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By Sean Clark, on December 31st, 2010 Last batch of haiku for this decade. (Or did the decade begin in 2010?)
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enjoyable book
it’s Gone Baby Gone‘s sequel
recycled; phoned in
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quite a unique book
voice accomplishes great things
baby talk aggravates
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Wilder writes with charm
don’t expect anything deep
a quick, pleasant read
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normally a fan
Nico found this book quite bad
Vachss forgot what works
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not by a poet
plays with theme, form, and focus
verse flirts with wisdom
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colonialists?
Bush thinks himself a James Bond
bad book by bad prez
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urban fantasy
a classic tale for children
good for grown ups too
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nonfic with some flair
a neuropsych travelogue
Broks penned a Great Read
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title is a lie
actually quite nuanced
a very quick read
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fool falls for harlot
another great Nabokov
great plot, characters
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By Sean Clark, on December 30th, 2010  Author: Vladimir Nabokov
1932, Bobbs-Merrill Company
Filed Under: Literary.
| C4 Ratings.....out of |
10 |
| Language..... |
9 |
| Entertainment..... |
7 |
| Depth..... |
7 |
What I love most about Nabokov is his ability to get away with so much that other authors might seem amateurish for trying. Alliteration and neologism are commonplace in his prose. Even when writing about serious themes, his language sports a playful lilt.
Much like his other novels, Laughter in the Dark is a character study. He excels in rendering people on his pages; his command of the language and his ability to twist it to unique angles make for exquisite characterization. Nabokov is as good or better than any author at fleshing out whole, believable, beautifully flawed characters.
The baby was at first red and wrinkled like a toy balloon on its decline. Soon, however, her face smoothed out and after a year she began to speak. Now, at the age of eight, she was far less voluble, for she had inherited her mother’s reserved nature. Her gaiety, too, was like her mother’s–a singular unobtrusive gaiety. It was just a quiet delight in one’s own existence with a faint note of humorous surprise at being alive at all–yes, that was the tenor of it: mortal gaiety. …
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By Nico Vreeland, on December 29th, 2010  Author: Grant Jerkins
2010, Berkley
Filed under: Mystery
| C4 Ratings.....out of |
10 |
| Language..... |
6 |
| Entertainment..... |
8 |
| Depth..... |
7 |
The title of this novel is a lie. Well, OK, of course it is; a story about a very simple crime would only last a paragraph. But the title is a telling lie. At first, the crime appears, indeed, to be simple: a woman—who happens to be both crazy and rich—gets murdered, smashed in the head with a crystal ashtray. I suppose that qualifies literally as a simple crime, but the complexity of a crime lies in the motives and machinations behind the act itself.
At first the police assume the woman was killed by her developmentally disabled son—the son once killed a roommate of his at a care facility in exactly the same manner. The case is about to be closed and forgotten when an intrepid (and desperate) lawyer—the former Assistant DA, shamed by a botched case—discovers that the murderer was left-handed, like the woman’s husband and unlike their son, and they put the husband on trial.
There are no witnesses and only a few forensic clues, primarily that nugget of detail, “left-handed murderer.” Which means that everyone—the press, the DA, and we readers—has to interpret people’s motives to solve the case. It’s in the ensuing messy whorl of emotions and characters that A Very Simple Crime finds purchase. At the end of it all, this is one of the most nuanced mysteries I’ve read this year. …
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By Sean Clark, on December 28th, 2010 It’s that time of year again where all I want to do is curl up under a blanket, read books, and play Nintendo. I enjoy both pursuits for similar peace of mind. I play a lot of games for my age and station in life. While certainly not all boast strong writing, games as a medium are a credible source of fiction-driven entertainment. As the industry grows, we’re seeing it reach much more complex and sometimes cinematic levels.
But games as taletellers is not new. Since the beginning of gaming, there’s been story. Sure, there was plenty of Space Invaders and Super Mario Bros. and Mortal Kombat (and even then, they bothered to include background fiction–usually in the manuals), but there was stuff like Ninja Gaiden, which introduced cutscenes to your typical action game.
