winter reading list

Fairy Tale by Stephen King – Back when I got bit by the copperhead and since all 7 books of the Dark Tower were out, I decided that I would read them while I was laid up. So I did. And when I was done I swore I would never read another of his books again, it pissed me off that much. I slogged through those books to get to the end and dammit if it wasn't just Groundhog Day. And I haven't until I decided to read this one because everyone was saying it was good. Don't get me wrong, I used to like King. Salem's Lot is probably the scariest book I've ever read. And I think The Green Mile is one of the best stories ever told. I've liked a lot of his books but he seemed to peter out to me. Anyway, I read this one and I liked it well enough but I think it would have been a better book without the weird referencing to fairy tales like Rumplestiltskin and not just fairy tales but fables like The Three Little Pigs and nursery rhymes like The Old Woman Who Lived In A Shoe and stories of other places like Oz and I think even Star Wars and writers like Edgar Allen Poe. The main character would see something and make the connection in his mind and I'm going What? No! Sometimes the connection was so slender as to be contrived. And especially when the most obvious one, to me, in the whole book was never made...See no evil, Speak no evil, Hear no evil. I understand the point I think, but still. Anyway, after this long introduction to the book in which each chapter begins with an illustration: The main character Charlie, 17 year old athletic student whose mother died when he was a child, whose father became a drunk and then got sober, who made a promise to whatever god that he would not shy from the task given so long as his father remained sober. Charlie finds his reclusive angry old man neighbor and dog in need of aid and befriends them while being his caretaker during the man's recovery from a fall off a ladder and ultimately is told of a passage into another world as a result of the friendship. Charlie has an objective for going there, to turn the clock back for his dying dog, but in the process he becomes the Promised Prince that brings about the restoration of the ruined fair world of Empris and restores the rightful rulers after vanquishing the monstrous enemy who usurped the throne and turned the country and people to ruin. I don't feel like I'm giving anything away because it is a fairy tale in its own right and isn't that how fairy tales go?

Strange Weather by Joe Hill – Let me start out by saying I really like the way he writes. This is a collection of four short novels and each story begins and ends with an illustration. I like that.
     Snapshot is about 14 year Michael who helps his neighbor suffering from dementia to get back home when she warns him not to let the 'polaroid man' take his picture because he steals memories. Michael later has a disturbing encounter with the man with the camera and sets out to protect his neighbor, the woman who was his caretaker growing up and the current victim of the Phoenician, from the memory snatching polaroid. He discovers how much this woman loved him and the story culminates in Michael's final act of caring for her.
     Loaded is the story of a violent and angry man whose wife divorced him and has a restraining order against him and who is no longer allowed to own or possess guns and who works in a mall as a security guard. Regardless, he has obtained a gun from a friend and the day a woman shot and killed her lover at the store where they worked, he responded and four other people ended up dead. Hailed as a hero, his story of the shootings starts to unravel when a local reporter starts digging up his past and he does not react well.
     Aloft is the story of Aubrey, a man who agrees to skydive to impress a women he is in love with who does not love him. The jump does not go as planned when he lands on a semi-solid cloud with no way down. The cloud responds to his wishes for comfort and other desires but he is stranded with no food or water and knows he will eventually die up there unless he can find a way down.
     Rain is the story of Honeysuckle, a lesbian waiting for her girlfriend to arrive in Boulder to begin their life together. Just as Yolanda arrives a sudden rain bursts that isn't water but sharp crystal needles that kill everyone who had the bad luck to be outside when it happened. More crystal rains fall spreading out over the country and world as Honeysuckle tries to find her way in this new environment, avoiding the crazy nihilists out to get her, while the world falls apart and she discovers how it all began.

The Night Ship by Jess Kidd – This is the third book in a row that has an illustration at the beginning of each chapter, not an illustration so much as a graphic, and if this is a new trend in publishing, I like it. Why shouldn't adult books have illustrations? Anyway, this the story of the shipwrecked Batavia, en route to the Dutch East Indies from Holland. On board is 9 year old Mayken whose mother has died and she is being sent to a father she has never met. She spends the months of the voyage going on 'misadventures above and below the deck' hunting for a mythical monster she is sure is haunting the ship. One night during a storm, getting separated from the rest of the flotilla, the Batavia runs aground on a coral reef, the ship is abandoned, the survivors are stranded on an atoll from which a boat is launched to go for help. While they struggle to survive waiting for rescue, Mayken learns that the true monsters are all around her. Three hundred and sixty one years later, after the death of his mother, 9 year old Gil is sent to live with a grandfather he barely remembers on the same island that the survivors of the Batavia were stranded on which is now the base for fishermen during the season. Gil is a lost and lonely boy left to his own devices, and his own entertainment, while his taciturn grandfather is out on the boat. He finds himself in the middle of a feud between his grandfather Joss and the dominant family on the island and his strangeness ignites hard feelings into violence. I've barely touched on the stories of these two children, told intertwined in alternating chapters, and what becomes of them. It's a good book, well told, easy reading. I'm going to see if the library has anymore of her work.

Little Bee by Chris Cleave – Sarah and Andrew take a free weekend at a resort in Nigeria to try and save their marriage. They decide to take a walk down the beach, leaving the safety of the resort and run into two girls being chased by mercenaries as they flee the destruction of their village and the murder of their people by an oil company who wants to drill there. The hunters catch up with them as they run towards Andrew and Sarah. The hunters give Andrew and Sarah a chance to save one of the girls by cutting off a finger and so Sarah does and then both girls are dragged away. Little bee is released and makes her way to a port where she sneaks aboard a ship to London and is turned into a detention center. She is kept there for two years before being released illegally and makes her way to Sarah's house. The rest of the book is about the relationship they develop and what to do about Little Bee. The story is told alternately from Little Bee's viewpoint and Sarah's. I didn't care for the ending personally but it does reflect what happens in real life.

French Braid by Anne Tyler – I have no idea why she titled this book French Braid because the reference to that happened only once at the very end of the book as in what was the name of that braid she used to wear? The story opens with Serena and her boyfriend from college catching the train to meet his parents and she sees a man she thinks is her cousin Nicholas. She's not quite sure and doesn't speak to him. Her boyfriend thinks that's weird and can't believe her family is so unconnected that she wasn't even sure the man was her cousin. Then it segues to Serena's grandparents and their three children, Alice, Lily, and David, and tells the family's story through three generations and doesn't get back to Serena until the very end and then only peripherally and it's at least a decade later. I enjoyed it well enough.

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman – There is London above and London below. We all know London above, few know London below where magic and creatures and people live and haunt and struggle. Door is being chased by two hunters sent to kill her. She's exhausted. Every door she creates or opens, they follow and it has drained her. She is wounded and needs sleep and reaches out mentally for one last door to open to someplace safe and falls through a brick wall at the feet of Richard and his fiance Jessica, late for dinner with her boss in London above. Richard stops despite Jessica's urging to leave the girl be and come on. And so Richard is drawn into the world of London below when he helps Door escape her pursuers and then finds that he has become invisible to the world of London above. In London below, Door's family has been murdered and she is on a quest to not only not be killed as well but find out who and why her entire family has been. She acquires the hapless hero Richard because he has nowhere else to go, the marquis de Carabas for his help and information, and the bodyguard Hunter to protect her on her mission. I really like Gaiman's storytelling and he weaves a tale with a very satisfying ending.