Archive for the ‘Books’ Category

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Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?

Wednesday, May 30th, 2012

I don’t want to mock the death of Mack Wolford. I was not raised in the Pentecostal snake-handling tradition, nor does it fit in with my personal religious beliefs. (As I recall, there is a Bible verse that says something to the effect of “Don’t test God.”) But I do respect folks who have those beliefs and act on them; I don’t think they are crazy, but are trying to relate to God in their own way, and more power to them.

However, I do think his death is worth noting, not just for the odd factor, but also because it gives me a chance to talk about Jeremy Seal’s The Snakebite Survivors’ Club: Travels Among Serpents.

This had the potential to be an interesting book, and about half of it is. The chapters on snake hunting and snake bite survivor hunting in Africa and Australia are quite good. Unfortunately, his chapters set in India seem oddly disengaged from the rest of the book; I’m not sure why, but they don’t seem to fit.

And while he has an interesting story to tell as his through line through the chapters in America (backsliding snake-handling minister decides to end his marriage through rattlesnake; unfortunately, his wife survived her bites, and he’s doing time), he has a typically British condescending attitude towards America (and especially the American South) that I found annoying.

If you find a copy of this for $3 or less, I think you might get that much entertainment out of it. Otherwise, I’d suggest skipping it. I haven’t read it, but this Whit Gibbons book looks more entertaining and less dripping with scorn.

Edited to add: Added a link to a review of Salvation on Sand Mountain: Snake Handling and Redemption in Southern Appalachia which a) sounds like a better book about the snake-handling tradition, and b) summarizes the Glenn Summerford story.

Posted in Books, Clippings, Obits, Reptiles, Snakes | 1 Comment »

Obit watch: May 30, 2012.

Wednesday, May 30th, 2012

Noted guitarist Doc Watson.

Leo Dillon. Leo and his wife Diane won two Caldecott medals back to back for their work as illustrators. They also worked on many SF books during the “New Wave” era, including doing illustrations for many of Harlan Ellison’s works.

Posted in Art, Books, Clippings, Obits | Comments Closed

Random notes: May 24, 2012.

Thursday, May 24th, 2012

Ever been to Niagara Falls? Did you take the boat tour? (I know we visited the falls when I was a child, and I’m pretty sure we took the boat tour, but I honestly do not remember very much about it.)

Those boats have been run by the same company, Maid of the Mist Corporation, since 1971. But now that company has lost the contract to run boat tours on the Canadian side of the falls. And this is a problem because they need a place to fuel and store their boats during the winter: the current site is on the Canadian side, and will be taken over by the new tour operators. There’s no easy place to put a new location on the New York side, at least not without going through a minimum of two years worth of environmental reviews, permitting, and construction.

Obit watch: noted author and critic Paul Fussell. I probably should have read The Great War and Modern Memory back when I was studying 20th Century history, but I suppose it isn’t too late now. I do remember reading the titular essay in Thank God for the Atom Bomb but it was a long time ago in a now defunct bookstore, and besides the wench is dead.

Posted in Books, Clippings, Obits, Travel | 2 Comments »

Curious George and the bankruptcy lawyers.

Monday, May 21st, 2012

Of all the books published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in the history of the company, the LAT highlights the “Curious George” books?

Posted in Books, Law | Comments Closed

Pardoning Porter.

Friday, May 18th, 2012

Over at Grits for Breakfast, Scott Henson has announced an interesting project: obtaining a pardon for William Sydney Porter, also known as “O. Henry”.

The project has a separate website: Pardon O. Henry.

I thought this blog entry, in particular, was interesting: Is it possible O. Henry was actually innocent? I don’t want to spoil it for you, but the short answer is that Porter was very probably a victim of shockingly poor banking practices and, had he not fled the country and returned, he probably would have walked. There’s an even more astonishing piece of information contained in Henson’s blog entry, but I encourage you to go read it for yourself.

Posted in Books, Clippings, Law | Comments Closed

Obit watch: Naked came the reporter.

Tuesday, May 15th, 2012

Mike McGrady, reporter for Newsday.

Mr. McGrady was also somewhat famous for being one of the instigators behind the legendary Naked Came the Stranger:

…the Village Voice rapturously described the book as being “of such perfectly realized awfulness that it will suck your soul right out of your brainpan and through your mouth, and you will happily let it go.”

The book is attributed to “Penelope Ashe” but was actually written by a group of 25 Newsday reporters, with McGrady and Harvey Aronson editing their work.

And there’s a punchline at the end of the obit which I won’t spoil for you.

Posted in Books, Clippings, Obits | Comments Closed

It was perfectly innocent. Really. I swear.

Monday, May 14th, 2012

I went over to Amazon because I wanted to see if S.W.A.T Magazine was available in a Kindle edition.

The answer is “No”, but I discovered something else.