Here are ten video games with strong narratives and writing. These are just a few selections of many good examples out there, old and new.
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10. Secret of Evermore
A very underrated game from the Super Nintendo era. The story line is great: a boy obsessed with B movies is pulled into an alternate dimension, one that exists in the imagination of 5 lost dimensional travelers. He explores the imaginary world as he seeks a way home. There is plenty of wit to the writing, and the scenario is inventive and unique amongst the game’s peers. The boy’s trusty dog changes breeds depending on the part of the world he’s in, and proves endearing and a handy plot trigger for some interesting story events.
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By Sean Clark, on December 23rd, 2010 [This creative exploration of neuropsych is a C4 Great Read.]
Author: Paul Broks
2003, Grove Atlantic
Filed Under: Nonfiction
| C4 Ratings.....out of |
10 |
| Language..... |
8 |
| Entertainment..... |
7 |
| Depth..... |
10 |
I’m not particularly well-versed in neurospsychology, but I find it endlessly fascinating. The human is brain is impossibly complex, as it must be to allow us our existences as impossibly complex creatures. Neurospych appeals to me because it walks a somewhat precarious line between science and philosophy. (I personally consider all psychology to be a primarily philosphical pursuit–despite the empirical evidence the field has compiled–and the flip side to the physical study of the brain approached through neurology.) In this book, Broks, an accomplished neurospsychologist, writes of his field with the air of a skeptic. He’s sold on the science, but not on all the assumptions that are drawn by his contemporaries. He questions just what is buried in the mind. As a casual reader, he appealed to my sense of curiosity, and informed my layman knowledge. He also turns out to be strong with words, so reading the book was a pleasure.
This book is unique from other nonfictions I have read. Please note, I don’t read all that much nonfiction, so I can’t make the best comparison. I’ve seen Broks compared to Oliver Sacks more than once, so if you’ve read him, that might give some idea. This is not the type of causal, watered-down lecture science book that I expected. Unlike books like How We Decide or Bonk, Into The Silent Land features a strong narrative and a strong narrator. The book is subtitled Travels in Neuropsychology and the verb choice is apt. There is a strong sense of exploration or journey that arises while reading this book. …
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By Nico Vreeland, on December 22nd, 2010  Kids' books are one area that the Nook Color doesn't need to improve on. A few weeks ago, I reviewed the Nook Color, and found it good, but unfinished. While it has its share of problems, almost every one of them could be fixed with software adjustments and firmware updates. Here’s my wish list for the big update rumored to be scheduled for January.
Smooth edges
The biggest problem with the Nook Color is that its interface needs some smoothing. It sometimes takes an extra tap to wake the screen up, and navigating—especially in magazines—can be laggy and frustrating.
This isn’t the first time B&N has rushed a Nook to market: when the original Nook came out last year (just in time for the holidays), most reviews agreed that its interface was similarly laggy, and in later months B&N improved it markedly. Hopefully that happens again here.
Fix note-taking
Right now, you have to pin each note you take to a patch of text, and the firmware doesn’t distinguish between notes and regular highlights. If it did distinguish, and gave you more note-taking options (like, for instance, taking notes in magazines), it would make this a much more desirable device for students.
I’d also like to see more integration with a word processor—perhaps in the next hardware generation this could even happen through Bluetooth.
Apps – Instapaper, Goodreads, Evernote, Etc.
I desperately want Instapaper on this puppy, especially an Instapaper app that auto-downloads everything you’ve sent to your account, so you could read everything offline, like the way the Nook already does newspapers.
I’d also love to see an Overdrive app for managing library books and library audiobooks, a Goodreads and/or Copia app for social reading, a Google Editions app, and Evernote for proper note-taking. All of these (except probably the Overdrive app) are well within the range of possibility. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Wattpad, Smashwords, Scribd, the list goes on. …
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By Nico Vreeland, on December 21st, 2010 [In this feature, we highlight a handful of the best book reviews appearing over the weekend in major newspapers. Follow it here.
We're going to skipping this feature next week because of the holidays, but we'll be back with more in 2011.]
