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What a weird year. I’m glad it’s done. I ended up with a lot of time to read this month—and please note that I’m not recommending everything I read here. I never do. But I did notice something. Unless the book/article/story is in paper, I’m having to read past some errors. This isn’t just an indie problem. In fact, most traditionally published e-books are worse. I’m just finding some fascinating errors.

If the book is indie published, it generally has two mistakes—whatever the author doesn’t know (for example, hyphens get misused) or typos that spellcheck won’t catch such as (in one rather hiliarious instance) “groan” for “groin” You get maybe three of those per book. The indie-published formatting and structure is often superior to a traditionally published book. I know some of my short stories have these issues, particularly from the early days of WMG when I had to do my own copyediting. So you indie-writers—spend the money. Hire a copy editor. It’ll make all the difference.

Traditionally published books have terrible formatting errors—still!  And often have OCR errors, particularly in older titles that are being reissued. The publisher isn’t springing for a copy edit on the previously published book. Then they scan that book, and every page is riddled with gobbledygook or wrong words such as (in another hilarious instance) “farting” instead of “flirting.” (That has got to be my favorite error of all time. Our heroine is surprised that the hero is farting with her. Yep. I guess that means they were compatible.)

Traditionally published books with OCR errors have them every page or two, and are annoying to read. The indie published books with copyediting issues have a pattern that can be ignored. Once you realize that Author A doesn’t understand hyphens, you can read right over them. Otherwise the  book is pristine.

I suspect all of this will change as everything shakes out. But we’ll still end up with a lot of books that remain in print riddled with errors—particularly from traditional publishers. Be forwarned when you get your e-editions.

As for the actual reading itself, it was a mixed bag. Some things were wonderful, and some awful, but a lot was entertaining while I read it, and annoying by the time I got to the end. For example, I read a series book by a favorite author and I think his main character is getting careworn. Or maybe I got struck by a bit of morality. Because by the end our “hero” had killed his ranking officer while in the Pentagon (and our “hero”’s law enforcement friends covered it up) as well as a top-ranking senator & his son (and again our “hero”’s law enforcement friends [a different group]  covered it up), and you know, I just didn’t believe it. I really didn’t. My sense of disbelief got strained to the breaking point.

I also read a lot of Christmas stories this month. I started an annual holiday recommended reading list in November which I’ll put up every holiday season, adding titles. So what you see recommended below will be added there next year.

But wow, did I read some holiday dogs. Including an anthology from a major traditional publisher that was awful. The first story was so!full!of!exclamation!points! as to be unreadable, and the third story was one gigantic romance novel cliché (two people who don’t know each other trapped in a snowy mountain cabin, lots of sex, no relationship, and no story). The second story had possibilities, and I did read it all the way through, hoping for the best. Great setting, fascinating set-up…and then the author decided to have these two characters not talk to each other for the entire novella. (sigh) It would have been so much nicer if she had actually used the set-up…

Every now and then I do read something that makes me grumpy, and that anthology qualifies. Yuck….

I also dipped into a lot of Tomes for research on a topic I really don’t understand and must understand before I write about it. (Dang that story brain.) So I’m reading bits and pieces of lots of fascinating things, none of which I can recommend because I’m not finishing them.

Fortunately I was able to read every word of the pieces below. They’re wonderful and they made my reading  month. I hope you find something that’ll interest you here.

December, 2011

Allen, John, On Wisconsin, Fall, 2011. Maybe only a former editor would appreciate this, but the best magazines have themes. The issues have a flow and a message, if read in order. (Of course, you must ignore the columnists [who never get the memo], and the regular features.)  The articles in this issue of the University of Wisconsin’s alumni magazine are all about reinvention, of lives, of science, of futures.

I read three different alumni magazines—Dean’s, and the two from my college career—and the only one I ever recommend articles from is Wisconsin’s. They’re not puff pieces. They’re good journalism with a UW slant. This is a particularly top-notch issue.

Berg, A. Scott, “The Hunt For Hemingway,” Vanity Fair, October, 2011. Years and years ago, I read Berg’s book on the editor Maxwell Perkins. It’s fascinating stuff]. Apparently Berg is working on a book about Hemingway, and managed in the past decade, to get to Finca Vigia, Hemingway’s home in Cuba. There  he and Perkins’ granddaughter, who started the ball rolling on all of this, found a treasure trove of never-before-seen material by and about Hemingway. Never-before-seen, of course, since Hemingway left Finca Vigia fifty years ago. There’s a huge gap in Hemingway scholarship, and the answers are all in Cuba.

The article is fascinating, about the arrival, the hunt, everything. The letters are not as interesting for me, because I’m a Hemingway fan not a Hemingway scholar. But this piece is worth the read, just for the look into a writer’s life—and the strange circumstances that occurred after his death.

Block, Lawrence, “Murders in Memory Lane: Scott Meredith, Part 1,” Mystery Scene Magazine, Fall, 2011. Lawrence Block is writing a nifty column for Mystery Scene about the folks he’s known in the field. He’s known some interesting ones. As a writer who got her start in the 1980s, I heard a lot about Scott Meredith the “super agent.” In fact, most of the agents I knew when I started out had been Scott Meredith trained. Once, when I was searching for a new agent, Ralph Vicinanza and I had a meeting. He asked if I wanted him to represent me. I almost did, until he made a comment. We were discussing my previous agent, who had gotten his start at the Scott Meredith agency, and Ralph said, “I guess you just have to figure out what kind of Scott Meredith agent you want.” Because Ralph had also been trained by Scott.

Well, the previous agent had burned me, and so that cooled me down on Ralph as well. (He probably didn’t realize what he had said wrong at the time.) I had heard stories about Scott Meredith from everyone. Nothing surprises me about Meredith any  more, but I’m still fascinated by him.

Block’s column this time deals with the beginnings of his job at the agency—how he got there, and how he ended up with them as his agent. Good writer that he is, he ends on an ominous note. But it’s only ominous if you’ve already heard Scott Meredith stories.  That ending does what any cliffhanger should—it makes me want to read the next column right now.  I love these columns. I hope he collects them into a book at some point.

Connelly, Michael, The Drop, Little Brown, 2011.  A new Harry Bosch book. I love Connelly’s work and usually buy it the day it’s released.  I get most of my mystery hardcovers through our local independent bookseller, and this time, his shipment of signed Connellys was late. Like a month-plus late. Ack! I didn’t read reviews, I tried not to drool at the book that Amazon kept offering me, I waited—and got it two days before Christmas. And managed to read it—despite everything that was going on—in two days.

Part of that rapid read is because this book is short—maybe 70,000 words when the average novel these days is 100,000. Maybe. Little Brown did a lot of tap dancing with wide margins, increased font size and lots of white space to stretch this thing to its 388 pages—which made it easier for my tired eyes to read in the print version, but probably caused the production people nightmares.

But I can’t attribute my rapid read only to the shortness of the book. This thing moves. Once you start it, you won’t be able to put it down.

The Drop finds Harry Bosch in the Open-Unsolved Unit of the LAPD, with a case that looks like it might be police misconduct. He doesn’t want to investigate, but of course he does. And as he does, he gets another case—a current case—because an influential political party asked him to investigate. The cases aren’t really related except by something that Bosch calls “high jingo”—stuff that’s done for political reasons, not because it’s important or sensible.

The book is impossible to put down, and the last line is a killer. (Don’t peek.)  I loved it and immediately searched for any unread Connelly books around the house. Of course, there are none. [sigh] So I must wait until next year for the next Connelly. Proof yet again that readers can go through books faster than the fastest writer can write them. Buy this one: it’s good.

