I had more time for leisure reading in November (although not too much), but didn’t find a lot of novels to my taste.  In fact, I sent two to the used bookstore after 50 pages.  The writing in both was lovely, but the characters in one were so unlikeable as to be impossible to read about.  In the other, there was no main character—at least that I could find.  So off it went.  Too many books, too little time.

After I finished Mystery Writers of America anthology, The Blue Religion, I realized I hadn’t achieved one of my goals this year.  I hadn’t read every issue of the mystery magazines.  Since I’d already read May of 2008, I figured I had a head start on Ellery Queen, so I decided to finish those.  It’s December as I’m writing this, and I’m still reading.  But I am enjoying.

Some good articles in here as well and a wonderful novel, as well as a truly excellent creative nonfiction book.

November, 2008

Allyn, Doug, “Pig Party,” Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, March/April, 2008.  A rather stunning evocation of college life.  A bartender and a reporter go undercover at a frat party, called a “Pig Party,” because the boys bring the ugliest girls they can find.  Things do not go as anyone expects.  A sad and somewhat shocking tale, by one of our best mystery short story writers.

Buentello, John, “A Certain Recollection,” The Blue Religion, edited by Michael Connelly, Little, Brown, 2008.  “A Certain Recollection” is an amazing short story written from the point of view of a retired detective with Alzheimer’s.  Even though we’re in the detective’s POV for the entire story and he is confused, we are not.  We know what’s going on in his mind, what’s happening in the real world, and what he’s managing to accomplish.    A stunning story, well told.

Carhart, Thad, The Piano Shop on The Left Bank, Random House, 2000.    I discovered this book on top of a pile of old books that our local bookstore owner was going to donate to the library.  He let me take it for free.  Clearly, I didn’t pay enough for it. 

This serendipitous introduction to a wonderful book actually suits the book itself.  The Piano Shop on The Left Bank is a magic shop story, even though it’s nonfiction.  Thad Carhart lived in Paris and walked past this dingy shop every day as he walked his children to school.  One day, he went inside—and his life changed.

Truly, the story follows magic shop tropes.  The owner possesses knowledge that will make Carhart’s life better, and introduces him to a magical heretofore unknown (and unknowable) world.  The Parisian neighborhood, usually not open to strangers, particularly foreigners, gets revealed here bit by bit.  So too does a fascinating cast of characters, from Luc the store’s owner to the drunken piano tuner to the elderly man no one knows who stops in the shop one afternoon, plays a flawless (and extremely difficult) Scarlatti sonata, and then leaves, never to be seen again.

If you want to read a delightful book about music, Paris, or the magic in everyday things, pick up The Piano Shop on the Left Bank.

Connelly, Michael, editor, The Blue Religion, Little, Brown, 2008.  This entire anthology is good, with several stand-outs that have their own listing in this Recommended Reading list.  Find it.  You’ll enjoy it.

Connelly, Michael, “Father’s Day,” The Blue Religion, edited by Michael Connelly, Little, Brown, 2008.  I read this story with one eye half open.  Connelly never shies away from difficult subjects and he tackles a big one here:  a child dies “forgotten” by his father in an overheated car.  While such cases are usually homicides, they’re generally of the negligent kind.  (And I usually don’t read about them, even the true ones [the horrible ones] that show up in the newspaper.)  Connelly caught me on the first sentence—“The victim’s tiny body was left alone in the emergency room”—and held me all the way to the upsetting ending.  His L.A.P.D. detective Harry Bosch handled the case, and even the hard-bitten Bosch feels his way through this one.  Extremely good.

Frederickson, Jack, “A Change in His Heart,” The Blue Religion, edited by Michael Connelly, Little, Brown, 2008.  When I started this story, I didn’t like it.  I didn’t care for the characters and I wasn’t sure about the set-up.  But something in the prose kept me reading.  Midway through, I realized I was enjoying the piece, even though I didn’t care for anyone I was reading about.  By the end, I thought it was one of the best stories I’d read this year.  The characters had to be unsympathetic for the story to work as well as it did.   (Gradually, one character become extremely sympathetic.) An excellent story about someone getting his comeuppance—and in a rather startling way.

Goodman, Carol, The Night Villa, Ballantine Books, 2008. I have liked all six of Carol Goodman’s novels.  She writes a literate gothic of the type that Phyllis Whitney used to write.  Of course, the books aren’t marketed that way.  They’re marketed mainstream, with literary covers.