Autobiography of Mark Twain, by Mark Twain, reviewed by Garrison Keillor (New York Times)
Garrison Keillor takes Mark Twain behind the woodshed, and returns alone and covered in blood. For almost 3000 words, Keillor savages Twain’s autobiography, calling it “hard, dusty ground” and saying Twain “can be just as tedious as anybody else when he is under the burden of his own reputation”—Keillor even takes a backhand shot at Huck Finn along the way. While it’s not undeserved (judging by the passages Keillor quotes), it is a bit tedious itself. But it’s worth skimming, just so you’ll be entirely unable to hide your disappointment when your aunt gives you this book for Christmas.
Selected Stories, by William Trevor, reviewed by Lionel Shriver (Wall Street Journal)
This review of a compendium of Trevor stories is delightful to read for the descriptions of the work itself— “Mr. Trevor’s craft is now so refined that the writing itself vanishes, as if his stories were composed in disappearing ink” —but also, perhaps moreso, for the portrait of a writer who eschews such portraits. Shriver gives him the somewhat conditional title of “the greatest living short-story writer in English” and repeatedly tries to find his voice and personality in the collection, even as she says “the author of these stories himself could be anybody.” It’s a very good piece.
Daniel, by Henning Mankell, reviewed by Clea Simon (Boston Globe)
The latest Henning Mankell novel takes place in 1878, and follows a young African boy whose parents are murdered and who is subsequently taken to Sweden by a well-meaning but foolish white man. I couldn’t finish the only Mankell novel I’ve tried (a mystery) because his characters were so flatly uninterested in their case that their apathy became contagious. Simon says, of that last one, that Mankell had “too many underdeveloped characters” but claims this latest focuses more narrowly and succeeds.
The Windup Girl, by Paolo Bacigalupi, reviewed by Adam Roberts (Guardian)
I used The Windup Girl’s awesome cover for a JABBIC this summer, but didn’t actually read much about the book itself. That’s one reason I like the Guardian’s books section: the U.S./U.K. publishing lag time means I often catch books there that I missed in American papers. If you like noirish, stylish sci-fi peppered with bursts of violent action, sounds like this book is for you.
In brief: The Guardian reviews a 105-year-old novel, apropos of nothing; I’m assuming somebody cashed in a favor—a crappy favor. The L.A. Times gathers its favorite book review illustrations of the year; my favorite (which didn’t make the list) is still this one, which I noted in a previous Best Book Reviews. Anne Rice is crazy. A book on genius and inspiration. A nice-sounding but possibly oversold detective novel. And the BN Review’s “Postcards from a Year in Reading” are pretty cool.
By Bilal Ibne Rasheed, on December 20th, 2010 [Original short fiction from the upcoming Chamber Four lit mag, C4. Our first issue is due out this winter; stay tuned for details.]
After having translated a short story of Manto’s into English, Azad relaxed for a while and then took out an English translation of Chekhov’s short stories. He adjusted his posture, made some room for his feet on the study table by pushing the heap of books aside and busied himself with reading Chekhov. Immersed in reading, he didn’t notice the sound of blowing horn outside his room.
By the door of Azad’s faculty-hostel room sat a brand-new Land Cruiser. Its CD-player played recitation from the Holy Quran and on the driving seat sat Haji Sharif-ud-Din Sahib blowing the horn. Haji sahib,a colleague of Azad’s, thought he was not in the room when he did not turn up after his blowing of horn for two complete minutes. Just about to leave, Haji sahib thought of leaving a note for Azad to register his visit. So he locked the vehicle, crossed the ten-meter footpath, and pushed the door open only to see Azad adsorbed in reading.
Haji sahib had never imagined anyone so lost in reading that they could ignore the sound of the horn of his SUV.
“Assalam o Alaikum,” a frustrated Haji sahib said in an Arabic accent.
Azad turned to the left where Haji sahib stood dressed in an exquisite white shalwar-suit, a dark black waist-coat and an equally black turban. His shalwar was well above his ankles. Smelling of an imported fragrance Haji sahib was holding a Tasbeeh in his right hand. …
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By Sean Clark, on December 17th, 2010  [JABBIC is now on a monthly schedule. Look for the next one in January. Find previous installments here. And you can suggest covers we should use, or volunteer to write a blurb, by emailing us here.]