Dittrich, Luke, “Two Dozen Strangers in a Cooler,” Esquire, October, 2011. This is an incredibly riveting article that reads like a piece of fiction. It’s about the Joplin tornado and the 24 people who hid in the cooler at a minimart. It’s not about what happened to them afterward, nor is it about how their lives changed. It’s a survival piece about the tornado itself, a minute-by-minute account of what happened, how it felt, and how they barely managed to get out of a totalled building with their lives. Extremely tense, extremely dramatic, extremely well done.

Howe, Barton, “One Small Step–For Everyone Else,” The News Guard, December 14, 2011. I’ve mentioned Barton’s humor column before. He writes for the local paper, and sometimes his pieces are too local to make sense to anyone outside of our 7,000-person community, but sometimes he writes a piece that I think everyone will appreciate. This one was “written” by his 18-month old daughter. Which sounds really twee. But it isn’t. It’s a fun perspective on being…18 months old. Somehow he nailed it.  (I do wonder what his daughter will think of all this in 18 years, but hey, not my problem.) Take a look. All of Barton’s columns are on his website, and are worth your time to check out. [link]

Johnson, Simon, and Kwak, James, “Debt and Dumb” Vanity Fair, November, 2011. Fantastic article that puts the financial history of the United States in perspective. How the system got set up, what it compares to, why it works, and what could screw with it. Yes, this is political, but it’s more of a history lesson which, it seems, we badly need in this country.

Kelly, Christen Anne, Home Run, Blue Cedar Publishing, Kindle Edition, 2011. Anyone who read The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction when I edited knows I’m a sucker for a baseball story. I love baseball stories, much more than I like watching baseball on TV. So when I saw the proposal for this book at one of our workshops, I begged Chrissy to write it. I knew this would be a book I would like. I just knew it.

When the book came out, she sent me a copy and I confess: I felt nervous. I always worry when I read the proposal and then the book arrives. I already have expectations. I expected this to be good.  Fortunately, it is.

Technically, Home Run isn’t a baseball story, although it features a former professional baseball player. It’s a softball story—girls’ softball. Laurie coaches a softball team for 12-year-old girls, and she fiercely protects them, because her father ruined the game for her by turning it into work when she was their age. Her father’s plan succeeded: Laurie went to college on a softball scholarship and was one of the best players ever, but she quit because she hated playing.

Although she still loves the game. And she loves her girls. She worries about them when Jack shows up with his daughter, Elizabeth. Parents are enough trouble when they aren’t former Rookies of the Year, when they don’t have a reputation for being difficult, and when they aren’t so handsome that a girl can’t think straight.

The book could go along the lines of a contemporary romance—and it does—but not on rails. The novel is really about dreams: how important they are, how easy they are to crush, and how they must be nurtured. Parents play a huge role in this novel, and so does the entire team. Elizabeth is a great—believable—kid, and the situations here (her father’s divorce, the love of the game, the conflict the adults around her feel) makes the story even more powerful.

This is one of those unclassifiable books that drive traditional publishers nuts. If you like sports novels, you’ll like this—even if you don’t like romance. If you like romance, you’ll like this—even if you don’t like sports novels. If I were marketing it, I’d market it as romance, but cringe a little, because I know I’d miss half the audience. Now, with the indie revolution, we don’t have to worry about that sort of thing. Books like this one can find their audience.

Wonderful book, chockful of unexpected surprises. There’s a bonus short story at the end of the Kindle edition, which I haven’t read yet, and more short stories in this world of girls’ softball. Chrissy is a former star softball player herself, so the book’s got authenticity in spades. It’s also the first in “The Home Run series” of novels. You can bet I’ll be first in line for the second novel—and I’m off to get some short stories now.

Liu, Ken, “The People of Pele,” Asimov’s Science Fiction, February, 2012.  A wonderful traditional science fiction story about exploration, about leaving family and friends behind to do something spectacular. Without FTL, this ship must use cold sleep, and the inhabitants wake up decades after they’ve left everyone. This is a multi-cultural mission, one that is to bring the world closer together, but run by the Americans. And you can guess: the first message they get from Earth, sent shortly after they left, hints at tensions. Then they’re told to claim Pele for Earth. This is the subtext that is happening while they’re trying to learn about Pele, discover other life forms, and oh—it sounds like something you read fifty years ago (if you could read fifty years ago, which I couldn’t)—but it’s really modern and really relevant and quite wonderful. The sf snobs who believe that sf should never repeat old ideas will not notice this one, but you should. Read it.

Lubrano, Alfred, “Tracking the Ties That Bind,” On Wisconsin, Fall, 2011. An essay from Lubrano’s book called Limbo: Blue-Collar Roots, White-Collar Dreams. I learned when I taught—and through my husband and two of my friends—that folks with blue collar upbringings (especially from forty, fifty, sixty years ago) had different training than little ole white collar me.  The training and expectation mean that I have to teach differently when I start folks with a blue collar background on a path, or we don’t communicate. It took years to realize that.

Lubrano illustrates it in this article about Fred Gardaphé, who graduated from the UW in 1976. He came from a particularly tough (read: mob-infested) neighborhood of Chicago, and went on to be a professor. This is a look at his life, the things he overcame, and the things he now appreciates about his friends from the neighborhood and his home. Fascinating stuff. There’s also an essay in here by Gardaphé, which you should read after you’ve read the Lubrano piece.

McAllister, Bruce & Malzberg, Barry, “Going Home,” Asimov’s Science Fiction, February, 2012. A powerful, powerful story about…well, read it. It touches on the Golden Age of sf, on writing, on editors, on the way things change, but it’s…well, if I tell you, I’ll spoil it because it’s only about 2,000 words long. But they’re marvelous words. Read this one too.

Price, Jenny, “Prison Breaks,” On Wisconsin, Fall, 2011. A short piece about JD Stier who went to prison in 1998, and is now working in the White House. This is about the efforts of one teacher who showed Stier a way out—and Stier himself, who took that opportunity and ran with it.

Reed, Annie, “Essy and The Christmas Kitten,” Kindle edition, Thunder Valley Press, 2011.  This story is not as sweet as the title implies. Instead, it is a bit dark and moody, so much so that I read with one eye half closed, worried that something would go wrong. But it is a Christmas story in the best way, and quite memorable.  One of my best Christmas reads this year.

Reed, Annie, “Roger’s Christmas Wish,” Kindle Edition, Thunder Valley Press, 2010. Somehow I missed this in last year’s Christmas reading. Young Roger’s grandmother moved in with him, taking his room. His parents are unhappy, and so is Roger. All he wants for Santa to do is make his grandmother leave. The story is sweet, with unexpected twists. It’s also a nicely done e-book. I read it in the Kindle app on my iPad and it felt like I was reading a real book. Nicely done.

Reed, Robert, “Murder Born,” Asimov’s Science Fiction, February, 2012. What’s wrong with traditional book publishing today? Pretty easy to show you rather than tell you: Every major sf editor rejected Robert Reed’s proposal for a novel based on this idea. Bob writes, “This is the same essential story, chiseled down to the bone. There is one plot element added to the original tale, and everything that the editors wanted taken out has been shoved forward and made obvious.”

Honestly, truthfully, this story just might win Bob a Hugo. It’s that powerful, that original, and that well written. I  know what happened in the book houses: they were afraid of this.

