Book Review: "Little Brother"

"Little Brother" by Cory Doctorow. Tor Teen, 2008.

I don't remember how I heard about this title, but I'm sure glad I found it! My husband read it first, and called it a "page turner" and "required reading for every teen." My teen daughter also read it and called it "good." I read it and have decided to become a LOT more proactive and thoughtful about how I spread traces of my life and activities online.

Marcus (aka W1n5t0n) and friends have skipped school to play an online scavenger hunt-type computer game near San Francisco. Just about that time, terrorists blow up the Bay Bridge. Marcus and friends are "detained" for questioning for several days, and then released. However, in those few days, California has been transformed into a police state by the Department of Homeland Security as they search for the terrorists. Marcus uses his knowledge of computer networking and security systems to take on the DHS single-handedly and attempts to end their lock on people's civil rights.

Doctorow is a digital rights activist and works with the Electronic Freedom Foundation. He also blogs and has a respectable list of published books, some of which are available at Sacramento Public Library.

What I'm Reading: The Next Thing On My List

"The Next Thing On My List" by Jill Smolinski. New York : Shaye Areheart Books, 2007.

I just finished this charming novel and found it grew on me slowly, but touchingly. The premise was very different: June feels responsible for the accidental death of her passenger, Marissa, and decides to complete the "20 things to do before my 25th birthday" list Marissa leaves behind. However, as the plot and characters developed, I grew genuinely fond of them all, and found myself relating to them as real people.

The unexpected aspect, for me, was the thoughtfulness June evokes in the reader as she works hard to complete the list before Marissa's birthday. That thoughtfulness spilled out of the pages and into my life, as I reflected on some of the questions June raises about the meaning of life, of death, of family, of friends, - and most importantly, of self.

Sacramento Public has only a few copies of this title, but it is also available through our Link+ partner libraries, should ours be all checked out. Jill Smolinski is also the author of a previous novel, "Flip flopped".

Book Review : "The Color of the Sea"

"Color of the Sea" by John Hamamura. New York : Anchor Books, c2007

Hamamura has written an intensely personal - and autobiographical - exploration of the times bracketing the Second World War. In short vignettes, we see Isamu "Sam" growing from a young boy in Hawaii to a young man in Lodi, fulfilling his obligation to get a college education so as to become the "winning lottery ticket" for his family. We experience the disruption as his family is transported to camps after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and we share his unwavering devotion to Keiko. He is tapped by the Army to teach the Japanese language to interpreters.

The author continually explores the border between what I want and what others expect of me in themes related to immigrant labor, racial discrimination, family separation, "belonging", loyalty, personal integrity, love, and the horrors of war. It offers an insider's view of the events - a much different perspective than the one experienced by most other Americans living in California and Hawaii.

This novel is one of the 2007 winners of the Alex Awards for fiction written for adults, but with a special interest for teens.

Review: Cathy's Book

"Cathy's Book : if found call (650)266-8233" by Sean Stewart and Jordan Weisman. Running Press, 2006.

Cathy, a senior in a Bay Area high school, journals about events that happen to her after she starts dating Victor. He suddenly dumps her, and she and her best friend, Emma, do their detective thing to find out why. They become involved in murders, burglary, kidnapping, and laboratory experiments, reminiscent of edgy, alternate reality internet gaming. Cathy's book is illustrated copiously with her sketches and doodles.

The jacket blurb indicates that the authors are, in fact, PC Game creators (MechWarrior, I Love Bees), and invites readers to "Read. Explore. Investigate. Examine the Clues. Call the phone numbers. Access the websites. And when you're done, you'll know that the teen novel will never be the same again."

I didn't explore, investigate, or call the phone numbers, but if anyone does, I invite you to post what you find out in a comment.

(Original post at "Bibliog"; used with permission.)

Review: POTUS

Presidents' Day: there is a brief history of the holiday at Infoplease, which helps to explain why some agencies take two consecutive Monday holidays, and others only one. Sacramento Public Library will observe the holiday on February 18.