JABBIC is kind of like Balderdash with book covers. Based only on the cover at right, four of our contributors made up a one-paragraph premise for this week’s contestant, Matched, by Ally Condie. Can you reverse-engineer their fabrications and pick out the book’s real plot? (The answer will be posted in the comments later today.)
1. Journalist Sara Harmon should have known better. She’d never had much faith in online dating, but meeting Mark began to change her mind. Handsome, funny, successful – he was everything she’d been looking for… Wasn’t he? Sara has to call on all of her investigative skills to uncover whether she’s met the man of her dreams or trapped herself in a nightmare of deceit. Romance meets thriller in Condie’s debut novel that delivers a timely, although somewhat predictable, reminder of the dangers lurking for single women looking for love on the internet.
2. In this modern-day changeling story, Samantha Ryan is trapped in the faerie realm by her deceptive twin, Ryan Samantha. Forced to reckon with otherworldly powers, Samantha will draw from the inner strength of her heritage to fight her way back into the human world. She must hone her skills in order to stand up to Ryan, ensuring that this time the battle is evenly matched.
3. For Cassia, nothing is left to chance–not what she will eat, the job she will have, or the man she will marry. In Matched, the Society Officials have determined optimal outcomes for all aspects of daily life, thereby removing the “burden” of choice. When Cassia’s best friend is identified as her ideal marriage Match it confirms her belief that Society knows best, until she plugs in her Match microchip and a different boy’s face flashes on the screen. This improbable mistake sets Cassia on a dangerous path to the unthinkable–rebelling against the predetermined life Society has in store for her. As author Ally Condie’s unique dystopian Society takes chilling measures to maintain the status quo, Matched reminds readers that freedom of choice is precious, and not without sacrifice.
4. Last she remembered, Amelia Flent was reveling in the last dance of her Senior Prom,wrapped neatly in her boyfriend’s arms and praying for the moment never to end.Now Amelia has awoken to find herself kneeling in the center of a sterile white room, inexplicably surrounded by her entire immediate family, half the Prom, and Kev, her boyfriend, his tux torn and blood-spattered, his face drained. She is encased, trapped alone in a warm, hard sphere, and despite her pleas for help, ignored by those she loves most. Shocked, she realizes they are looking not at her, but at an identical sphere next to her in which a girlwho looks eerily like Amelia lies lifeless and bloody. In Ally Condie’s riveting new sci-fi narrative, we follow Amelia’s journey of discovery as she struggles to come to terms with who and what she really is and to carve out a place in this world for herself and others like her.
5. Nora Filigree, a daughter of privilege, whose surpassing beauty is matched only by her keen intellect and fierce sense of independence, finds herself victim of an arranged marriage. Never having been consulted by her father, or her prospective consort, she finds herself little more than a trophy wife. Despite strong feminist convictions, and her misconceptions about arranged marriages as being barbaric and cruelly chauvinistic, Nora eventually comes to terms with her marriage and ironically finds herself immensely satisfied.
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By Eric Markowsky, on December 16th, 2010 
Author: Mark Helprin
1983, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Filed under: Fantasy
| C4 Ratings.....out of |
10 |
| Language..... |
7 |
| Entertainment..... |
7 |
| Depth..... |
6 |
Since the cold weather has settled in for the winter, I’ve been thinking about good seasonal reads. You can’t do much better than Winter’s Tale. It’s an epic urban fantasy set largely in New York City, first at the end of the 19th century and later vaulting deep into the 20th. Filled with orphans, thieves, priests, police, machinists, wise old men, and powerful women of incomparable beauty, Winter’s Tale offers a classic adventure story in strangely modern dress.
The long and winding plot is a little difficult to summarize. The novel is divided into four sections, each one seeming to reset the story in a new place or time. Its nearly seven-hundred page bulk might turn away some potential readers, but I found its size made it an even better winter read. It’s a great book to lose yourself in when it’s cold outside. …
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