The story was inspired by the way that Bob’s home state carries out the death penalty. He wanted to write a story about a way that would make the execution of some heinous human worthwhile—and without spoiling what that is, let me tell you he accomplished it. It’s a powerful story about futures, about life and love, about death, about man’s inhumanity to man, about all that great stuff that the best sf does. It’s a spectacular story, and we Asimov’s readers benefit from the book editors’ cowardice. Wonderful, wonderful stuff. Keep it in mind at Hugo voting time.  I know I will.

Williams, Sheila, Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, February, 2012. Because 2011 has been so awful for me in terms of reading and life and all of that fun stuff, I missed my goal. My goal was to read all of the digest magazines, or at least give it the good old college try. Well, I revived the goal for 2012, which means I have to start now. February’s issue arrived in my mailbox early because I have a story in the issue as well. I did not reread my own story, and am not counting it as part of the recommendation for this issue. (I’m self-serving, but not that self-serving.)

I grabbed the magazine when it arrived yesterday, read Sheila’s take on winning her Hugo, and mentally upbraded myself for not doing the same thing at F&SF when I won for editing years and years ago. (I’m still honored by that Hugo. It means more than I can say.)

Her essay is marvelous. The cover caught me as well—I love Bob Reed’s work, and the title sounded great—but I promised myself I’d read all the way through before I got to his issue-closing novella, which I did.

A few of the stories I liked, but not quite enough to recommend on their own. But the ones that I have recommended, I love.  I devoured the entire issue in an evening, then made sure I put January’s on the top of my TBR pile.

There’s a reason Sheila—who does not campaign like some editors—won the Hugo in 2011 on merit alone. She’s a spectacular short fiction editor. Her work is top of the line. Asimov’s is my favorite sf magazine—and probably my favorite fiction magazine.  She’s doing a hell of a job. Support her by buying issues, either on your e-reader or in paper. And since I mentioned Hugo voting above, keep her in mind as you fill out your 2012 ballot. She’s doing a great job.

Wolcott, James, “Norman Mailer Sent Me,” Vanity Fair, November, 2011.  Wolcott has a memoir coming out (or maybe it’s out by now—I’m really behind in my reading), and this is an excerpt. It’s about the beginning of his career. He quit college and moved to New York on the thinnest of opportunities.

Wolcott’s essay shows why some writers (and artists) survive, and why others fall by the wayside. Reading between the lines here, you see a man who has incredible drive, who tried and tried and tried, and finally ran out of resources before he gave up. And even then, he gave his given career one last try—and that try worked. (Who knows how many other times he would have “given up” before the final try worked? Those of us with incredible drive say we’re giving up when really, we don’t see how to keep trying—and even then, we’re looking for a way not to give up.)

This excellent essay also captures early 1970s New York, and the literary scene there. Highly recommended.

 ***

I wish I could say that things settled down more in November. They didn’t, really. Thanksgiving snuck up on us. As I write this, on the second day of December, we’re still reeling from the fall. But I did manage to read more and write more, partly because things were inching toward normal.

After Thanksgiving, I launched into my Christmas reading with a vengeance. Clearly I want this year to end. But I’m also ready to move forward. I’ve even organized my to-be-read pile. 

 What I did read in November was mixed. A wonderful sf novel (listed below), followed by an okay sf novel. A great mystery novel (listed below), followed by one I had to slog through. I couldn’t sustain a long romance novel this month, but the shorts I read were great. Plus there are some good articles below as well. Enjoy!

November, 2011

 Cach, Lisa, “A Midnight Clear,” Mistletoe’d, Kindle Edition, 2011. A lovely holiday novella, set in New York at the end of the 19^th century. The period details are fun—I had no idea that was when the Christmas card habit started—and the characters are great.  Catherine has spent years being wined and dined by her rich aunt, going to London, Paris, and on what was once called the Grand Tour. Catherine  has met European royalty and American royalty. She wears fine clothes, and she has an eye for beauty. Sort of. Because Catherine is terribly near-sighted and too vain to wear glasses.

She comes home for Christmas, to her family’s not insubstantial house in a relatively small town, and one of her wealthy suitors follows her. But she also meets a man whom she has no idea is wealthy—William, the owner of the general store. She’s not attracted to him at first because she can’t see him, literally. Then someone (William?) buys her a pair of spectacles and has them anonymously delivered, and suddenly she can see everything much clearer.

A great deal more happens here, including a magical wish by an innocent young girl (is that where the spectacles come from?), and some proper comeuppance for a very bad person. The story is lovely, the details good, and all of it will put you in a wonderful holiday mood. Enjoy!

Gessen, Keith, “The Book On Publishing,” Vanity Fair, October, 2011.  This is absolutely the best article I have ever seen in a mainstream publication on traditional publishing. Gessen knows how publishing works, and sees it all, from its foibles to the things it does right. This article also shows you would-be traditionally published writers what can go wrong, what can go right, and how tentative it all is. Everything went right for Chad Harbach in the run-up to the publication of The Art of Fielding. I have no idea how the book is selling now, but the behind-the-scenes stuff is perfect.

The way the agent found Harbach is precisely the way that agenting used to work. But if you look at the agent’s career, you have to wonder how this guy will continue to make money. My first agent discovered me in the pages of Asimov’s. Dean’s first editor discovered him in the pages of Night Cry, the sister magazine to the Twilight Zone Magazine. Apparently this still happens in the mainstream.

I know genre editors and agents look at the awards lists on short fiction for new clients to this day, but I have no idea how long that will last.

Look at the photos, particularly the one inside the publishing house. The room is large for a publishing house, but appropriately cluttered. Note how young the agent, publicity people, and designers are. Note that the oldest person there is the executive editor. Realize how little experience goes into producing these days.

Anyway, read closely. Realize how unusual this all is, and yet so mundane. It’s a spectacular article.  Btw, you’ll have to download the e-book, because VF has pulled the article from its website.

Gross, Michael Joseph, “Enter The Cyber-Dragon,” Vanity Fair, September, 2011. Fascinating article on China and its hacking into global corporations. We’re all living inside our computers these days, and Gross shows how mini-wars happen without us even knowing it. Worth reading.

James, Eloisa, Storming The Castle, Kindle version, 2010? James published a short story that ties into her novel, A Kiss at Midnight. James is retelling fairy tales in a 19^th century romance setting, so there’s a feel of the fantastic here without any fantasy at all. Still, it’s all wish fulfillment, and lovely stuff as it is.

The opening is particularly fun: Phillipa  has just lost her virginity to her longtime beau, and I do mean just lost. The story opens with them both naked. And at that moment, Phillipa decides this is not the guy for her.

Lesser writers would have shown that scene, but it’s a lot more fun to hear about it from the disgusted Phillipa’s point of view. She flees to the nearby castle, which has just been purchased by some royal family from a small principality. (Think Monaco.) Phillipa arrives just as a crisis comes to a head, and of course (this being a romance), she has the solution. She also meets the handsome Wick, who is the prince’s bastard brother.

The story proceeds from there, twisting and turning in unexpected ways. Unlike a lot of short fiction published as promotion by traditional publishers, this story actually has a lot of substance, and feels solid. The story does stand alone. If you’ve never read James, this is a nice inexpensive way to start. (The story is 99 cents—also unusual for traditional publishers.

Kleypas, Lisa, Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor, St. Martin’s Paperback, 2011. I saved this one for my holiday reading. In fact, I bought it in October when it first came out—and honestly, I could’ve read it then, despite the title. Because this isn’t a Christmas story; it’s a fall holidays story. Halloween makes a major appearance and Thanksgiving is hilarious, even though the book itself isn’t funny, but heartwarming.