I picked up the first, The Lake of Dead Languages, because of the marvelous title (something she hasn’t duplicated since), and found it to be the sort of book I’d been craving but no one was writing.  Her heroines are always literate, often teachers/professors/writers, and always interesting.  Usually their field of study factors into the book.   The books themselves follow a predictable pattern—one man seems untrustworthy, but is trustworthy, and one man isn’t trustworthy, but is somehow appealing—but even that’s comforting.

In The Night Villa, Goodman takes us to Capri where Sophie Chase, the protagonist, is studying documents found in a dig near Mount Vesuvius.  She translates the documents for us, giving us parallel storylines of a slave girl and scholar days before Vesuvius erupts (and buries the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum), as well as the story of Sophie herself who, just before she left, survived a shooting at the university where she teaches.

The historical details are fascinating, and threaten to overwhelm the modern tale.  The setting is equally fascinating.  Oddly enough, I started this novel just before researching Ancient Rome for a large project, so everything dovetailed beautifully.  It was as if she made the dry historical texts I’ve been reading come to vivid life.  Rarely does my leisure reading and my research come together in this way, and that added to my pleasure in the volume.

King, Laurie R., “The Fool,” The Blue Religion, edited by Michael Connelly, Little, Brown, 2008.  King uses characters from other stories for this one, and I still don’t feel lost. The most compelling character is the title character, a homeless man who speaks in quotations.  How she managed to write this and pull it off, I have no idea, but it’s marvelous.  Apparently this character has appeared in other stories, and now I’m going to go look for them.

Le Carré, John, “The Madness of Spies,” The New Yorker, September 29, 2008.  A bleak personal essay on an aspect of Le Carré’s personal history as a spy before he became a bestselling novelist.  Slowly, Le Carré realized that a number of the people he was working with were delusional.  He explains how he came to these conclusions and what impact (if any) this may have had on history.

He has this lovely passage a few paragraphs from the end, “Faith in spies is mystical, fuelled by fantasy and halfway to religion.” The entire essay deals with the way that faith gets in the way of dealing with the realities of paranoia and madness that lie at the heart of the spying game.

The essay is interesting to writers, of course, because he describes how he tried to debunk the faith in spies in a few of his novels and how he failed.  He also talks about which bits and pieces of his past he used in various stories.  Fascinating stuff, and timely too.

Resnick, Mike, “Article of Faith,” Jim Baen’s Universe, October, 2008.  Mike’s stories are always good, but every year, he writes one that just blows me away.  “Article of Faith” is that story.  (Okay, he had one other, back in the early part of the year—see early Recommended Reading lists.)  Mike let me read this one before it hit Baen’s Universe, so I’ve been waiting to tell folks about it.  Yes, it’s a robot story, but it’s a powerful one.  Go look it up—and then subscribe!

As I expected, October turned out to be a difficult time for my leisure reading. (And for my TV viewing—my DVR started randomly deleting things [even the items I had saved] because it ran out of space. Fortunately, everything is rerun on some sister station these days, and I didn’t lose much.)

What I did read outside of the workshop came in stolen moments—an article here, a short story there. Fortunately, most of my stolen readings were excellent as well. Here are the things I liked this month that have actually seen print:

October, 2008

Eggers, Dave, “The Future of Words,” Esquire, October, 2008. A brilliant essay on the future of reading, using facts, figures, and just good old fashioned logic. I also reference this piece in my Dated Essay of the Month for October, so check that out as well. I found Eggers essay inspiring, marvelous, and refreshing. It’s very short, so follow the link now and read it. You’ll be happy that you did.

Oates, Joyce Carol, “Hi Howya Doin,” Ploughshares, Spring 2007. Some of the Master Class students pointed me to this story while we were discussing all the tools a writer has at her disposal. This Oates story is excellent—about 1700 words with a nifty little twist at the end. But it wouldn’t work if she had written it in a conventional style. The entire piece is one sentence—and it has multiple points of view. Now I know, that sounds dull, but it isn’t. It’s the story of someone running (jogging), with the promise of a police report at the end, and somehow she manages to mimick the act of running on a trail with lots of other runners nearby. The promise of the police report adds tension.

The story is phenomenal. I’ve been rereading it since the students pointed it out to me, trying to figure out how it works. (That’s the mode I get into when I teach.) The punctuation is simple; I get what she’s doing. The points of view, on the other hand, will require more study. They’re seamless.

Of course, most of you reading this could care less about technique. You want to know if it’s a good story. And it is. It’s amazing. But then, so is Oates.

