1. Douglas O. Linder is surely an intelligent man, but he is no lecturer. I have known lecturers like him both as a student aThree thoughts to share:
1. Douglas O. Linder is surely an intelligent man, but he is no lecturer. I have known lecturers like him both as a student and as a colleague, and he and his students would be much better off with him doing theoretical work while his T.A. takes the lectures. No different here. He knows his stuff, but of all The Great Courses I have listened to over the years he is the poorest speaker. He was, at times, truly dreadful.
2. This lecture series is only the merest bare bones introduction to each of the 25 cases covered. I was incredibly disappointed when it came to the cases I know well, although I did have my interest piqued when it came to the cases I had only a passing familiarity with, so this has already sent me off in my own scattered directions of study, which is good, but I really wanted a little more than I got.
3. Linder was weakest on "the Lessons They Teach Us" part of the lectures (after his actual lecturing skills). His conclusions were trite, heavily biased, and not well backed by the information he'd provided about each case.
Still, I never felt like I had to force myself to carry on. I suppose that the subject matter was strong enough to keep me going regardless of its presentation, but this was still a disappointing outing. ...more
Another sturdy volume of the last great radio show, CBS Radio Mystery Theatre, this 6th volume of shows from 1975 does what all the other volumes I'veAnother sturdy volume of the last great radio show, CBS Radio Mystery Theatre, this 6th volume of shows from 1975 does what all the other volumes I've listened to have done: it offers a mixed bag of audio quality and episode quality, but it transports me back to my childhood, and the highs stick with me far more than the lows. And so I plough on.
There is one particularly fabulous moment at the end of an episode deep in the volume, however, which stands out for particular praise. Sadly it has nothing to do with the actual CBS Radio Mystery Theatre. It is a nine minute news report out of New York (the city, I assume), talking about the crisis in the Middle East and a visit from Anwar Sadat, talking about Lynette "Squeeky" Fromm, defending herself for trying to assassinate President Ford, talking about Cold War issues with the USSR looming, talking about acid rain, and it is all shockingly relevant to our now. Things have changed, you say? Not that much. The players have changed but the music remains the same.
Odd audio gems aside, the CBS Radio Mystery Theatre nearly always entertains, and it is at its best when it genuinely tries to hit the "macabre" tone it claims to be reaching for. In those moments, the spookiness of ghosts or the fate of a murderer or a much deserved vengeance offer me the same spooky thrills they used to offer me in my dark bedroom with the lights of cars bouncing off my ceilings and walls, back when I listened on a little, battery powered transistor radio. Aaah ... the good old days. The '70's, my friends, get further and further away. ...more
I don't know what possessed me to actually buy this book. I don't often pay attention to recommendations from my many book apps and sites (including gI don't know what possessed me to actually buy this book. I don't often pay attention to recommendations from my many book apps and sites (including goodreads), trusting, instead, friends and folks whose taste I admire, but I saw the ugly, toxic, choo-choo train cover and felt compelled to click some link somewhere and read the plot summary.
I think I found out at that point that Keith C. Blackmore was a Canadian author, so that probably influenced me. I remember thinking, too, that the cover of The Majestic 311 reminded me of one my favourite repeating billboards in my many Trans-Canada journeys, a billboard trumpeting the awesomeness of The Minnow Trap (a truly awful book by some goofy writer from Northern Ontario), and I thought The Majestic 311 would at least be some trashy fun to take my mind off all the serious books I've been reading. But even then I shouldn't have been convinced enough to spend the money on The Majestic 311, yet I did and much to my surprise I didn't just put it on my "to read" pile and let it languish for five years. I opened the cover and started reading.
Awesome decision.
I love The Majestic 311. It really defies description, but let me try one out without spoilers: a gang of Canadian train thieves finds themselves in the wrong train one cold, wintry, Alberta night, and that train takes them across the universe and back again. Or something like that.
The Majestic 311 started out feeling like an old black and white Twilight Zone episode, blending Western and the supernatural, then it turned into an 80s mash-up of Slasher & Western movies before becoming a full out Bizarro novel before morphing its tone to the New Weird before shifting to full-out Sci-Fi before giving way to John Carpenterism then eventually winding up in a sort of Rod Serling's Night Gallery double twist ending. I never knew what was coming next, what was waiting from train car to train car, and I loved every second of it -- much to my surprise. I loved it so much that by the time I made it about two thirds of the way through the book I had to slow down my reading just to savour the remaining story.
I'm not sure how many people I know would love this book as much as I do, but there is no denying Blackmore is a solid technician and a fiercely imaginative author. I'm already nearly finished the first book in his Zombie series -- Mountain Man -- and I can't see myself slowing up. Blackmore's writing is just too damn entertaining.