Holly’s mother died in April, leaving Holly’s uncle Mark as her guardian. Mark has never been around children, doesn’t know what to do, but he enlists his brother Sam, and together they try to make a home for this poor little girl who has given up speaking since her mother’s sudden death. Six months later—in September—Holly writes a letter to Santa: she wants a mom for Christmas. Not that Mark wants to marry or anything. You get the rest of the plot, of course.

But the book is set on the San Juan Islands in Washington State, and it’s clear that Kleypas lives in the Northwest because the details are great. The characters are even better, from Holly to Mark to Maggie, the young widow who has just started a toy store.  Realistic, sensitive, and touching. You can read this one at any season of the year (but fall would be best).

McDevitt, Jack, Echo, Ace, 2010. McDevitt has both a lot of fun with this Alex Benedict adventure and quite a serious point to make.  Even though the Benedict novels are set in the very far future, quite far away from Earth, only one group of aliens have ever been discovered: the Mutes.  Aliens here are defined as “intelligent” life, and McDevitt hits every single argument about definitions, about even being able to recognize an alien, about the dangers of alien encounters that have been a part of science fiction almost from the beginning. He dismisses most of them in a short series of conversations.

The plot seems simple: someone contacts Benedict, an antiques dealer, about a stone tablet with mysterious writing on it, writing that can’t be identified. The person who knows about this tablet commits suicide rather than reveal the secret of the tablet, which Benedict (and others) suspect comes from a new alien race.

The novel has a lot of adventure and some great character interaction. It also provides a lot to chew on with bigotry, aliens, prejudice, and the central question: what could be so Other that the people who discover it don’t want to admit it even exists.  The answer is both surprising and heartbreaking.

One of the best in the series, and a good place to start if you haven’t read any of Jack’s work before.

Orlean, Susan, “The Dog Star: The Life And Times of Rin Tin Tin,” The New Yorker, August 29, 2011.  I almost didn’t read this article. I have never cared about Rin Tin Tin, not even when I was a child. I preferred Lassie. Rin Tin Tin seemed ancient and old to me, even though I loved the silent comedies. A dog on screen without sound somehow didn’t interest me at all.

But this article does. The story of the actual dog, Rin Tin Tin—or Rinty, as his owner Lee Duncan called him—is fascinating. Found in a bombed out German encampment in World War I, Rin Tin Tin was a newborn puppy when Duncan rescued him, his mother, and his siblings. The dog became the most important creature in Duncan’s life. Duncan happened to go home to Los Angeles at the beginning of the movie craze—and the German Shepherd craze—in America. A confluence of opportunity and opportunism created one of the most famous on-screen dogs of all time. The essay’s short, an excerpt from Orlean’s book, but worth the read. I doubt I’ll pick up the book, because even with this, I’m not that interested in old Rinty, but I have a hunch many of you who read the article will end up with the book too.

Robinson, Peter, Before The Poison, William Morrow, 2012.  When my bookseller friend gave me this advanced reading copy after he had finished it, I was excited. I love Peter Robinson’s work.  But when I picked up the book (which has a fantastically ugly cover), I was momentarily disappointed.  The book wasn’t an Inspector Banks novel.  I had thought, when I first saw that book announced, that it would be.

Still, I love Robinson’s work, so I set aside the other book I was reading and started this one right away. I’m so glad I did. It’s fantastic. It’s an old-fashioned novel, not quite a ghost story, but haunted all the same. It’s a mystery, but more a mystery of the human experience.

An Oscar-winning composer returns to England after his wife dies. He buys a huge old house and when he arrives, he discovers that, in the 1950s, the previous owner was murdered by his wife. The wife was executed for the crime, which was a sensation in England at the time.

The composer becomes obsessed with the case, and so do we. The book never goes in the direction I expect. It takes us throughout the history of the 20^th century, and travels from Paris to South Africa and beyond. Yet it still feels like a haunting.

If this book isn’t on all of next year’s best-of lists, then that’s a crime in and of itself.

Toobin, Jeffrey, “Partners,” The New Yorker, August 29, 2011.  I debated recommending this article because I do try to avoid politics on this website. When you discuss Clarence Thomas, the Supreme Court Justice, you automatically discuss politics. That’s just the way of things. But I ultimately decided to add it, because the article is just that good and very interesting. It made me change my assessment of Thomas.

Toobin wrote an excellent book about the Court called The Nine [link], and he’s at work on a follow-up about the current Court.  This is an excerpt. I liked the previous book, and I will pick up the new one when it comes out. So, even though you probably have an opinion about Thomas, read this. I guarantee it will make you reassess everything you’ve heard about him.

Willis, Connie, “All About Emily,” Asimov’s, December, 2011.  For years, Connie Willis’s holiday stories, published in Asimov’s,  were part of my Christmas traditions. Then, she got deeply involved in her excellent novels, All Clear  and Blackout (which I recommended earlier), and she stopped writing any short fiction at all. Which is, I think, a crime. I love Connie’s novels, but I adore her short work.

“All About Emily” riffs on the movie All About Eve, and explains the film for those of you who missed that marvelous classic. The story is set in New York at Christmas, and our heroine is the aging actress who might be threatened by a new up-and-comer, Emily. And yet, something about that girl….

It’s a fun story, especially if you love old movies, Broadway, theater, and New York at Christmas time. And it manages to be good science fiction as well. It’s nice to have you back, Connie. Please continue writing short fiction while doing your novels.

——

We had about six emergencies in our life in October, some involving health, some involving the estate. I made three impromptu trips, had to cancel a planned trip, and I managed to make it to the Yukon to teach. There wasn’t a lot of writing time, but I did manage to sneak in some reading time, mostly while waiting for something or someone. Fortunately, most of the reading was good.

Here’s the crème de la crème.

 October, 2011

Best, Lyz, “The Call From Flight 93,” Runners World, September, 2011. Runners World ran a series of essays about 9/11 in its September issue. All are worth reading (although one is a bit…odd), but two stand out. I put them both in the recommended reading. The first is from Lyz Best. Her husband was Jeremy Glick, who called her from the doomed Flight 93. Heartbreaking and powerful, this essay is one you’ll remember for a long time to come.

Chabon, Michael, “The Amateur Family,” Manhood For Amateurs, Harper Perrennial, 2009.  In this essay, Chabon isn’t writing about a family of amateurs or even a family that hasn’t reached professional status yet.  He’s really talking about fandom, a family that loves its obsessions—not as professionals taking part in that obsession, but as fans.  He explores the nature of fandom—non-sports fandom—and the joy of shared obsession.  It’s a lovely piece, and I’m not just saying that because he raised a family of Doctor Who fans.  Some lovely stuff here.

Chabon, Michael, “Normal Time,” Manhood For Amateurs, Harper Perrennial, 2009.  Written after (in the midst of?) the financial crisis of 2008, this essay talks about our very human desire to return to “normal.” With the death of our friend Bill, and the increasing number of emergencies we went through this fall, I recognized the feeling Chabon describes here.  I’ve been waiting for things to get back to “normal,” even though they won’t. We had a house full of stuff fall on us in August, and we’re still digging out. Plus we won’t see Bill any more. And I had a serious crisis in my work that I’m still finding my way through, plus my husband had some pretty serious health issues.  “Normal” won’t come back for a while, if ever.

But that feeling, that desire for it, that’s probably a universal feeling, and Chabon captures it. Read this one. It’s lovely.