Russo, Richard, Bridge of Sighs, Vintage, 2007. When I chose Richard Russo’s newest, Bridge of Sighs, to read during the Master Class, I did so because I knew that Russo’s spectacular writing would hold me through my exhaustion and the extremely critical mood that the Master Class always forces me into.

The Master Class requires me to think about fiction from a craft perspective, analyzing all aspects of it. That attitude creeps into my leisure reading, making it hard for me to read writers whose skills might be perfect for the story they’re telling, but might lack certain refinements—the very things I’m focussing on during the teaching.

Few writers can stand up to such scrutiny. The storytellers, who focus on plot, often have thin characterization or nonexistent setting. The beautiful writers, who focus on description and language, usually lack plot. I read primarily for character, setting, and plot, and when I’m in a highly critical mode, a writer who misses one of the three loses me immediately.

This is not the writer’s fault. It’s mine, and I know it. So I chose Richard Russo, whose plots are subtle and refined, whose characterization is so superb that I feel like I’ve met everyone he describes, and whose settings are so well realized that they become another character and are often, as in Empire Falls, the point of the story itself.

Bridge of Sighs met all of my expectations of Russo’s work and more. He held my attention, even when I only had time to read 5 pages in an evening, sinking me back into the story of Thomasville, Bobby Noonan, Lucy (Louis C. Lynch, he of the unfortunately nickname), Lucy’s wife Sarah, their parents, children, and friends.

The story is a generational saga, told mostly through the eyes of Lucy Lynch and Bobby Noonan, from the earliest memories of childhood through their sixtieth birthday (both men were born in the same year). Noonan fled Thomasville as a teenager; Lucy never left. But the town, its people, and its strengths influence both of them, and inform the entire novel.

To tell more of the plot is to ruin the book. The plot doesn’t come togheter until the very last line, although the read is compelling. But what held me wasn’t so much “what happens next?” as “how are these people, and this town, going to make it through this incident, that incident, and this crisis?”

A beautiful work, strong and lyrical. One that I will remember for a very, very long time.

Shepard, Lucius, “A Spanish Lesson,” The Best of Lucius Shepard, Subterranean Press, 2008. Even though Lucius is one of my all-time favorite short story writers, I somehow managed to miss quite a few of the stories collected in his Best of. “A Spanish Lesson” is one of them. I read it the night before the Master Class began, nearly a month ago as I write this, and I can still recall the story and its details vividly. A story that reads as if it’s semi-autobiographical (the POV character’s name is Lucius) gains a lot of power from that hint of realism. Interesting characters, unique situation. Exactly what I expect from a Lucius Shepard story.

I have a series of tough months ahead for my leisure reading. In September, I taught a workshop and read a lot of manuscripts, which took time from my leisure reading. I’ll be doing a longer workshop in October, and another in November. So any leisure reading I can do, I’ll be happy about.

Which is why I only list the things I enjoyed each month. Those stories and novels are ones I love to share. Here’s September’s….

September, 2008

Asher, Neil, “Alien Archeology,” The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fifth Annual Edition, edited by Gardner Dozois, St. Martins Press, 2008. This was a cover story for Asimov’s, but I got behind in my reading last year and didn’t get to the issue. Still, as I was reading this story, the cover came immediately to mind. Gardner, in his introduction, calls it a space opera tale of cross and double-cross, but it’s more than that. It also creates several fascinating societies, some interesting characters, and some nifty sfnal ideas. The gabbleduck alone—which shows up in a later story published in Asimov’s this year—is worth the price of entry. But this story kept me reading long into the night when I should have gone to bed—which I see as one of the best recommendations of all.

Baxter, Stephen, “Fate and the Fire-Lance,” Sideways in Crime: An Alternate History Mystery Anthology edited by Lou Anders, 2008. Every story in this book has to have a mystery and an alternate timeline. Stephen Baxter choses to set his story in London in a world where Napoleon never sold the Louisiana Purchase to raise funds and the Roman Empire still exists. Only this story happens in 1914—at what was, in our world, the cusp of World War I.

Baxter plays with that, as well as several other historical tropes. He posits a murder, that if it went unsolved, would have been as devastating as the murder in Sarajevo, which was the spark that set off what was then known as the Great Cataclysm.

You can read this story without that knowledge, of course, but it’s more fun to see the riffs he plays on WWI. He has a spunky British heroine and a Roman prefect who becomes the stolid hero. Nicely done, with a neat very British cozy twist to the mystery as well. And, in the spirit of all good alternate history, it is the changed history that leads to the reveal in the mystery. So beautifully done that as a writer of alternate history, I’m envious.

