jump into the e-reader market any time soon - I like actual books too much, and I'm too cheap to buy a Kindle or an iPad - but did find myself in need of an e-reader when I was commuting in via the Orange Line during the Hockey East tournament. This led me to downloading Stanza, a free e-reader for various platforms, iPhone included. And because I'm too cheap to actually buy books, I downloaded this title from Project Gutemberg. I was somewhat familiar with the story and knew it would lend itself to commuting reading based on it being more of a collection of short stories than a typical novel.

I did find some of the stories interesting, but the one overwhelming feeling I had during the course of the book is that George Willard was smart to get out of town when he did, because staying in Winesburg apparently makes you crazy. That or the water is tainted. Those are the only explanations I could come up with for having such a concentration of eccentrics and characters in one midwestern town. The book never quite came together for me, either. It was just a string of events that just kind of ended when George left.

The reading experience on the iPhone wasn't as bad as I expected, but the small display size required frequent page flips, which got old quickly. No complaints about the way the iPhone displayed text, and Stanza was very easy to use. I've not read another book on the phone, but it's nice to know the option is there if it's needed.

Book Log 2010 #12: The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

Known for writing thrillers, this marked a departure for Follett, as he wasn't someone who would be expected to write a cross-generational historical novel about the building of a cathedral. But that's exactly what he did, releasing this book in 1989 to moderate fanfare but strong word of mouth, building up to become his best-selling book of all time, helped by being named an Oprah's Book Club selection... in 2007.

I'll admit to having some reservations going in, as I wasn't sure how a thriller writer could realistically portray a story based around a 13th century building project. But what I didn't consider was that Follett's abilities as a story teller would allow him to create solid story lines from which he could develop the historical and architectural aspects. Because, really, it's not a book about building a cathedral but rather a book about the people involved with building the cathedral and how their lives intersect as the project starts and stops over the decades.

The only real complaint I have about the book is length - it clocks in at 976 pages, which really pushes the boundary between epic and tome. Otherwise, it's certainly recommended for anyone into historical fiction. There is also a sequel, World Without End, that I've not tackled yet due in no small part to it crossing the 1000 page threshold. I suppose I'm saving it for a time when I'm stuck in bed for a month.