There is one sad thing about The Majestic 311, though. I have been dreaming of starting to record audiobooks, and I was going to beg Blackmore to let me narrate The Majestic 311. Turns out that audiobook ship has sailed. Too bad. Back to dreams of classics, I guess. ...more
Let me begin my praise of Pietr the Latvian by saying that I was genuine surprised twice. Two things I never thought to see in a first police procedurLet me begin my praise of Pietr the Latvian by saying that I was genuine surprised twice. Two things I never thought to see in a first police procedural both happened. These were things I would expect later in a series, but not straight out of the gate, and they raised the stakes to the highest level without relenting until the final pages of the book. It is an impressive beginning for a series that is 75 books long (wow!).
Beyond the surprises, I loved two things that the writing of Georges Simenon evoked: 1. atmosphere; 2. procedure.
Beginning with one, the places Simenon conjured were tangible. Pietr the Latvian moved throughout Paris to Estonia and back again, and I was sucked into the landscapes and coastal towns and cityscapes by a master of place-as-character. I wonder how much Simenon China Mieville has read? I imagine the latter is at least familiar with the former. I could taste the salt in the air amongst the rocks at the end of the pier; I could smell the rot in the back alleys behind Parisian apartments; I could hear the dishes clanking in the kitchens of hotels; I could see the shadows in the cobbled roads between buildings that were born before cars; and I swear I could feel the stickiness of the bloodstained carpet. What's not to love?
Now on to two, an early manifestation of one of my favourite forms of the crime genre -- police procedure. Of course Pietr the Latvian contains procedure that has little to do with forensics and other late-20th Century developments; it is a novel of doggedness and soaking skin, of tracking and observation, of interrogation and empathy, of late nights and no sleep, and it finds a touch of romance in the crappiness of such procedure all while deftly pointing out the pain and futility of such a pursuit.
I see why Georges Simenon meant so much to those who followed him, were inspired by him, and even hated him. He was an impressive writer, and I think I may finish the other 74 books in the series before I die. ...more
As plays go The Lion in Winter is one of those non-Shakespeare plays that feels an awful lot like a Shakespeare play and continues to have the same soAs plays go The Lion in Winter is one of those non-Shakespeare plays that feels an awful lot like a Shakespeare play and continues to have the same sort of relevance. Queer issues abound, gender issues abound, power issues abound, and the characters are all people, despite their centuries of separation from us and from the man who wrote this play, speak to us now of our now.
This particular staging of the play is blessed with the enormous talent of Alfred Molina, who I imagine most film and theatre fans know very well, and Kathleen Chalfant, a Broadway actress who the masses can only have seen on every iteration of Law and Order. The pair of them play King Henry Plantaganet and Eleanor of Aquitane, respectively, and they breathe life to James Goldman's words like few others (except maybe O'Toole and Hepburn) have done.
It's a Christmas play in the way that Die Hard is a Christmas movie; it's a family play in the way that Arrested Development is family Sit-Com; it's a tragic drama the way that the Sopranos is a family trauma.
If you love reading plays through the aural medium, do yourself a favour and listen to this retelling of Goldman's The Lion in Winter. You'll love it and want to come back. ...more
I haven't been able to put together how to talk about my love for this book, and anything I say now will eI waited to long too review Crooked Kingdom.
I haven't been able to put together how to talk about my love for this book, and anything I say now will either come off as too effusive or too dismissive (so I'll probably opt for the latter).
Here are five things to express how much I love Crooked Kingdom:
1. Crooked Kingdom takes place in one of my favourite cities in all of fantasy. Ketterdam. Ketterdam is my vacation spot. 2. Kaz Brekker, Crooked Kingdom's resident anti-hero, is up there with Raistlin Majere and Kelsier for sheer awesomeness. 3. I procrastinated for a solid six months to finish reading Crooked Kingdom because I didn't want it to end. 4. Crooked Kingdom contains three of the most satisfying bits of vengeance you'll ever read. And the last one is an act of love equal to the act of vengeance. Beautiful stuff. 5. Leigh Bardugo surprised me twice with her choices, and that kicks ass. Thanks, Leigh.
I only wish I hadn't read Crooked Kingdom because I could start it today and read it for the first time....more
Having not much liked the first episode of the Alfred Molina led Three Pines television series (although he was perfectly cast as Chief Inspector GamaHaving not much liked the first episode of the Alfred Molina led Three Pines television series (although he was perfectly cast as Chief Inspector Gamache), I was prepared for A Fatal Grace to under-perform its predecessor, Still Life. I wasn't quite prepared for how much it under-performed, however, which is weird considering that the book was better than its adaptation.