Chabon, Michael, “Radio Silence” Manhood For Amateurs, Harper Perrennial, 2009. Chabon writes of a radio station that went from comforting oldies of his generation to songs that were popular after he graduated from college. It’s a disconcerting feeling, to realize that the songs you loved aren’t even “oldies” any more. I recognize it, and I related to this essay—a bit too much.

Chabon, Michael, “Surefire Lines,”Manhood For Amateurs, Harper Perrennial, 2009.  I love the opening of this essay. One of Chabon’s sons asks him if Chabon can help the boy “make a girl.” Chabon ignores the cheap jokes (kinda) and tries to teach his son how to draw a girl, which is really what the little boy wanted to do. Chabon then turns the essay into a rumination about boys versus girls, how his two daughters want to draw pretty things, and his boys want to draw action heroes. (The reason his son wanted to draw a girl—he needed to add Sue Storm to his comic book tableau.) Nifty analysis of gender, of drawing, and of fun. Plus the solution that Chabon found made me smile.

Chabon, Michael, Manhood For Amateurs, Harper Perrennial, 2009.  The cover of this book kept putting me off. I know why the publisher did it: It’s a picture of Chabon from grade school.  But he looks like a writer should look in grade school—a bit dorky, a bit too eager, and very smart. Such pictures would be nice on the inside, but as a sales tool—not so much. Still, I knew that I love Chabon’s essays so I picked this up.

If you’ve read my Recommended Reading list over the past few months, then you know I’ve already cherry-picked the best essays from the volume to recommend. But the book itself is worth reading. Not all of the essays are brilliant, although all of them have some merit. The good ones are excellent and the mediocre ones are better than most essays you’d read elsewhere.

Ignore the cover, and pick up the book. You won’t regret it.

Chapman, Tim, “Kiddieland,” The Mystery Writers of America Presents The Rich and The Dead, edited by Nelson DeMille, Grand Central Publishing, 2011. Creepy, creepy story about a very creepy little boy and what happens to him. Perfect point of view, perfect understatement. Wonderful, shivery piece. Read this one.

Connelly, Michael, “Angle of Investigation,” Harry Bosch: Three Stories, BEA 2011 Edition, Little, Brown, 2011.  For Book Expo in 2011, Little, Brown put out a limited edition collection of three Michael Connelly short stories, plus the first chapter of his upcoming book, The Drop. The limited edition sounds nicer than it is: it was poorly typeset and not copy edited.  Riddled with mistakes, filled with tiny type, and almost impossible to read.

If I had been the publisher, and I had this particular book as a giveaway, I would have been ashamed of it. The paper product is awful.  And giving it to booksellers is almost contemptible.  There is now an e-book edition, called Angle of Investigation: Three Harry Bosch Stories, and I certainly hope someone proofed that puppy.

The problem here is with the production—the stuff the publishing company did.  The stories themselves are top-notch Connelly. I’d read one before in a poker anthology. The other is also good.

But the best of the bunch is “Angle of Investigation.” It gives us some history of Harry, for those of us who love him, and it packs an emotional wallop as only Michael Connelly can deliver.  If you like Connelly as much as I do, then you’ll want to read the stories. Order the e-book edition, and pray that it’s in better shape than this embarrassing giveaway.

Connelly, Michael, “The Blood Washes Off,” The Mystery Writers of America Presents The Rich and The Dead, edited by Nelson DeMille, Grand Central Publishing, 2011. Written as a transcript of a police interview after a man died, this is how the Bernie Madoff story should have gone. With only the dialogue here to carry the story, Connelly prevents this piece from being overwritten.  Excellent work, as usual, from an excellent writer.

Cook, Frank, “The Gift,” The Mystery Writers of America Presents The Rich and The Dead, edited by Nelson DeMille, Grand Central Publishing, 2011. I thought I knew where this one was going when I started it. Turns out I was wrong—in a very good way. This one could easily fit in an sf magazine or a  horror magazine as well as in a mystery anthology. Another shivery piece of revenge fiction. Nicely done.

DeLee, David, “Bling, Bling,” The Mystery Writers of America Presents The Rich and The Dead, edited by Nelson DeMille, Grand Central Publishing, 2011. I’ve had the privilege of reading David DeLee’s short fiction for many years now, even though he’s only had a handful of publications. Only most of what I’ve read is his sf fiction. This mystery story is original and interesting, with a fascinating point of view character that he’s carried over into other stories and a novel. He deals with rappers here, and bling, and money—and even though he’s playing in that familiar (mystery) world, he still managed to pull off a story that caught me by surprise. Wonderful stuff.

DeMille, Nelson, editor, The Mystery Writers of America Presents The Rich and The Dead, Grand Central Publishing, 2011. I generally buy the MWA anthologies. There’s usually one or two good stories in them. I’ve only been disappointed with one volume over the years—and that one had a sad sameness that reflected more on the editors than on the quality of the writers in the volume.

I figured this volume would be like that sameness one. Death among the rich.  Yeah, everyone would write about the same thing. And if you really look at it, everyone did.  But the stories have a lot of power, maybe because we have learned to our dismay that F. Scott Fitzgerald was right: The rich are different from you and I.

This book has its share of Bernie Madoff stories. It also (somewhat shockingly) has a few evil literary agent stories.  There’s a bit too much botox, and a lot of diamonds in here. But there are some great revenge stories, some creepy subtle pieces, and some stories with real power.

This is one of the best of the MWA anthologies. I don’t think there’s a bad story in the bunch. Buy this one. It’s good.

Gopnik, Adam, “Dog Story,” The New Yorker, August 8, 2011.  Many years ago, some friends of mine—cat people—bought a dog for their middle child. My friends swore for years that this child was an original: he liked things from birth that the rest of the family didn’t. I thought that an interesting if odd observation, and filed it away.

Gopnik makes a similar observation in this essay about his daughter Olivia. Apparently Gopnik and his wife aren’t pet people, yet their daughter wanted a dog.  The family lives in a New York apartment.  Ten-year-old Olivia managed to work out all of the particulars before the family got the dog, and of course, she—like my friends’ son—triumphed.

Her triumph led to a reluctant relationship between Gopnik and the dog, and this lovely essay. Because Gopnik always seems to wonder about how something came about—in this case, how did dogs become domesticated? His fascination comes through the piece, and while he didn’t say anything new here, he said it in an entertaining way which almost—almost—made me, a cat person, want a dog. Almost.

Grisham, John, The Litigators, Doubleday, 2011. I haven’t had this much fun with a Grisham novel in years. Grisham uses the wry tone that he has in much of his short fiction. The novel is about three hapless lawyers—one a young associate who flees his large law firm one morning, the other two ambulance chasers (literally) who end up as his partners. The plot is pretty straightforward—if you’re paying attention, you know how this will end up—but the characters are funny and memorable, the writing top notch, and the novel impossible to put down.

Even better than all of that, though, is the fact that this novel has heart.  A lot of heart. That’s what I like best about Grisham’s books, I think. His heart is always in the right place.  The book is touching and sweetly memorable.  One of his best.

Hale, Daniel J., “The Precipice,” The Mystery Writers of America Presents The Rich and The Dead, edited by Nelson DeMille, Grand Central Publishing, 2011. A story of lost money, revenge, and lost love. Again, I thought I  knew all the players, but I was wrong. The story ended up with some nice characterization twists, which made the read even better. Nicely done.