S.W.A.T. themed romances. There appear to be two authors in this genre: Denise A. Agnew whose works include

and J.C. Wilder, author of:

(I can’t tell for sure, but the latter two appear to be longer works in the “Men of S.W.A.T.” series. The first two are 70 and 79 pages long, the last two 100 and 96. The Agnew books appear to be closer to full on novels, coming in at about 250 pages. Except for Within His Sight, which clocks in at 81 pages.)

Posted in Books, Kindleing | Comments Closed

Random notes: May 9, 2012.

Wednesday, May 9th, 2012

Notoriously anti-gun RINO Richard Lugar went down in flames like a tax-fattened hyena last night. Tam and Roberta X have more.

For the record: NYT obit for Maurice Sendak.

“It’s Baltimore, gentlemen. The gods will not save you.”

Posted in Books, Clippings, Cops, Guns, Law, Obits | Comments Closed

Random notes: April 30, 2012.

Monday, April 30th, 2012

Beware of the leopard.

The “Three Cups of Tea” lawsuit (previously noted in this space) has been tossed.

The guardrail bore no scars from the S.U.V., for there was no impact; police investigators said the driver had lost control, and the vehicle first struck a Jersey barrier at the center median, and then veered sharply to the right, hitting a curb that propelled it directly over the guardrail.

Jesus, Joseph, and Mary. Those poor people.

Posted in Books, Clippings, Law, Roads | Comments Closed

Random notes: April 18, 2012.

Wednesday, April 18th, 2012

Invasive species are good eating.

Frankly, yeah, I can see eating tiger shrimp. The Asian Carp…well, it makes me think of the old joke about how to prepare carp. (Nail it to a board, prop it in front of a fire until one side turns black, turn the board over and wait until the other side turns black, then throw the fish away and eat the board.) I’m not a big chili fan, but nutria bourguignon could be interesting. And as for feral hogs, let me just say two words: feral bacon.

This one goes out to Andrew: how to replace a bridge in a weekend, instead of months.

Oh, look! Greg “Three Cups of Tea” Mortenson is being sued for fraud!

The lawsuit is asking a judge to order that everybody who bought the books be refunded. Whatever money is left over would go to a humanitarian organization selected by the plaintiffs’ attorneys and approved by the court.

Would it shock you to learn that one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs was also involved in the James Frey lawsuit?

Posted in Books, Bridges, Clippings, Food, Law, Roads | Comments Closed

Can I have a side of awesome sauce, please?

Tuesday, April 10th, 2012

Yes, yes you can.

The TM Daily Post has a nice profile of Joe Lansdale.

…Lansdale is often compared to a number of authors who specialize in bloody, neo-Gothic thrillers, loosely termed “country noir,” among them Woodrell, Donald Ray Pollock (The Devil All the Time), Tom Franklin (Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter) and the late William Gay (Twilight). After being ignored by critics and readers alike, these writers have found a measure of mainstream embrace over the past decade.

I’m not going to claim to be a close personal friend of Mr. Lansdale’s – Lawrence knows him better than I do – but in my limited interaction with him, he’s always been nothing but nice. He’s a swell guy, as far as I’m concerned, and I’m delighted that he’s “finally having a moment, after three-plus-decades toiling in semi-obscurity”.

Posted in Books, Clippings, Endorsements | Comments Closed

Random notes: March 30, 2012.

Friday, March 30th, 2012

I don’t mind eels

Except as meals.

And the way they feels.

—Ogden Nash

(One of our local restaurants has a poster of that poem hanging in the men’s room, which I’ve always found kind of odd. Personally, I’m very fond of eel sushi, and would be very happy to try elvers.)

Obit watch: Harry Crews. (NYT. A/V Club.) I haven’t read any of his work, though I had heard of him. With descriptions like “the unofficial poet laureate of bare-knuckled, white-trash culture” and “a world of hard-drinking, punch-throwing, snake-oil-selling characters whose physical, mental, social and sexual deviations render them somehow entirely normal and eminently sympathetic”, I may have to give the man a try. He almost sounds like a mainstream version of Charles Willeford.

The HouChron has apparently fired society writer Sarah Tressler for the grievous crime of…being a stripper in her spare time.

“The idea of somebody outing me, seemed like it would be like such a mean thing to do that I never thought anybody would do it.”

You know, I’m kind of in agreement with that. Really, what was the point, Houston Press? Page views for your dying alt-weekly?

Setting that to one side for the moment, the HouChron hasn’t had good luck with society writers recently; Douglas Britt, who covered both society and art for the paper, left after he basically went crazy (or was driven crazy by the Art Guys).