As I see it, A Fatal Grace has two major problems: one, Louise Penny isn't sure what sort of book she wants it to be; and two, it has taken a sharp turn into the silly.
1. Identity Crisis: Is A Fatal Grace a police procedural or a classic whodunnit? Well, it tries to be both and with decidedly limited success. The police procedural side of the novel is poorly conceived and sometimes comes off as an afterthought, sometimes as an excuse to build supporting characters (with questionable success), and sometimes as a way to merely clear the stage of clutter so that CI Gamache can sit at centre stage and do that thinking thing he does so well.
As for the whodunnit side of the novel ... it's a little too "Murder She Wrote-ie" to be a good whodunnit. I don't know how many times I rolled my eyes at Jessica Fletcher finding some piece of evidence that only she had seen and pulling the killer out of her ass, or how many times I laughed at the way the killer could be picked up by the audience on pure gut instinct and expectation. This was going on in spades in A Fatal Grace. Our guts jump to conclusions accurately and too soon in this book, and silly twists and turns meant to obfuscate or mislead us did no such thing. Worse still, the biggest crime of Penny's whodunnit failure is how boring it made the whole proceeding.
Then there is the ...
2. Silliness: And that silliness again takes some of its shape from Murder She Wrote. What kind of investigator can be taken seriously when he invites half of his suspects over to a watch evidence with him while eating pastries and drinking hot chocolate? Gamache, apparently. I couldn't take him seriously at all after he did this, though, and it is such a tremendous breach of police procedure that it knocks another peg out of Penny's attempt to build a police procedural.
Moreover, if that wasn't bad enough, Penny continues what is clearly meant to be a long term through line of a behind the scenes investigation-subversion-crucifixion of CI Gamache. We pick up some new details to build on the minor clues from Still Life, suggesting a deep, anti-Gamache police conspiracy because he once gave the force a black eye by "doing the right thing," but this is mostly used as a bait and switch tactic to distract us from the case at hand and to deepen our questions surrounding certain members of Gamache's team. It is a boring tactic, a silly tactic, and a tactic that has me seriously considering dropping this series right here and now.
But I won't. I already have book three on my shelf, so I will go on, but shit better improve and fast, or I will be turning my back on Armand Gamache and going back to one of the old reliables....more
The End of Temperance Dare is a murder mystery wrapped in a supernatural miasma wrapped in a first person limited narration that gives things away andThe End of Temperance Dare is a murder mystery wrapped in a supernatural miasma wrapped in a first person limited narration that gives things away and holds things back, thus there really isn't anything I can say plot-wise (apart from the bare bones that I will give in the next paragraph) that wouldn't spoil Wendy Webb's spidery goodness, so I will limit my post-plot comments to feelings. You understand.
The plot is thus: Eleanor Harper, ex-crime journalist lands a dream gig as the new director of an artists' retreat housed at a spooky, old sanitorium for tuberculosis. The old director, daughter of the sanitorium & retreat's creator kills herself and leaves it all to Eleanor to handle, along with a mystery to solve that the old director knows will keep Eleanor engaged and present at Cliffside Manor. Spooky shit ensues. Ghosts abound. Familial confusions are involved. And there may even be demons? Or is that a step to far? Suffice to say there is some spookiness at work, and it is a whole lot of fun.
And that is pretty much my take away from The End of Temperance Dare. It is a fun and spooky novel that actually manages to do some slightly surprising things, and actually sells its genre teasing elements in the way that old radio shows would do without insulting its genre. Add to that Xe Sands strong narration (most of the time), and you have a recipe for late night spooky distraction that I am really keen to see on stage. Turn this into a musical! Who needs Legally Blonde?! The End of Temperance Dare would rock.
p.s. If you happen to stumble on this Ms. Webb, my musician son and I would be happy to compose the musical ... if you are interested ;)...more
Boil off all the flesh and leave the bones, and you've got Naked Statues ... and its take on the Greeks and the Romans. It is quick and dirty and fun,Boil off all the flesh and leave the bones, and you've got Naked Statues ... and its take on the Greeks and the Romans. It is quick and dirty and fun, and it is particularly useful for anyone who knows Rome and Greece in antiquity but needs a refresher. It is a little cheese souffle, well executed because it never falls and it tastes delicious, but maybe it needed to be on an other menu and needed to be slightly better seasoned. No matter. It is good enough. No time was wasted, but I did walk away wanting a wee bit more....more
I've been thinking about this since I closed the cover of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo earlier this afternoon: what would I say if someone were tI've been thinking about this since I closed the cover of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo earlier this afternoon: what would I say if someone were to ask me what this book is about?