Isleib, Rachel, “The Itinerary,” The Mystery Writers of America Presents The Rich and The Dead, edited by Nelson DeMille, Grand Central Publishing, 2011. A bored police detective on a forced vacation in the wrong town (in this case, Key West). Sounds familiar, right? Only it’s not. The point of view is interesting, the case is good, and the setting spectacular. One of my favorite stories of the favorite stories in this very good volume.

Kozak, Harley Jane, “Lamborghini Mommy,” The Mystery Writers of America Presents The Rich and The Dead, edited by Nelson DeMille, Grand Central Publishing, 2011. Excellent voice, great characters. Even though I knew how the mystery would play out, I didn’t care—and I almost peeked at the ending to see if one of my favorite characters made it through okay.

Set among the very rich in Los Angeles, this story hit all of my reader cookies—a downtrodden ex-wife struggling to do right by her child, a hint of romance, a touch of Hollywood sleaze. This one made me order one of Kozak’s novels, which I only hope I’ll like as much as I liked this story.

Lewis, Michael, Moneyball, WW Norton & Company,  Kindle edition, 2011. I read this book after seeing the movie, which I liked quite a bit. Honestly, I love Michael Lewis’s writing and have recommended him previously for other essays and books, including The Big Short. I kept looking at Moneyball, thinking it sounded like my kind of book—baseball, business—but the blurb made the dang thing sound irrelevant and boring.

Well, it is neither. And the movie follows it much more closely than I would have expected.  I found that, as I read, the book had a lot to say about publishing—if you would only take the words “owners” and “clubs” out of the mix and put “publishers” and “publishing companies” in its place. Particularly revealing is the “new” afterward about the reaction to the book that happened throughout baseball. I’ve had similar experiences in traditional publishing three times in my life, first as a co-owner of Pulphouse Publishing (in which we continually got told that we couldn’t do what we were doing), then as the first female editor of F&SF (in which I got told that 1) my gender was screwing up the magazine and 2) my taste [which increased circulation to the highest it had been in decades] was “ruining” the quality of the magazine [popular stuff might get readers (the point, I thought), but it apparently decreases literary  value], and finally in m publishing blogs (in which I’m getting dismissed as a self-published writer who knows nothing [ignoring my 30+ years in most aspects of traditional publishing, I guess]).

Moneyball is worth reading from a business perspective, but it’s also well-written and a compelling book. One night, after a long day of teaching, all I wanted to do was sit in the restaurant in my lovely hotel in Whitehorse, have a snack, and read Moneyball, which I did.

Mullen, Carolyn, “Poetic Justice,” The Mystery Writers of America Presents The Rich and The Dead, edited by Nelson DeMille, Grand Central Publishing, 2011. If I tell you about this story, I’ll ruin it. Suffice to say that it plays off something we’re all familiar with and we don’t even realize it until the end of the story. Niiiiiiiice.

Patterson, Richard North, The Spire, St. Martin’s Paperbacks, 2010.  I’d been slowly giving up on Richard North Patterson. While he and I generally agree politically, his books had become screeds and lectures instead of novels. When I saw the hardcover of The Spire, I thought it was going to be another of those. But after I finished Moneyball on my Yukon trip, I went to Mac’s Fireweed bookstore —an independent that stays open until 9 pm (and opens at 8 am—such luxury) and scanned the aisles (even though I had brought other books with me.) I saw the paperback of The Spire. The pull-quotes gave me hope, so I bought it.

And nearly regretted it. Somewhere in his long career, Patterson has forgotten how to open a book. The front section is wordy and difficult and somewhat dull. Stick with it, however, and you find a compelling novel about the past, relationships, and changes that happen because of other people. The mystery is truly obvious: I knew from the moment a character got introduced that this was our shadowy villain. But it doesn’t matter, because the book really isn’t about the mystery. It’s about the influence of the past on the present. I read it on my trip home, and was glad I had. It’s a good book, worth reading. I wish he would write more like this.

Pizzi, Ann Sommerlath, “Escape From Ground Zero,” Runners World, September, 2011. An excellent essay by a runner about her experience on September 11, 2001. She lived near the Towers and had to run for her life, literally. Well written, sad, worth reading.

Schmidle, Nicholas, “Getting Bin Laden,” The New Yorker,  August 8, 2011. In keeping with my reading of manhunts over the last few weeks, I found this article. I read a lot about the Bin Laden raid over the summer, but this is the best piece so far. It’s got an immediacy, it is filled with some interesting details, and I got a real sense of what happened. If you’re at all curious about what happened last spring, read this one.

Sullivan, Robert, “An Affair of The Feet,” Runners World, September, 2011.  A fun and funny essay comparing a midlife decision to run a marathon to one of those decisions to have an affair. The sneaking around, the extra showers, and oh, so much  more. Read this one if you want a smile.

Swanson, James L., Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase For Lincoln’s Killer, Harper Perennial, 2007.  Back in college, I considered myself a Civil War buff.  It was Civil War historical fiction—popular in the 1970s—that made me interested in the war in the first place. I actually majored in history with the idea of writing a Civil War novel (historically accurate, of course) as my honors thesis. The history department quashed that, telling me I had to go to the English department for that, which I was not about to do. So I did what I always did when thwarted. I mentally said F*ck you, dropped the honors program, and graduated without writing a stupid thesis. But I wrote a lot of fiction about the Civil War, and some of it got published.

All of this was a long way of saying that I thought I knew a lot about the era, even though I haven’t read much about it since 1982 or so. I read the occasional book (Team of Rivals, [right?], which I recommended last year and several others), but I’d branched out in my historical reading.

So the old subconscious has been leading me to books about historical manhunts for the past six months, and I recommended one last month (Hellhound on His Trail).  That book somehow led me to the Swanson, which I devoured in two nights.

This book is a stupendous read. Fast-moving, interesting, and a bit controversial. He cherry-picked historical details, like any good historian does, not for their drama, but because he has more than one source for them (like any good journalist does). He also dug up some old memoirs, including one written by the guy who helped Booth after he left Samuel Mudd’s house.

We know how this all ends, but we don’t know. Because the history books tell us that Booth died after being on the run, and the other conspirators were tried and hanged.  But that is sooo not the entire story. If you like thrillers, if you like history, or if you like just a plain old good read, pick up this book. It’s fascinating.

Trillin, Calvin, “Back on the Bus,” The New Yorker, July 25, 2011.  Trillin writes a deeply personal essay about his years as a journalist, covering the civil rights movement. This mostly focuses on the Freedom Riders, but it’s a good look at the importance of journalists, the difficulty that human beings have in being “objective,” and the uncertainty of the time period. Excellent stuff.

 Then I read one of my favorite writers and discovered that her latest book was one of her weakest ever. I kept expecting it to get better, but it never did. I finally read the cover copy and realized that even the editor had problems with it, since the cover copy described 85% of the book. Before I read the copy, I thought it described the opening of the book. [sigh]

So I went back to short fiction, and finally got back on track in the middle of the month (thank heavens!). I found some really great stuff. This is what I can share:

 September, 2011

 Baggott, Jim, The First War of Physics: The Secret History of the Atom Bomb 1939-1949, Pegasus, 2010.  I found this book in Powell’s on the way to the conference in Reno last month. I hadn’t heard about it or heard anyone talk about it, but it looked fascinating. It is.

