Thursday, October 12, 2006

More book review stuff

Read "Night Watch" by Sarah Waters. There is a reason it was the favorite for the Booker Prize. And as to Meegan's concern that it would be too pat, too easily wrapped up? No, it isn't. The novel goes backwards in time, so you see the whole cast of miserable people finish miserable and start fairly miserable, too. Waters' power of description is incredible. There's a part where an ambulance driver in WWII-era London is driving through a bombed-out street and Waters compares the drift of debris to bubbles settling in stout, and there are other wonderful little pieces like that in her book.

I'm picking up the Booker winner, "The Inheritance of Loss" by Anita Desai's kid, today at the library, so I guess I'll get to see why it won now.

Also flipped through Simon Winchester's "Karakatoa" and thought it was a little too formulaic for my tastes. Plus I already get plate techtonics and don't think it's too mindblowing and in need of popular science description for the target audience of the book (i.e. wannabe nerds like me).

Another book I read, and this will be one you can't necessarily get a hold of, is "On the Harbor," a local history book by my publisher and this guy I used to know. And I have to say, the first time I heard "local history book" I figured it would be one of those squat, aspen-green covered things with a whole bunch of text squished together and narratives that were all intertwined with dreadful boring dates, because local history doesn't always have the best enthusiasts. But no. It's a really lovely book with photos, sidebars, graphics and all the other good stuff about newspapers. And honestly, I should have known better when I was thinking it because both John C. Hughes and Ryan Teague Beckwith have impeccable journalism taste and Ryan in particular was always interested in coming up with new ways to present information. And my God, Grays Harbor has a lurid, fascinating history, and the journalism instincts to find the "telling detail," and to present information bravely, trusting the reader, really make the stories accessible.

So the one story I read about three or four times last night was "Who Killed Laura Law?" It's a murder mystery from 1939 that has never been solved and probably never will be. It was a flash point between "Red" (serious instigator types) and "White" (more conservative) Communist factions in town and between the Commies and the local business tycoons. And it's probably because there was so much tension and suspicion and bad actors that the murder of this young mother wasn't solved.

So, the two books I haven't been able to put down lately are "Night Watch" and "On the Harbor." Make of that what you will.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Glad you liked it. — A guy you used to know