So I'm gonna go ahead and ask myself that question: Brad, what is The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo about?
On the surface the answer is terribly easy. It is about the seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo -- the poor schmuck (a soundstage tech), the abusive member of Hollywood royalty (a nepo actor), the egotistical crooner (umm ... the man we love to hate, or hat to love, Mick Riva!), the business partner (a handsome foreign actor), the gay best friend (her producer and the father of her child), the french auteur (a director), and a financier (the brother of a friend). But that's really a lie. They make up the divisions of Evelyn Hugo's life, but they are not what the story is about.
Below the surface, in the places where Taylor Jenkins Reid works so skilfully and impressively, are the themes that these marriages offer up for our consideration. Poverty, abuse, power, control, friendship, homosexuality, bisexuality, the meaning of success, ethics, fidelity, pain, the drive to hide away, the willingness to use others, euthanasia and the right to die, the willingness to be used, forgiveness, maybe repentance, these and many more of the facts of our world's everyday life float through the waters of Hugo's life. But are all of these things the things that The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo are about? No. Not really, though they are there within the confines of Hugo's life.
So is it love? Well ... again probably no. But then, perhaps a resounding yes. But as with everything else that Reid engages with there is no "Hollywood" version of love that is easy and heartening and sickeningly romantic. Nothing is easy. But all the love, all the forms of love, all the feelings are in these pages, and they are as real as Reid can make them. So maybe it is about love. But what love? What kind of love? Which example of love? Or maybe just love, no matter the form, is what this book is about. But probably not.
Because it could just as easily be about loss in its myriad shapes and forms.
Or it could be about finding yourself and staying true to yourself even when you may not always be living the best version of yourself.
Or it could be about being a person who must learn to balance all the things she wants the best way she can while being willing to forgive herself when things don't always work out.
But I suppose, having written that last paragraph, the story is about one simple and utterly complex thing -- Evelyn Hugo.
Yes, she's a fictional character, but that doesn't matter. She is a dynamo, an unbelievably charismatic study of a human being, and the only way to know her is through Reid's stirring words.
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is about Evelyn Hugo. Pick it up and find out who she is for yourself, and only then will you know what this book is about. ...more
I remember as a kid in the '70s that books by James A. Michener took pride of place in the bookshelves of everyone my parents knew, as well as taking I remember as a kid in the '70s that books by James A. Michener took pride of place in the bookshelves of everyone my parents knew, as well as taking up plenty of space on our own bookshelves. My main memory, and I admit that is a long stretch of time to be remembering with clarity (even though I feel like I am completely clear on this), was how untouched those books all looked. They were all hardcover, and the slip covers looked pristine in those shelves.
I also remember my Mom -- who was the most avid reader (and the reader who inspired me to become the bookwyrm that I am) -- was the only person I ever saw with a Michener in her hands. We had four on our shelves: Centennial, Space, Chesapeake, Hawaii, and it was the latter she tried to read. She tried and failed. I'm not sure how far she got, but I do know that she found him to be boring as hell. And she wondered aloud to me if anyone who'd ever bought a Michener book had ever actually finished reading one.
Yet I also remember the great excitement over the movie adaptations and "Event" T.V. mini-series adaptations Michener's books (and Clavell's and Wouk's) generated amongst the Boomers. And I sat and watched most of those adaptations with my parents, which must have been the impetus for so many people to own so many giant tomes that they never meant to read. They could watch the adaptation and then claim to have read the book, and it worked because no one around them had ever actually read the book and had no idea what parts had been cut or expanded.
I can now declare that I have read a James A. Michener novel -- Centennial -- and while I came close to tossing it aside in the earliest moments I am thrilled that I didn't.
It really isn't a novel, however. Centennial is a string of many novellas that tell one overarching tale. Sure, Michener calls them chapters, but there are chapters within his stated chapters, and each of Michener's chapters could or would be a complete novel in the hands of another.
I won't go into any details here, but it is important to know that details from every chapter / novella are important in some other chapter / novella somewhere else. Characters come back in the future whether they are a dinosaur, an overlarge beaver, an Indigenous family, a hermit, a herd of cattle, a suicidal rancher, a pseudo-princess in her castle, a murder victim, or the descendants of murderers. The interweaving of so many seemingly disconnected tales lends a depth to Centennial that makes every revelation in every antecedent chapter / novella actually exciting to discover. I wasn't expecting anything like that from James A. Michener, but once it began I couldn't stop listening to his tale of a parallel Colorado that helped him tell the tale of settling the west.