Question for the huddled masses: what is the point of having a “society” reporter any longer? I know it sounds kind of class-warfare-ish, but it seems to me that “society” is basically code for “an in-group of rich people who get together and admire each other, and occasionally raise money for their favored charities”. What is the point of continuing to give news coverage to these people? If an event is newsworthy, such as an art opening, let the writers on that beat (art, music, etc.) cover it. Why assign a writer to basically stroke the egos of the “beautiful” people?

Final note: the gun blogger who went by “Newbius” passed away suddenly this week. He wasn’t somebody I knew at all; our paths never crossed (I wish they had), though I did hear him a few times on Vicious Circle. By all accounts, he was a good man, and shall be missed. Jay G. is posting tributes here.

Posted in Books, Clippings, Food, Media, Obits | Comments Closed

A toast to Post.

Wednesday, March 14th, 2012

Melville Davisson Post, to be specific.

While looking up a related subject, I found this essay by Joseph Bottum which calls him “America’s Greatest Mystery Writer”. I am not sure I would be willing to go that far, but Bottum makes a good case, and I do admire what of Post’s work I’ve been able to find.

When I was a kid, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine would occasionally reprint one of the Uncle Abner stories. Later in life, I found a copy of the University of California collection he mentions and rediscovered Uncle Abner, who “belonged to the church militant, and his God was a war lord.”

I think the Abner stories appeal to me for the same reason Chesterton’s Father Brown stories do; the mixing of religion and reason, and the idea that one can believe in both God and the application of the human mind to solve the great mysteries. Post and Chesterton and C.S. Lewis, and others, to me fit in the great tradition of rationalist Christianity.

I am also particularly struck, and delighted, by the extended passage Bottum quotes (starting just after “The extraordinary passage…”) I, too, was struck by that passage when I read it; it hangs over my desk today, and I re-read it (along with Bolt’s line from Sir Thomas More: “And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide…?” and a few other select quotes) in times of great moral crisis.

“…whatever I may have to say of him hereafter I want to say this thing of him here, that his bigotry and his vanities were builded on the foundations of a man.” I admire the way he paints that word picture. “He stood up as though he stood alone, with no glance about him to see what other men would do. . . .”

I commend Bottum’s essay to your attention. He did write the “God and the Detectives” essay, which I am still reading and digesting, but which you may also care to read.

Posted in Books, Clippings | Comments Closed

And speaking of drinking…

Wednesday, March 14th, 2012

…the NYT on one of my favorite drinks, Irish coffee.

With recipe. Just for the record, here’s Law Dog’s recipe. If you know how to search, you can find at least part of Larry Niven’s “Adrienne and Irish Cofffee” in Google Books, but you really should go buy Playgrounds of the Mind. (I’ve always liked Niven much better as a short story writer and essayist than as a novelist.)

Posted in Books, Clippings, Mixology | Comments Closed

Things I Don’t Like.

Monday, March 12th, 2012

This isn’t intended to be a complete list. Nor is it a random assortment. There’s actually a point to this list; stay to the end.

  1. “Doctor Who”. Sorry. Never got into it when I was young, too old and too much baggage and cannon for me to get into it now. Nothing personal: if that’s your thing, may the good Lord shower blessings upon you and keep you safe in his arms.
  2. PayPal. There’s a market opportunity for someone to come along and say “Look, we’re just like PayPal, except we have real customer service and we’re not as big a bunch of scum sucking dogs.” Seriously, given PayPal’s history (try here, here, and here for some examples) anyone who uses them for anything important might as well be playing Russian Roulette with a .45 automatic.
  3. Alzheimer’s disease. The only thing I can imagine that’s worse than watching someone you care about slowly lose their mind – indeed, their very self, the essence of what makes them human – from Alzheimer’s is having that happen to you personally. I hate Alzheimer’s disease.

So what’s the relationship? A guy named Steve Berry, working with an illustrator named Ben Morris, has put together a book called Behind The Sofa, which is described as containing over 100 celebrity memories of “Doctor Who”. I don’t recognize everyone in it, but Neil Gaiman, Philip Plait, and Rick Wakeman might be selling points for some folks. You can check out the book at their website, here. The hardcovers are apparently sold out (unless you buy the Slitheen package) but the ebook is available for a mere £4.99. Doing the currency conversion online, that’s $7.80. You can just barely, maybe, get a decent lunch in Austin for $7.80; two tacos at Torchy’s and a drink will set you back that much.

And 100% of the profits are going to Alzheimer’s Research UK. (Do I trust these people? Well, I figure anyone who crosses Neil Gaiman is either too stupid to run a proper scam or has a death wish, so yeah, I trust them.)

So if you like “Doctor Who”, or if you’re indifferent to “Doctor Who” but have been touched by Alzheimer’s, this might be something you want to support. It certainly seems to me to be something that deserves wider publicity. I hadn’t heard about it until…well…remember I mentioned PayPal? Yeah. Not good.

(Hattip: @newsycombinator.)

Posted in Books, Geek | Comments Closed

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