reading Road Trip...Alaska

When I was little, I was fascinated by the Iditarod race. (I even had a t-shirt that said, "Alaska, where men are men and women win the Iditarod.") So when I came across a mystery called Murder on the Iditarod Trail, I snapped it up. The author was Sue Henry, one of several women who have well-established Alaska-set mysteries. (Probably the best known is Diana Stabenow who writes the long-running Kate Sugak books.) Turns out there are a couple of other mystery writers who have made Alaska their stomping grounds. I'm a fan of John Straley (particularly his The Woman Who Married a Bear), and I intend to check out Christopher Lane's Inupiat mystery series.

For me, though, the quintessential Alaska book is John McPhee's Coming Into the Country. McPhee is widely known as a pioneer of "creative nonfiction" and I've been a fan of his since I read Oranges. His prose is cut-glass sharp but never pretentious. He's got books with titles so odd they suck you in, like The Deltoid Pumpkin Seed or The Curve of Binding Energy (a brilliant book about nukes) and his topics range from the geology of the West to a farmer's market (the title essay in Giving Good Weight).  One of his best books is La Place de la Concorde Swiss, which is about the Swiss Army and its role in society.Seriously. He will make you care about that.

Coming Into the Country is about both the land and the people on it and it's a grand colletion of personalities and observations. It made me want to visit Alaska more than ever before. Don't let that cover fool you (it looks like it was designed more for graphic impact than to give readers an idea of what's inside) and check it out if you're a fan of elegant writing and interesting subjects.

A Millennial Voice

For my generation, Joyce Maynard's Looking Back: A Chronicle of Growing Up Old in the Sixties pretty much summed things up. The author, an elfin, barefoot figure in jeans and a yellow sweater stared solemnly at the reader from the cover, and you got the picture. This is an "old soul." Maynard's book was highly praised at the time and since its publication in 1973, she has written about the various stages of her life. She was born in 1953, so she's gracefully aging into her middle years now.)

I don't really know who spoke for Gen X or Gen Y but when Marina Keegan first burst onto the scene, it was clear that she was a talent to be reckoned with. The Opposite of Lonelness is a collection of her essays and short stories and a showcase for a writer already confident and accomplished. Sadly, it is a posthumous collection, and unlike Joyce Maynard, we will never have the pleasure of seeing the writer mature. She died in a car accident just after she graduated from college.

If you want to write, write. Life is not a dress rehearsal.

Reading Road Trip...Alabama

Robert McCammon's Boy's Life and Fannie Flagg's Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe are both set in Alabama and they couldn't be more different. McCammon's book (a Bram Stoker award winning fantasy/horor) is set in Zephyr, Alabama in 1964 and it opens with a chilling scene as a car plunges into a lake some say are bottomless. A milkman who witnesses the accident while makings his rounds with his son, dives down to see if he can rescue the driver and discovers...this was no accident. Flagg's book, the basis for the movie Fried Green Tomatoes, is set in the fictional town of Whistle Stop, Alabama and tells the story of a friendship between two women and plays out against various timelines. I highly recommend both books.

And then there's This is Where it Ends by Marieke Nijcamp. Set in Opportunity, Alabama, it's the story of a school shooting told through multiple points of view. I have a fondness for that kind of storytelling (Ryan Gattis' All Involved is probably my favorite) and the writer does a fantastic job here. The book is tagged as YA but it is in the vein of Angie Thomas' The Hate U Give than John Green's The Fault in Our Stars.

the shooter in Nijcamp's book, Tyler Browne, is an outcast whose rage is fueled by the mantra, "I will make sure you remember me." In some ways it will remind readers of Todd Strasser's Give a Boy a Gun, a novel based on the 1999 Columbine school shooting.

The Reading Road Trip is coming!

Beginning in April, I'll be taking a reading road trip all around the country. From the Redwood forests (Rutherford G. Montgomery's book Kildee House) to the Gulfstream waters (Thomas McGuane's Key West novel Ninety-Two in the Shade), I'll be taking a look at local lit from all fifty states plus D.C., the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico. I'll be covering a couple of books from some states and not all of the books I'll be reading are fiction. The route will be eccentric (I'm not going alphabetically) but I promise the trip will be fun.

there's an intriguing idea here

In the wake of the presidential election, I've been reading a lot more political-themed fiction and non-ficiton. This book seems to be a fusion of the two and the premise is provocative. The Last Bastion of Civilization: Japan 2041 sets out a scenario for a different kind of future. I'd really like to believe there is a civilized future out there. Here's the blurb and a testimonial:

Brexit, Trump, Le Pen: Where Are We Heading?

If you’re a contrarian, or simply wish to imagine a radically different future, The Last Bastion of Civilization will challenge your current world-view.
Written as a series of letters and short essays, each of the 18 chapters attacks a present-day assumption with a counter-punch argument of its own.
Sometimes controversial, always challenging, it’s a future to consider given today’s world affairs.

“Blencowe’s writing is fast-paced and easily readable. The structure of the book is unusual, in that it's not a novel, though not quite non-fiction. I can best categorize it as fictional journalism, or perhaps an imaginary opinion piece. He expresses himself clearly and his intentions and message are never in doubt.”  —Andrew Henry

Boook suggestions

I love book lists. And I especially love book lists that hav a theme. Now that everyone from the Seattle Seahawks to Emma Watson (and Emma Stone) to Cory Booker are sponsoring book clubs, there's never a lack of suggestions for my next read. Today this list "20 Books to Take You Around the World" popped up on The Modern Mrs. Darcy blog.  Since I love travel as much as I love reading, it felt like a Monday morning Christmas present. (And bonus points for Mrs. Darcy, one of the recommended books was NOT Eat, Pray, Love, which continues to irritate me.)

I was delighted to see one of my old favorites, John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley in Search of America on the list. It's a lovely book, and intriguing to compare the America of Steinbeck's time to today's nation. It's an eclectic list that includes Tana French's Into the Woods, Anthony Doerr's Four Seasons in Rome, and All the Light We Cannot See.  Amor Towles' A Gentleman in Moscow piqued my interest the most but I marked down several for my TBR pile.

something for the TBR pile

A friend and I were lamenting the overload of merely mediocre paranormal and urban fantasy novels out there and wondering what to read next. I decided to go looking for a list and this book popped up on several of them.

I knew Simon Green's name but hadn't read anything of his. Looks like he's got a couple of urban fantasy series; but this one caught my eye.