Bear, Elizabeth, “Tideline,” The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fifth Annual Edition, edited by Gardner Dozois, St. Martins Press, 2008. When the final Hugo ballot came out last spring, I promised myself I would read everything on it. I, of course, failed. I am only now getting to some of the stories, and that’s because I’m reading Gardner’s Years Best, as I do every year.

“Tideline” is a lovely science fiction story. Well written, full of heart, it is exactly what science fiction should be.

Stunning.

Chiang, Ted, “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate,” The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fifth Annual Edition, edited by Gardner Dozois, St. Martins Press, 2008. As I mentioned above, I missed reading the Hugo stories this year. I finally got to “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate.” It is only nominally science fiction. It does have a device for time travel—and a man with an understanding of the way that device works. But the story is set sometime in the past in what we now call the Middle East.

It’s a tour de force—stories inside of stories inside of stories, clearly inspired by A Thousand And One Nights. Most writers who attempt this kind of story don’t realize that the stories inside the overall story must have some kind of link, and the overall story needs an emotional punch as well.

Chang does all of this and gives us a nice meditation on time, the past, and change. Clearly one of the best stories of the year.

Clark, Rod, Voice Over, Rosebud, Summer, 2008. Rod Clark’s editorials for Rosebud are always interesting. I read them the day the magazine arrives. This one, about writing methods, is particularly strong.

Dessen, Sarah, The Truth About Forever, Speak, 2004. I went on a bit of a Sarah Dessen binge after reading This Lullabye in August. The Truth About Forever is my favorite of the three Dessen books I read this month. The characters—always her strong suit—are particularly strong here, particularly the catering crew that brings much-needed chaos into the life of our heroine Macy. I find myself thinking about this book at the oddest times. There are so many nuggets of wisdom here as well as moments of characterization that seem so real, it’s as if I’ve lived them myself. Recommended.

Di Filippo, Paul, “Murder in Geektopia,” Sideways in Crime: An Alternate History Mystery Anthology edited by Lou Anders, 2008. My favorite story of the month—one I’m recommending to every geek I know. In a world where geeks rule (and everyone knows [and loves] every single geeky reference), a private detective (actually a man with his Nick Carter license [gotta love it]) discovers a scheme to create ubergeeks. But, like a good Raymond Chandler story, the plot here is secondary. We have the blonde walking into the office, we have the big schemes, we have the snappy language—and even better, we have a world so large and interesting that I hope Paul writes more stories set here.

Loved it. Loved it. Go get a copy of the book and read it. Now.

Kress, Nancy, “The Erdmann Nexus,” Asimov’s, October/November, 2008. Nancy Kress’s novellas are always interesting, but this one is one of my favorites. Something odd is happening at a retirement center. People are fainting, losing consciousness, and having strange experiences—mental experiences. Not that unusual in a place that caters to the very old, except these experiences happen at the same time, to a very large group of people. Something is going on, and our heroes—many of them elderly—strive to figure out what.

Not just a story of science and cognition, but also a tale of the way that we treat those with more experience and more wisdom than ourselves. A suspenseful and heartfelt piece of fiction.

Kress, Nancy, “Laws of Survival,” The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fifth Annual Edition, edited by Gardner Dozois, St. Martins Press, 2008. A wrenching story set in a brutal world. At times, I read Nancy’s “Laws of Survival” with one eye closed and my face half turned away. Yet she never went to the darkest places she could go. She correctly touched on them and then pulled back.

This story is memorable and heartwarming in its own dark way. Excellent.

Malzberg, Barry N., “Tripping with the Alchemist,” Breakfast in the Ruins, Baen, 2007. Breakfast in the Ruins is an expansion of Barry’s classic Engines of the Night. I’d read most of the essays twenty years ago. I’ve changed a lot since then, although, of course, the essays haven’t. “Tripping with the Alchemist” is the best of the lot, a personal essay about the Scott Meredith Literary Agency and Scott Meredith himself.

When I came into the field, Scott Meredith was a looming presence, the agent, and his agency was an object of derision and envy. Part of that was the two-part agency: he charged fees to have manuscripts read, and almost no clients came from those piles. However, a lot of clients came from the ranks of the paid readers, and Barry was one.