Baggott is a science writer for various journals, so his prose is easy to follow, even when he’s explaining the discoveries that led to the atom bomb. Mostly he follows the personalities involved all over the world—from the U.S. to England to France to the Soviet Union to Germany and beyond. It sounds daunting and complex, but the nifty thing about this book is that it examines an aspect of World War II that gets mentioned in other histories but not explored in this depth. It is not just a popular history book with all the goodness that entails, but an excellent history of science book as well.

And because Baggott is dealing with nuclear bombs, the book also deals with all of the philosophical arguments for and against such weaponry, the very ideas that the physcists themselves ended up grappling with. The book is riveting. I read it in the middle of the post-Worldcon Bill mess, and the book kept my attention, something other books weren’t doing. Worth the read.

Butcher, Jim, “The Warrior,” Mean Streets, Roc 2009.  A novella that takes place in between a few of the Harry Dresden books, but it can stand alone.  I can’t say too much about the story because it might spoil some things for folks who haven’t read all of the novels yet, but suffice to say there’s some nice fights, a bit of good investigating, an appearance by Butters, and a little bit of speechifying.  A very nice addition to the series.

Chabon, Michael, “Art of Cake,” Manhood For Amateurs, Harper Perennial, 2009.  A great little essay on the way that we pass our habits onto our children. Chabon talks about how he learned to cook from his mother, and how he’s now using her recipes—which include recipes from her mother, and her mother, and so on. He’s teaching his children, of course.

It’s a cool bit of heredity that he’s passing onto his children. The one time I regret that I don’t have children is that I can’t pass on the family cooking traditions. I have a lot of stained recipes from my mother and grandmother. I’ve sent copies to my siblings, since apparently, I was the only one who asked Mom to write things down before she died. Even then some of the recipes are difficult—no measurements, for example, and in one case, no cooking time or stove temperature. But I had watched as a child, and remember quite a bit of it, so was able to reconstruct it.

Chabon is just enough younger than me that his mother got caught in the 1970s gender revolution. She taught her son things normally taught to daughters. And his essay about this is wonderful.

Chabon, Michael, “The Binding of Isaac,” Manhood For Amateurs, Harper Perennial, 2009.  Chabon wrote this essay after standing in Grant Park on the night Obama got elected. Chabon had his five-year-old son on his shoulders so the boy could see the historic event, and Chabon found himself reflecting on the Obama girls and the changes their lives would now go through. I wondered those girls as well that night, but I’m not a parent. Chabon looked at it from a parent’s point of view, what the Obamas were asking of their girls, what parents ask of their children. Thoughtful and interesting.

Chabon, Michael, “Legoland Station,”  Manhood For Amateurs, Harper Perennial, 2009. A fascinating piece on the imagination, and the way that Legos channels it. Chabon discusses the difference between Legos when we were kids and Legos now, and worries (frets?) that his kids aren’t learning how to imagine things. I have no idea if this is a perennial parenthood worry or if he’s onto something, but I found the essay fascinating anyway.

Chabon, Michael, “The Losers Club,” Manhood For Amateurs, Harper Perennial, 2009.  A lovely essay on being young, being a fan of something, being a bit of a geek.  I love the analysis on the way fannishness turns into writerlyness.  Good stuff.

Deaver, Jeffrey, “Bump,” Dead Man’s Hand,  edited by Otto Penzler, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2007.  Wonderful story about a reality TV poker show. Unlike the poker shows on TV now, this one features has-beens (usually TV stars) betting $250,000 of their own money. Because it’s in a mystery anthology and because Deaver’s writing it, you know something criminal will happen, but it’s fun finding out what that criminal thing is. He also captures what it really feels like to be behind the scenes in Hollywood—how cheesy, fako, and plain old uncomfortable it can be.

King, Stephen, “Mile 81,” Kindle Short, 2011. A marvelous, traditional King horror story about a person-eating car at a rest stop. But oh, it’s so much more fun than that.  Some nice insights into childhood, and the way things can change in an instant. And the story is riveting.  I couldn’t put it down.

Kogan, Deborah Copaken, “America’s Real Favorite Pastime? Judging Women,” More Magazine, July/August, 2011.  I’ll be honest. I was astonished to see this piece in More.  As I’d mentioned before, I’d pretty much given up on the magazine.  Its focus had changed from something for older women to Vogue Lite.  When it did cover anything political, the politics were conservative, almost Tea Partyish, which is decidedly not me.

So when I saw this piece, I started reading it with a bit of hesitation. I didn’t need to hesitate. Kogan, a photojournalist, writes about her experiences abroad in support of Lara Logan, the CBS reporter who got brutally raped last winter while covering the Middle East.  Kogan also got sexually assaulted on assignment and she claims that most female journalists overseas, particularly in more repressive countries, do get attacked. Most women don’t report it for fear of losing their jobs. And considering how many people (men) I heard complain that Logan was in the Middle East in the first place (She’s too pretty. What’s a blond doing there?), I understand completely. I started into the workforce in the late 1970s and often didn’t report inappropriate behavior on the part of men either, figuring I had to endure it or lose my job.  (And in those days, pre-Anita Hill, that was probably true.)  One of the (many) reasons I hesitated about becoming an investigative journalist/overseas correspondent was my gender and a fear that I would be unprotected over there. Turns out my fears were justified.

But that doesn’t mean that women should avoid those areas.  Logan is back to work now, and Kogan writes about continuing on in the face of all the obstacles she encountered. Her essay is raw and powerful. Worth the read.

Parker, T. Jefferson, LA Outlaws, Dutton, 2008.  I have always liked T. Jefferson Parker’s short stories. In fact, I use one of them to show my students how important punctuation is (without the punctuation—which is unique and not English-teacher perfect—the scene makes no sense).  I hadn’t tried one of his novels before. I’m not sure what made me pull LA Outlaws off the shelf, but I did, and I’m happy I did.

LA Outlaws follows a criminal, Allison Murrieta, and a sheriff’s deputy, Charlie Hood, after they meet. They meet when he pulls her over as she’s fleeing a crime scene with a satchel full of diamonds. Only he doesn’t know that, then.  Things get out of hand, of course, and it’s all very LA, and very fascinating. The writing is stellar, the characters great, and except for one quibble in the plot (there’s a missing scene that he should have written; you’ll find it), I thought the book fantastic. Worth reading, particularly if you’ve never picked up any Parker.

Sedaris, David, “Easy, Tiger,” The New Yorker, July 11-18, 2011.  Apparently Sedaris travels as much as I do, and has the same kind of attitude toward it. He tries to learn a bit of the language before he goes. This is a funny essay about doing that, about the various programs he uses (and I do too), and the cultural attitudes he gets from them. (These lessons have saved my butt more times than I want to admit—not because of the words I absorbed, but the way of doing things.  Such as the way that Germans refer to time. If I hadn’t known that, I wouldn’t have understood something as simple as setting a wake-up call or making an appointment.)

The essay is fun. Sedaris is always worth reading, but this one really struck my funny bone.

Sides, Hampton, Hellhound on His Trail, Anchor Books, 2010 & 2011.  I’ve done a lot of reading on the Martin Luther King assassination for my Smokey Dalton novels (which, before you ask, will be reissued next year, and a new one sold but no pub date yet).  I never read about the manhunt for James Earl Ray because it had nothing to do with the novels.  So while the pre-assassination stuff is familiar to me, at least as it pertains to Dr. King, the rest of the book wasn’t.

This book is riveting and almost impossible to put down. I don’t remember a lot of what happened here from my childhood. (I was nearly eight when the assassination occurred.) But I do remember Ray’s later escape from prison, also covered here.  I think anyone who likes a good nonfiction book will like this. It’s extremely well written and vivid, paced properly, and memorable.  It’s really worth your time.

