Books in Brief

Fiction:

Some recent novels and fiction I’ve enjoyed:

  • Vernor Vinge’s Rainbows End (Tom Doherty Associates / Tor Book, 2006) 364p. Excellent novel, set in the near future, taking place mostly in and around the UC San Diego library (the campus is actually in La Jolla), an unusual building in itself. It takes place in a future extrapolated from ours, very well done indeed. Very enjoyable! From a four-time Hugo winner.
  • Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Doubleday, 2005) One of several works I’ve read lately of which it has been said, the author gets the subject just right (another is Carter Beats the Devil; another is Set This House In Order)… The point-of-view character here is a boy with an emotionally dissociated mind — autism — and he tells us about incidents he was part of, that all started with the dog in the night-time. Absolutely brilliant, and very moving without being in the least sappy or sentimental.
  • Set This House In Order, by Matt Ruff. (HarperCollins 2003) What a terrific read and what a well-written book! I’ve sat most of yesterday afternoon reading, unable to pull myself away. I would have kept at it straight through, but at one point last night my brain simply said “Good Night, Gracie” and I found myself barely able to wait to finish the last few chapters once I woke up…
  • The Final Solution : a detective story, by Michael Chabon (Harper-Collins, 2004) Winner of the 2004 Aga Khan Prize for fiction. It’s a tour-de-force, with the unnamed very old man, a former well-known detective now keeping bees on the Sussex downs, meeting what may be his last case in the year 1944, in the persons of a young boy and a parrot who speak German to each other… excellent!
  • Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (Bloomsbury, 2004) 782 p. It’s 1805, there is a tradition of magic in Britain but the fear is, it has died out. Mr. Norrell shows how it has not. And after a while, here comes Jonathan Strange — a pupil? One surpassing his master? And many characters, of this world and the other, one delights to meet.

More novels so good I wish I had written them:

  • Glen David Gold, Carter Beats the Devil (Hyperion, 2001)[c2001] “A New York Times notable book.” one of my favorite books of all time, about Charles Carter, a magician. The actual Charles Carter lived in the early part of the 20th century, but this is not a biography, it is a novel, taking as its point of departure the unusual and interesting facts in Charles Carter’s life. Every time I read this book I fall in love with its character, Charles Carter. I don’t want it to end; I want more. I realize intellectually it ends where it needs to; nevertheless I can’t stop myself sailing right on into the acknowledgements, hoping for just a little taste more. Wonderful.
  • The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, by Michael Chabon. (Random House 2000) This book won the Pulitzer Prize in its year, and many other prizes from many locations. It’s one of the best books I’ve ever read, and I’ve read a lot. It tells the story of two young men and a young woman in the New York of the 1950s who create a superhero character and publish his comic adventures (one man writes, the other draws). The woman has her own set of talents she adds to the mix. Brilliant, enjoyable, just the best.
  • Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson. (Avon, 1999) 918 pages. That is, 918 lovely, wonderful pages weaving the story of two generations involved with cryptography — one in WWII, one in the 1990s — and several families from the same era, intertwined in more ways than they realize at first. There’s a lot of information about encryption and decryption, codes and coded messages and it’s all vital to the plot, which is amazing, exciting, engrossing and absolutely terrific. This is imaginative fiction — the terms science fiction and fantasy suggest things quite different, but somehow in the same large back yard — at its greatest.
  • Richard Powers, The Gold Bug Variations (Harper Perennial ,1992) Powers is a tremendous writer — I consider him a creative genius as well as an intellectual genius, not at all the same thing — The Gold Bug Variations is my favorite of all his works. I have reread it several times over the years I’ve had it. It combines the story of a 1990′s librarian and an art historian, and a now-retired scientist who had been working in the 1950′s to understand the genetic code at the same time as Watson and Crick were doing their work. Powers’s books seem to like to combine seemingly different, even unrelated stories, in ways that illuminate both stories and show their similarities.(And if you read it, you’ll want at least the 1955 recording of Glenn Gould playing Bach’s Goldberg Variations (trust me) and probably the 1981 recording as well. May I suggest the recently released Glenn Gould: A Sense of Wonder: the complete Goldberg Variations 1955 & 1981, a 3-CD Sony set, which contains not only a disc for each recording, but also a third disc of source material of interest, in a single cover at a reasonable price.)
  • Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: an inquiry into values (Morrow, 1974, 1999) There was a 25th edition of this book in 1999, worth finding for the new introduction and afterward by the author (and other added material, including an interview with him in 1999) as well as an easier reading format and acid-free paper. From time to time, I go back and reread this tremendous book. If you haven’t read it, I urge you to; if you have, I urge you to read it again. There is a palpably different ethos in the US today than in 1974 and it is worth noticing. Even more interesting, is the even more noticeable difference in ethos from the 1999 introduction and afterward, and brief interview with the author, in which the author could feel that the future was promising, and that some at least of the struggles of the past were finally being resolved. And yet, nothing else in the book separates it from our time and place. There is at least as much values inquiry as story in this book and the two are intertwined at all points, and both are compelling reading. A connecting thread with Cott’s book (see below): the narrator of this book also underwent what was known as ‘annihilating ECS’ when it was administered involuntarily, and part of his journey of discovery is refinding himself and facing him(self).
  • Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason, The Rule of Four (Dial Press, 2004) A terrific “what’s going on here?” and “how will it all end?” suspense story set in Princeton University — an exotic-enough setting to suit me. Four suite-mates become involved in various ways with the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, an actual book dating from the early years of printing, and cracking the code they discover within it. A fascinating mystery and way better written than so many other more popular novels. For visuals of Princeton, in this country a unique and beautiful campus, watch the film A Beautiful Mind.