You’ll be surprised at who got their start in that piece-work sweatshop. I was, and I thought I’d known every famous writer who worked there. Barry was there on and off until the agency’s implosion after Meredith’s demise in the early 1990s.

This essay is a nifty bit of sf (and mystery) history.

A difficult month for reading. First there was Worldcon. Travel—particularly book tours and conventions—cut into my reading time, since I can sleep on any airplane these days. The books I did read were mostly unsatisfying.

So the month wasn’t an entire waste.

August, 2008

Asimov’s, July, 2008. One of the best issues of an sf magazine that I have read this year. I’ll make note of a special story or two below, but this entire issue is worth your while.

Baxter, Stephen, “The Ice War,” Asimov’s, September, 2008. At the Sidewise Awards ceremony at Worldcon, the nominees and the judges had a short, panel-like discussion about what a good alternate history needs to work. We concluded that a good alternate history needs an excellent story and historical rigor although, as Steven Silver, one of the judges and writer/publisher of a superb on-line fanzine, said, “It’s better to have an excellent story and poor history than it is to have excellent history and a poor story.”

The next day, I was walking to lunch with Sheila Williams, the Hugo-nominated editor of Asimov’s, and we were discussing the role of alternate history in her magazine. She said that she prefers the alternate history she publishes to have some science in it as well.

Steven Baxter’s “The Ice War” is a marvelous example of all of those points. It has a rousing story, rigourous history, and science—something I wasn’t going to believe possible when I started the story.

The story’s point of view character is Jack Hobbes, who appears to be the spiritual if not the actual descendant of Thomas Hobbes, Britain’s most famous philosopher. This Hobbes is a self-proclaimed coward and he’s a thorough scoundrel as well, but he’s an interesting—and cheeky—character. As he flees the ice monsters (in scenes deliberately reminescent of War of the Worlds), he encounters Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe, Jonathan Swift (in our world, author of Gulliver’s Travels; alas, in this one he doesn’t live long enough to write it), and Sir Isaac Newton at the end of his life.

The three men are traveling to Edinburgh on the order of the King. Their mission is to save England, which, oddly enough, they do, but not without the help of Hobbes and the weather.

Baxter makes all of these historical characters live and breathe. He also throws in Newton’s theories and scientific thinking, and the differences between DeFoe and Swift. The story manages to be current in its examination of the little ice age that England was suffering through at the time—and the way that sudden climate change (in this case, in the form of invaders from the stars) will have an impact on everyone’s lives.

This is why I read alternate history, and why I read science fiction. Adventure, thoughtfulness, great characters, and a slam-bang story all rolled into one. One of the stories of the year.

Bishop, Michael, “Vinegar Peace, or the Used Adult Orphanage,” Asimov’s, July, 2008. First, this story has a nifty sfnal conceit—the idea of an orphanage for adults who’ve lost their children (and any relative who can take care of them in old age). But while the story itself explores this fascinating idea, the heart of it is about outliving your children. Extremely powerful and well done.

Brasheres, Ann, The Second Summer of the Sisterhood, Delacorte, 2003. I read the first book, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, before it became a phenomenon. I discovered it in a bookstore, read the opening chapter, was stunned at the author’s audacity (the book starts in first person plural, then goes to third person limited alternating points of view between the four main characters). The slight fantastic element—a single pair of jeans that can fit four very physically (and emotionally) different girls—is less of a plot device and more of a metaphor.

I loved the first book, but it broke my heart—and I didn’t expect it. Until that book, YA had replaced romance as my relaxation reading. But Sisterhood was one of the first edgy YA novels and its message as well as its sophistication made me realize that YA, like everything else, now had new agendas. I knew I would read the second book, but I also knew I had to be in the mood for something that challenged me and made me feel something more than casual enjoyment.

I finally came back to the second book this summer, thinking I had to read it before the movie. Turns out the movie is about the girls in college, and this book is not at all about college. It’s about the relationship between the girls and their mothers. It’s not as heartbreaking as the first book, although it is touching, and the insights are worthwhile. I don’t think it can stand alone—Tibby’s plotline depends on your knowledge of Bailey (my favorite character from the first book)—but I do think it’s worth reading. Now I have to buy the remaining books. Oh, sadness: an excuse to buy more books. Woe is me.