I expected little, almost stopped, but got so much in return for my perseverance that I may actually tackle another Michener epic. If you have any suggestions of what is worth the effort, please let me know. ...more
As smut goes, Laurelin Parker has a way with words and naughty imaginings. In fact, there is plenty to arouse and enjoy in Erotic Sex Shorts Stories, As smut goes, Laurelin Parker has a way with words and naughty imaginings. In fact, there is plenty to arouse and enjoy in Erotic Sex Shorts Stories, especially if one has an eclectic sphere of smutty desires.
My faves included a Werebear and his thrilled lover, a bizarre lesbian fan-fic with a randy Padma Lakshmi from Top Chef, a sort of weird Sci-Fi medical cult that needed a virgin for a public display of sexual domination, and a group of twelve MMA boys lovingly servicing their BBW photographer when they were supposed to be shooting their fund raising calendar.
But for every surprising and hot fave there was a mundane disappointment, which probably wouldn't have been that big a deal if I had been reading Erotic Sex Shorts Stories rather than listening to the fairly terrible narration of Alicia Todd. The only thing remotely sexy about her voice was her English accent, but even that was quickly tiresome (which meant that I could only listen to a story or two before taking a couple months off ), and when that was coupled with the brutal production values of the audiobook -- there are many, many times, for instance, when Ms. Todd blows a line reading, takes a beat, gives a new line reading and moves on, with the mistake and the repeated line entirely ignored by an edit -- the potential quality of Laurelin Parker's writing was seriously diminished.
I am glad Erotic Sex Shorts Stories is finally over. I hope my next smutty book is an improvement in the production sense. Nice voices and polish make a big difference when listening to erotica. And if, someday, a new audio version of Erotic Sex Shorts Stories appears, I just might give it a shot if there is a voice to match the smut. ...more
This may be the craziest chapter in the Aubrey / Maturin saga. So much crazy shit happens, and very little of it made it into Peter Weirs' film adaptaThis may be the craziest chapter in the Aubrey / Maturin saga. So much crazy shit happens, and very little of it made it into Peter Weirs' film adaptation.
There are deserted islands; cannibalistic, genital mutilating, Pacific tribal women; lying Yankees (not so weird, that); wackadoo typhoons; adultery that leads to abortion that leads to murder that leads to more murder that leads to suicide (John Carpenter could Horror movie the shit out of this tale); can you say, "Jonah;" a stressful coma; a deus ex machina; bizarre land battles; and strange, though understandable, disagreements between our stories' most stalwart friends.
Yet, despite all its weirdness, this is an Aubrey / Maturin that nails the relationships and characterizations like almost no other. This is all about character, and the characters sparkle. I could mention them all and all the reasons I love them, but that would take forever. Suffice to say that all of these people shine, and their particular peculiarities are at the heart of the tale. And it's not just Captain Jack and Dr. Maturin. All the people who people the Surprise, from Martin to Padeen to Mowatt to Bonden to Killick, are alive and wonderful.
This is a beautiful take on characters we all love (by book 10 ... how could we not?). And the bloody end is all the more shocking for it....more
I make no excuses for considering an audiobook collection of radio dramas as a "book completed." After all, we are talking about 48 and a 1/2 hours ofI make no excuses for considering an audiobook collection of radio dramas as a "book completed." After all, we are talking about 48 and a 1/2 hours of dramatic performance. It is both a lot of time spent and a lot of fascinating (and not so fascinating) tales engaged with.
In this collection from 1974 and 1975, I found myself disliking nearly every story that took us to Ireland (perhaps its my Irish blood that began to boil everytime I heard a cheesy accent), but I loved almost everything that was flavoured by myth or Sci-Fi.
My absolute favourite story was a dystopia starring Mercedes McCambridge, wherein she was in some unnamed totalitarian state, and those who lived there couldn't speak out about the leader. She was being blackmailed into sex by a pig of a bureaucrat to cover up her "dissent," but she turns the tables, and saves herself and all those she cares for. I wish I could remember the name of the episode, because it is a cracker (if you listen to this yourself and come upon it, please mention the name in the comments and I will amend my review).
Of course, there is always the added thrill of hearing old radio commercials for Buick Skylark or the local grocery store from wherever the recording was stolen. That "stealing" (it's probably more like only being able to find the crummiest audio copies) leads to some seriously uneven sound quality. There are times I had to speed up the recording or slow it down to pitch the sound of E.G. Marshall's voice so that he would sound like himself, but even this has a sort of annoying charm. And hell ... I've already started my next volume of Raido Mystery Theater, so the sound quality issues have done nothing to stop me from continuing.
I need to take better note of the good stories this time through so I can avoid being too vague. We'll see if I can overcome my laziness to actually get that done....more
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