Short story anthologies (SF and Fantasy/imaginative fiction):

  • Steven Millhauser, The Barnum Museum (Poseidon, 1990) 237 p. Includes the story, “Eisenheim the Illusionist,” upon which the recent terrific film “The Illusionist” is based. Millhauser’s stories are unusual and interesting. The film “The Illusionist” uses the story as a point of departure. This is one of the few cases in which the film is better than the book, I feel; but the story is very fine, and so are the others here, although a different kind than my usual tastes.
  • James Tiptree Award Anthology 1 & 2 Ruff’s novel (Set This House In Order) was one of the honorees — the beginnings of two chapters were lightly excerpted in anthology #2 to give a taste of the novel, while most of the rest of the honorees were short stories or novellas, given completely, also very interesting (and all very different from each other).
  • McSweeney’s Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales (ed. Chabon) Michael Chabon’s introduction were cited in the Tiptree anthologies above as required reading. I got the two Chabon-edited anthologies, this and the next listed…
  • McSweeney’s Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories (ed. Chabon) …and sure enough, the introductions WERE really up to, even surpassed, the recommendation… very unusual. The stories in them were good, too.

Non-fiction

Great Biographies:

  • Kevin Bassana, Wondrous Strange: the life and art of Glenn Gould (Oxford University Press, 2004) 528 p., with excellent notes, bibliography and acknowledgements. ISBN 0-19-517440-2. There are several memoirs of friends and other books on the life of Gould, but this one stands head and shoulders above them all. It was reading Powers’s Gold Bug Variations (see above) that got me started listening to and reading about Glenn Gould, as his 1955 recording plays a vital part in that book; it’s almost a character in itself.
  • James Gleick’s Genius: the life and work of Richard Feynman (Pantheon, 1992) 531 p. with excellent notes, bibliography and acknowledgements. ISBN Finalist for the National Book Award. Feynman is a personal hero of mine, and this great work seems to bring both him and his work alive again.
  • Andrew Hodges, Alan Turing: the Enigma. (Touchstone Simon & Schuster, 1983) 587 p. illus. Author’s notes, Notes, and Index. Fine biography of Turing, whose work was kept shrouded by the Official Secrets Act until just before this biography was written. Expert handling of both Turing’s professional work and private life.
  • Stephen Greenblatt, Will in the World: how Shakespeare became Shakespeare. (Norton, 2004) 430 p. with extensive biographical notes and a good index. Finalist for the National Book Award. Not the usual ‘life and times,’ but a fascinating glimpse into the times and the light they can shed on the life.
  • Barbara W. Tuchman, Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-1945. 621 p. (Grove, 1972) (Grove Great Lives series). Far more interesting than the title may suggest, for history buffs. I’ve always found the period just before I was born the most mysterious and interesting — I think a lot of people do — and of course, it’s the time our parents knew best, one of those little life’s ironies. This is a real East meets West story from a great historian. Bibliography, extensive notes, good index. Won the Pulitzer Prize.
  • Esther Sperling, Matisse the Master: the Conquest of Color ( , 2006) v. 2 of a 2-volume biography of Matisse. I mention v. 2 alone only because I’ve only read v. 2 myself. Now that I have, I want to read v.1. So well done.