Burrough, Brian, “Bringing Down Bear Stearns,” Vanity Fair, August, 2008. If you’ve been following the troubles in the financial markets and still have questions about what happened at Bear Stearns, then this article is for you. Since it’s in a major mainstream publication, I have to assume it’s been fact-checked and vetted by lawyers. Which makes the information inside all the more startling. We were brought up to believe that financial markets were protected by the legislation written during the Progressive Era and the Roosevelt Administration. But these newer markets, like Bear Stearns, slipped through. The result is catastrophic. And this article, well written and well researched, reads like a good thriller. Check it out.

Creasey, Ian, “Cut Loose the Bonds of Flesh and Bone,” Asimov’s, September, 2008. I’m not sure if I liked this story because it’s a hell of a story or because it speaks to me and the decisions I would have made in the same shoes as the protagonist. But it’s a thought-provoking piece on the finality of death, and certainly worth the read.

Dessen, Sarah, This Lullabye, Speak, 2004. I first encountered Sarah Dessen’s work through her wonderful book, Just Listen. This Lullabye isn’t quite as good—it feels a bit padded in the beginning—but the characters are strong and the situations interesting. This book, in the guise of a girl’s last summer home before college, is actually about the sacrifices we make (especially of ourselves) when we fall in love. She also manages an excellent portrayal of life with a writer. Recommended.

Kelly, James Patrick, “On the Net: Storming the Academy,” Asimov’s, August, 2008. Jim’s “On the Net” columns are always fun and informative. This one has more structure than usual (often he takes us through loosely connected websites. This time, however, he explores the uneasy connection between sf and academia. He gives a brief history of the relationship and takes us all the way to the present. Worth reading—and worth checking out the links.

Sellar, Gord, “Lester Young and the Jupiter’s Moons’ Blues,” Asimov’s, July, 2008. This novelette is a tour de force of voice, music, and storytelling. In an alternate timeline where jazz musicians are taken to the stars by an appreciative alien species, things aren’t exactly as they seem. Written like fine jazz itself, capturing the voices of musicians as well as the era, and managing to write well about music (I heard [or perhaps I should say reheard] a lot of the pieces in my head as I read), this story is extremely well done. The most memorable story I’ve read in the magazines this year.

Silverberg, Robert, “Reflections: Some Thoughts on the Short Story,” Asimov’s, August, 2008. When a Grand Master of Science Fiction writes an essay on writing, all wannabe writers and established writers should read it. Bob’s essay on the short story brings up a few points I hadn’t thought of. He also discusses how he moves between the long form (novels) and the short form (short stories). He’s done that throughout his career. A lot of writers give up short stories once they’ve published a novel, a mistake, I think, since the forms are so different. Each form is a challenge, and worth the writer’s time. Just like this essay.

Spinrad, Norman, “On Books: the Multiverse,” Asimov’s, April/May, 2008. Normally I wouldn’t recommend a book review column, but Norman’s column always reads like a good essay. This one, in particular, is very strong. It explains the scientific concept of multiverse, and explores how sf writers can/have/and should examine it in story form. A great piece of science fiction theory—and quite a challenge to sf writers all over the globe.

Van Doren, Charles, “All the Answers,” The New Yorker, July 28, 2008. I find stories of people who have recovered after a great and public failure fascinating. This is no exception. Charles Van Doren was at the heart of the Quiz Show Scandals in the 1950s (Ralph Fiennes played him in Quiz Show about a decade ago). He was a promising man from a famous family, and after that, he more or less disappeared.

But not really. It turns out he worked as a writer for the rest of his career—primarily at Encyclopedia Brittanica, which meant that, without knowing it, I had probably read his work.

This essay isn’t a mea culpa. More of a “this is what happened from my perspective.” If you, like me, are fascinated with second acts, here’s an interesting one—hidden in a well written essay.

Wolven, Nick, “An Art, Like Everything Else,” Asimov’s, April/May, 2008. A story about death in the future, this is Wolven’s first professional sale, and it’s a heck of a good way to start. Wolven manages to capture how it feels to lose a loved one within his sfnal premise. Excellent.

A great month for reading until the last week or so, when I got bogged down in a book by one of my favorite authors. Had anyone else written it, I would have quit on page 100, but I was convinced it would get better (based on her track record). It didn’t, but I slogged through. I was relieved to leave it and read a few children’s books afterwards just to clear my palate.

Otherwise I had a lot of fun. Excellent books here, a few of which surprised me—in a good way.

July, 2008

Calonita, Jen, Secrets of My Hollywood Life: On Location, Little, Brown, 2007. I had read the earler volume, Calonita’s debut novel, Secrets of My Hollywood Life. While I liked it well enough to buy the next book, I described it to friends as Princess Diaries meets Hollywood.