Smith, Dean Wesley, “Just Shoot Me Now!” WMG Publishing, 2011.  A wonderful Poker Boy story…featuring cherubs. Yes, cherubs and poker and the wacky world of Poker Boy. What more could you want?

Valentino, Claudia, “Welcome to the Fun House of Memory,” More, July/August, 2011.  Valentino writes a lovely essay about finding truth buried in your memories. We’ve all wondered if something that we remember actually happened, especially if it occurred when we were very young. I often talk about John F. Kennedy’s death. I don’t remember the actual shooting. I was three, and such things really aren’t appropriate for a child. I do recall the funeral however. I knew I was at home, that my parents were gone, and that my newborn nephew had died that very week. My parents and my brother (and presumably his wife) were driving from Iowa to Wisconsin that day to bury my nephew next to my dad’s father, whom my brother loved dearly.

I recall looking at John Jr. salute the casket and someone telling me that I should pay attention to him, because he was my age, and look how he was holding up in the face of such grief.  (This started a lifelong obsession with the Kennedys for me.)  I don’t remember who said it. I still don’t remember it.  But I now know who told me. It was my sister Peg, all of 19 at the time, struggling to cope with the loss and the grief herself. I know this because I told the story of JFK’s funeral at a family gathering and Peg looked at me, startled. “You remember that?” she asked in great shock. Then we talked about the day and she told me about it from her perspective. Me, I was stunned that I had confirmation that the memory—so fragmented—was real.

The fragments are what Valentino is dealing with in this essay, and how she got confirmation. Her parents are dead and she’s an only child, so she actively sought evidence of the things she remembered—and found more of it than she expected. This is a heartfelt essay, even if all of your memories are intact.

Of course, I won’t have this year’s recommends in there, so let me just mention one that you’ll see indepth in February or so…Connie Willis’s “All About Emily” in the December 2011 Asimov’s.  Find it and enjoy.

Here are the holiday stories listed in past years. What you’re reading below is the exact text of what I published about these books and stories in the original recommended reading list. I began doing the list in 2008.

HOLIDAY RECOMMENDED READING LIST

Cach, Lisa, “Puddings, Pastries, and Thou,” Wish List, Leisure, 2003.  I have no idea where I got this anthology, which also features Lisa Kleypas, Claudia Dain, and Lynsay Sands, but I read it for two reasons: First, I’m still puttering through my Kleypas binge, and second, I always read a Christmas romance anthology over the holidays.

I have to say, though, that I really hated the design of this book.  It doesn’t do what romance anthologies (heck, all anthologies) should, which is point you to the authors’ other work.  In fact, the stories themselves have no byline.  You have to look at the table of contents to see who wrote what.

The Cach story was a nice surprise.  I’ve probably read two dozen such anthologies over the years and the stories are often sweet but predictable.  This one wasn’t predictable.  I’ve discovered Mary Balogh through such an anthology, and now I’ll seek out other work by Cach.

This is a witty story of a down-and-out woman whose immediate family was dead and who depends on the kindness of her distant relations.  Only they stuck her with an elderly woman who had either dementia or Alzeheimers (of course, the story doesn’t say since it’s set in Regency England).  She was the 24/7 caretaker, and she barely had time for herself. She also barely got enough to eat.

When the story begins, our heroine Vivian has just moved in with another set of distant relatives, and must contend with a jealous 17-year-old who is about to debut. I’m all set for a Mean Girls story—the 17-year-old doesn’t want to share her glory days with a lesser cousin—but the story doesn’t work that way.

The 17-year-old does set Vivian up with a seemingly undesirably hero, who is a bad influence not because he’s a rake or an alcoholic, but because…well, let me simply say that it has to do with morals that no longer exist.  He had done something honorable in our world, but dishonorable in theirs.

The entire story centers around the feasts over the holiday, and Cach delineates them with loving care.  It’s pretty clear that Vivian will go from being a bony distant relation to a fat lord’s wife, and we’re cheering for her the whole way.

And the story made me hungry for pastries. Enough said.

[Note: Lisa put links in the comments to a new e-book collection that contains this story. You can find the Kindle version here. If you need another version, look at the comments.]

Hockensmith, Steve, “Fruitcake,” Naughty: Nine Tales of Christmas Crime, Kindle edition, 2010.  I love Steve Hockensmith’s short stories, partly because they’re so memorable.  I couldn’t get fruitcake out of my mind for days—much as I wanted to.  I’m not fond of fruitcake.  Many others aren’t either which is the impetus for this story of regifting and murder.

Hockensmith, Steve “Naughty,” Naughty: Nine Tales of Christmas Crime, Kindle edition, 2010.  Funny story about a down-on-her-luck woman, Christmas “elves,” a department store, and a rather unexpected crime.  Fun and memorable.

Hockensmith, Steve, Naughty: Nine Tales of Christmas Crime, Kindle edition, 2010.  I have no idea how many of Steve Hockensmith’s short stories I’ve read in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine or in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine over the  years.  Quite a few, judging by the ones I remembered and reread in this collection.  It’s a collection of Steve’s Christmas stories, all of which I liked, many of which I loved.  Even the copyright page is funny.  My only quibble with the volume?  In it, Steve mentions he’s too busy to write short fiction these days.  So I say, Stop sleeping, Steve!  Write your books, but write short stories too.  Whatever it takes.  Maybe it takes y’all to buy this book to get him to write more short stories.  So do it.

Klavan, Andrew, “The Advent Reunion,”Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, January, 2011.  A Christmas ghost story that packs a heck of a punch. Very short, very powerful.  If I say any more, I’ll ruin it.

Kroupa, Susan, “Walter’s Christmas-Night Musik,” Laurel Fork Press, Kindle Edition, 2010.  A wonderful story about Christmas Night visitors.  Unlike the previous Christmas night visitor stories you’ve read, these visitors are a surprise.  I’d like to be visited by these folks.  I found myself thinking about this story long after I finished reading it.

Reed, Annie, “The Case of the Missing Elf,” Thunder Valley Press, Kindle Edition, 2010.  One of the nice things about the revolution in e-publishing is that you can buy a single short story of an author’s work just as a sample.  I already knew that I liked Annie Reed’s stories, but I also know she’s not a household name.  I hope that changes.

This is one of her Dee and Diz fantasy detective stories.  Diz is an elf, although not a traditional one, and Dee is a woman with an added gift.  There’s a bit of romantic tension involved, but that’s not at the heart of this story.  Like so many stories on this month’s list, this is a Christmas tale.  And the missing elf is not the Jolly Old One, but his occasional impersonator, Norman.  Fun, and thought-provoking, in a Christmasy kinda way.  It’s only 99 cents—a nice introduction to Annie’s work.

Smith, Dean Wesley, “Jukebox Gifts,” WMG Publishing, Kindle edition, 2010.  I love Dean’s jukebox stories.  The conceit is this: for the duration of a single song, played on a jukebox, the person who chose the story can time travel to their strongest memory of that song—and maybe change the past.  “Jukebox Gifts” is set at Christmas and is both heartwarming and heartwrenching.

Westlake, Donald, “Give Till It Hurts” Christmas at The Mysterious Bookshop, edited by Otto Penzler, Vangard Press, 2010.  Losing Westlake last year was a tragedy.  I love his Dortmunder stories and this one, written for the customers of Otto Penzler’s Mysterious Bookshop, is marvelous.  Laugh out loud funny, as most Dortmunder stories are.