Favorite authors, esp. of multivolumes, series, or many novels:

  • Robertson Davies The Deptford Trilogy [Fifth Business, The Manticore, World of Wonders] (Viking Penguin, 1970-1975) Robertson Davies is a Canadian writer, and his name is perhaps not as widely known in the States as it should be. Each book of the trilogy may be read independently of the others as a fine novel, but taken together the trilogy is much greater than merely the sum of its parts, and events and characters from earlier books return in later books enough to make the experience of reading the entire trilogy as one long novel highly rewarding.
    All his work, including two other trilogies, the Cornish Trilogy (1981-1988) and the Salterton Trilogy (1951-1958), are superb, too, but I urge you to start with The Deptford Trilogy, then proceed in the order given here. The Salterton Trilogy was reprinted in one volume as a King Penguin in 1980.
  • Patrick O’Brian, The Aubrey/Maturin series; all are so fine it’s hard to choose, so best to just start at the beginning — Master and Commander is the first — and read all 21; they actually form one huge novel, although any can be read independently. If I am forced to choose under dire threat, HMS Surprise and The Surgeon’s Mate are two I’d pick out, but as all the books are quite different, sometimes even in literary style, there’s no meaningful way to choose other than personal preference. I’ve been through them all several times, and reread some additional favorites separately, not only the two mentioned here.)
  • Arturo Perez-Reverte (esp. The Flanders Panel; The Club Dumas; The Fencing Master; The Seville Communion; The Nautical Chart. There are more, but these are enough to go on with. Not a ‘series,’ but the separate works of a productive and popular Spanish writer, now a member of the Spanish Academy. I’ve named them in the order I’d recommend; definitely start with The Flanders Panel.)

Outstanding Non-fiction:

  • Neil Sheehan, A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann And America in Vietnam. 861 p. (Random House,1988). This is one of the few definitive books about the war in Vietnam by an experienced reliable observer who was on the ground there and who also has a great reporting track record. Following JPV’s career there allowed him to tell the entire story. It’s not a biography, it’s history, but Vann’s life is given and his experience tends to parallel Stilwell’s experiences in China enough that it’s interesting to put them together. It took Sheehan 16 years to write this intensively researched effort, which draws as much or more on personal interviews with many, many people as it does on the examination of documents and archives. I only wish that these were the lessons we had learned from Vietnam. Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction in 1989; serialized in The New Yorker. Hardbound copies from the first edition are now going on Amazon for a song. If I could recommend only one book on the Vietnam war, this might well be it.
  • Barbara Tuchman, The Guns of August (Random House/Ballantine,1962, new introduction 1988). Won the Pulitzer Prize. Everything Tuchman has ever written has been superb, and she’s won the Pulitzer twice. You may well already have inhaled all her works, but if not, this is the classic. However, I also love The Zimmermann Telegram, The March of Folly (a personal favorite), The First Salute, A Distant Mirror, and The Proud Tower. There are also Bible and Sword, Notes From China, and Practicing History, which I have not read (yet).
  • Jonathan Cott, On the Sea of Memory: a journey from forgetting to remembering (Random House, 2005). I first came across Jonathan Cott’s earlier work while I was reading widely about Glenn Gould. Cott included a conversation with Gould among several other conversations in a book called Forever Young. I found Cott a fine and intelligent writer, and I began looking for other books by him (there are quite a few). Then, last year, I saw an advertisement for his On the Sea of Memory, about his own experiences — severe loss of memory and much else — from ECT, electro-convulsive therapy (“shock treatment”). Cott brings his changed but still formidable talents to bear on the subject, not only by sharing his own experiences, but by presenting interviews with people with many different points of view on the issue. A book you’ll never forget.
  • Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb. ( Simon & Schuster/Touchstone,1986). Pulitzer Prize-winner, winner of the National book Award, and of the National Book Critics Circle Award. There are many memorable scenes, encounters, and stories of both people and discoveries, but one which haunts me to this day is the young Leo Szilard, a Hungarian Jew, working in Berlin in the early 30′s (because that’s where the physics was), but living in a small room out of two packed suitcases, and with all his money (in US dollars) out of Germany and in Switzerland. After the Reichstag fire and increasing outrages against Jews in 1933, he grabbed his suitcases and left on the nearly empty train to Switzerland one day in early April, getting through with no trouble — just a day before the Germans closed the borders on by-then crowded trains of would-be escapees and took them off the trains and shipped them back again. This is the story of a great, adventurous scientific epic… that had a terrible ending over Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
  • Misha Glenny, The Fall of Yugoslavia: the third Balkan war. (Penguin, revised and updated ed., 1993) 257 p. Misha Glenny is one of the few truly credible writers on the Balkans, having mastered the languages of the area and lived among the peoples himself for many years, yet not being a partisan of any one group. He is an internationally praised journalist, and one of the few that people on the ground in the area would talk with freely.