In the second volume, Calonita finds her own voice and her own story to tell. Our heroine, Kaitlin Burke, teen celebrity, has a heck of a problem. She’s working on a film where everyone seems to hate her, even her assistants. Stories leak to the tabloids, high jinks ensue, and in the end all is made right. But the journey is original and a great deal of fun.

I’m buying the next volume the minute I hit the bookstore, and putting Calonita on my to-read list for every time a new book comes out.

Connelly, Michael, The Brass Verdict, Little, Brown, October, 2008. Yet another book that’s not been released. That’s the benefit of having a friend who goes to Book Expo and brings you back autographed copies of your favorite authors’ works.

The Brass Verdict takes two of Connelly’s characters, his detective Harry Bosch and defense attorney Mickey Haller, and brings them together in the same novel. The novel is truly a legal thriller, written in first person from Haller’s point of view. It becomes clear by the end why Connelly chose that technique.

The book is a fascinating balancing act between a mystery reader’s expectation of justice and a defense attorney’s job (which is to make sure everyone accused of a crime gets to be treated as innocent in court [even if they’re not]).

The book is so well written, the Los Angeles venues so well drawn that the morning after I finished, I woke up thinking I had actually seen the murder house on television the day before. It’s difficult for an author to achieve such vivid detail without sacrificing story, and Connelly does it here without using an extra word or sacrificing an ounce of plot.

Good book, great story. Recommended.

Cowell, Alan S., The Terminal Spy: A True Story of Espionage, Betrayal, and Murder, August 2008. This is the account of Alexander Litvinenko, the former KGB agent who was poisoned by polonium in London in 2006. Intriguing for a variety of reasons: the examination of an ex-patriot’s life in London, the personal impact of the fall of the Soviet Union on one of its partisans, and the details of the murder and subsequent investigation.

I’d followed this thing in the press because it was so bizarre—murdered with a radioactive isotope in a hotel bar in London—and the way that the police were able to track the killers using the radiation. The book goes deeper into all of that, and postulates reasons for the death.

Once I got used to Cowell’s distinctly British style, I read quickly. Fascinating.

Estleman, Loren D., “The Profane Angel,” Prisoner of Memory and 24 of the Year’s Best Crime and Mystery Stories, Pegasus, 2008. An old Hollywood story, filled with half-remembered movie stars and long gone glamour. Touching and warm, and just a bit surprising.

Ferriolo, Jack D., The Big Splash, Amulet, September, 2008. Another proof. This one caught me right after the Big Name debacle mentioned in my introduction. The Big Splash is for the 10-14 age group, but I think adults will like it too. In fact, adults might like it better, since this is an homage to The Big Sleep, set in Middle School.

The voice is pure Chandler, and all the hard-boiled tropes are here. Only the head mobster is a bully who makes his money selling fake hall passes, the beautiful bad girl is “twelve but looks fourteen” and wields a mean squirt gun. Our hero is the jaded son of a single parent who is trying to hold the entire corrupt world together with the force of his morality, and only just succeeding.

It’s clever and it’s fun, and it makes more sense than The Big Sleep. This reads like the start of a series, one that I will continue to follow.

Franklin, Ariana, The Serpent’s Tale, Putnam, 2008. I’d read Ariana Franklin’s first book in this mystery series set in England in the 12th century. The title of that one caught me: Mistress of the Art of Death. The series follows a woman trained in medicine in Salerno, where a medical college existed. Those trained in the art of death are essentially forensic pathologists.

The first book led me to this one, which is wonderful. Characters include Eleanor of Aquitane, Henry the Second as well as a motley crew of heroine, her smelly dog, her infant daughter, some English helpmeets and a Muslim man who pretends to be the doctor (and who pretends he can’t speak English) so that the English will accept her.

The history’s good, the descriptions/settings are wonderful, the history of medicine accurate so far as I can tell, and the whodunnits just marvelous. Highly recommended.

Goonan, Kathleen Ann, “Memory Dog,” Asimov’s April/May, 2008. Oh, how I wanted to hate this story. It starts dark—the world has ended and an important child has died—and it threatens to go darker. The POV character is an augmented dog. If the story went true to most sf published in the last two decades, this dark story would become an unbearable read.

But Kathleen’s prose kept me in the story, for which I am now quite grateful. Because the story took the cliches of the past twenty to thirty years and turned them upside down.

Powerful, insightful, and worth the price of the entire issue.

Gorman, Ed and Martin H. Greenberg, Prisoner of Memory and 24 of the Year’s Best Crime and Mystery Stories, Pegasus, 2008. Normally when I read a year’s best volume, I skip a few stories that just aren’t to my taste, find a few brilliant stories, and stop reading a handful midway through because they’re not holding my interest. I only stopped reading one story in this volume and that was because I figured out where it was going and I didn’t want to go there. (I even skipped a bit ahead to make sure I was right.) Otherwise, I didn’t skip a story. I found a few that I really liked (mentioned elsewhere on this list) and the rest were enjoyable reads. This is my favorite year’s best mystery volume each year and that’s partly because Ed and Marty rarely publish a bad story. The other year’s best mystery volumes (and most of the ones in sf/f and mainstream) are just too uneven, with as many unreadable stories as brilliant ones.

I’m not sure if I short-changed some of the authors in this volume by not mentioning them individually. The quality in this book is so high that I might have failed to mention them because they didn’t stand out here—although they would have in the other year’s best volumes. Buy it. Read it. It’s good.

King, Stephen, editor, Best American Short Stories, Houghton Mifflin Company, 2008. The volume sags a bit toward the middle, with several beautifully written stories that lose track of their plot. But as I thought about the book overall, I realized the ratio of excellent stories to mediocre ones is extremely high. If this were one of the previous volumes of this anthology, I would have been happy with the saggy stories—there’s a lot about them to recommend. The problem here is that they’re surrounded by such good stories that the sag is much more noticeable.

I only gave up on two stories, which is considerably fewer than some sf/f year’s bests I’ve read—and one of them I gave up on because I simply can’t stomach the topic (nothing to do with the writing/author/plot at all).

Usually, I’m happy if I enjoy about half of the stories in an anthology. I enjoyed considerably more here, and recommended a surprising number of them. (See the listings below and in June & May.)

When this anthology has a good overall editor—as it did this year—the memorable stories are among the best I’ve ever read. (I still recommend Ha Jin’s “When Cowboy Chicken Came to Town” from a previous volume as one of the best clash of culture stories I’ve read outside of sf.) The anthology covers the range of fiction– mainstream, mystery, horror, fantasy, and science fiction—just like a volume that calls itself the year’s best stories (without genre label) should do. In here, you’ll find historical tales, werewolf stories, futuristic tales, and some meaty crime stories in addition to the stories of daily life.

Highly recommended.

Levinson, Richard, “A Prisoner of Memory,” Prisoner of Memory and 24 of the Year’s Best Crime and Mystery Stories, Pegasus, 2008. Another old Hollywood story. Gorman & Greenburg chose it as the title story of the collection and for good reason. If I say too much more, I’ll spoil it. So all I’ll say is read it.

Pollack, Eileen, “The Bris,” Best American Short Stories, edited by Stephen King, Houghton Mifflin Company, 2008. If I say too much about this story, I ruin it for you. Read it. It’s one of the best in the volume. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll wince, and you’ll understand. Enough said.

Russo, Richard, “The Horseman,” Best American Short Stories, edited by Stephen King, Houghton Mifflin Company, 2008. The title didn’t do much for me. Still doesn’t. I had to go back to the volume to remember what the title is.

But the rest of the story is marvelous. Richard Russo is one of my favorite writers, whether he’s focusing on small towns or on academia. Here his target is not just academia, but academic writing and research.

Great insights about writing in here. Great insights about living. If you’re a writer, you should read this story.

Tunstall, Tricia, Note by Note: A Celebration of the Piano Lesson, Simon and Schuster, April, 2008. My husband picked up this book when it was on my reading pile and shook it at me. “Someone actually published a book about piano lessons?” he asked.

Not only did someone publish it, but it’s wonderful. The last chapter actually made me cry.

If you’ve ever taken a music lesson—or taught one—buy this book. If you wonder what music lessons are like, buy this book. If you want to read good literary non fiction, buy this book.

It is, bar none, the best book I’ve read all year.

Van Pelt, James, “Harvest,” Alembical, Paper Golem, November 2008. If we’re lucky, Alembical will be a new novella series—much needed in the sf field. This first volume, which will premiere at World Fantasy Con, has four stories, by excellent writers. The story that caught me is James Van Pelt’s “Harvest.” Van Pelt manages to catch the ambivalence that is the teenage years, with a tender look at friendship, mixed with the horrors of family life. This story has compassion, which so many dark stories do not, and the compassion gives it great power.