But about the presidents: the Internet Public Library provides a compact page of information about all the Presidents of the United States (POTUS). It includes information about each of the past presidents, the current President, and presidential candidates running in the 2008 election.

"Give 'em Hell Harry" S. Truman was president when I was born. The POTUS article about him includes a portrait, biographical information, election results, his cabinet and also audio and video clips.

Who was President when you were born? When you were ten? What were the notable events of those administrations? Who were his opposing candidates? How close were the results of the election? Find out on POTUS.

Review: "The Devil in the White City"

"The Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson. Crown Publishers, 2003.

Sick fascination - this meticulously documented narrative of the creation of the "White City" for Chicago's Columbian expo in the early 1890s is told in tandem with the gruesome story of H. Holmes, a serial killer that managed to dispatch as many as 20 women and children in the span of a couple of years within a few blocks of the fair without detection! He cremated them, then hired someone to clean the bones and reassemble the skeletons, which he sold to medical schools. Not until years later, when a distraught mom hired the Pinkerton detective agency (now operating as Securitas) to find her missing children, did the full story emerge and become sensationalized in the press.

The story of the fair and the depraved sociopath is so compellingly told that I couldn't put the book down until I reached the very last words. The parallel stories progress relentlessly and with graphic description. We come to know the major players, both good and evil, perpetrators and victims, as if they were alive today. No forensic TV series could have told it any better!

An unexpected side entertainment was discovering the luminaries associated with the fair: Buffalo Bill, Annie Oakley, Thomas Edison, Walt Disney, Frank Lloyd Wright, Pullman and others; as well as the number of products still available today that debuted then: shredded wheat, the Ferris wheel, neoclassical public buildings, alternating current.

Review: The Ghost Writer

The Ghost Writer by John Harwood. Harcourt, 2004.

The suspense builds slowly in this gothic thriller. As a shy teen living in Australia, Gerard discovers a ghost story written by his grandmother, and he establishes an intense and passionate correspondence with Alice, a pen friend in England. Both seemingly unrelated events inexplicably upset his mother, who suddenly stops talking about her home and childhood in England, declaring that one of her mother's ghost stories came true. She becomes more and more paranoid, fearful, and controlling until her death several years later.

Gerard, now an adult and employed as a librarian, determines to find out about his mother's life and family in England - and to meet the elusive Alice, with whom he has continued to correspond. Horrifyingly, past and present begin to fuse, blurring the border between normal and paranormal. Murder and madness are revealed, and spirits and ghostlike voices drive this author's first novel to its satisfying and unexpected conclusion.

Book Review: "The Suspect"

"The Suspect" by John T. Lescroart. New York, Dutton 2007.
The entire story takes place between the time Stuart returns home from Lake Tahoe to discover his wife has drowned in their hot tub, and the grand jury hearing at which he is accused of her murder. With exquisite detail, Lescroart draws a bead on first one character then another, as the attorneys battle it out before the judge.

This is the One Book title that will be discussed in October as part of the Sacramento Public Library's sesquicentennial celebration. I thought I'd get a head start on this year's book because I fell in love after the fact with a previous One Book title, "Epitaph for a Peach." I really regretted missing the author talks, and wanted to be ready for this year's events.

Book Review: The Hobgoblin of the Good, Bad and Ugly: Jack London's John Barleycorn

Jack London's John Barleycorn: or Alcoholic Memoirs (R.Bentley: Cambridge, MA, 1978).

The Bay Area's iconic working-class scribe, Jack London, proved all too human in his autobiographical John Barleycorn. London was a life-long slave to alcoholism, an afflication whose roots go back to his early years as a "Oyster Pirate" in the San Francisco Bay, where his trips to saloon after saloon and close affiliation with any number of free-drinking immigrants sold the young writer on the "fruit of the vine." The significance of the saloon for London is paramount; cool in the summer, warm in the winter, and a temple whose altar London was more than ready to kneel at. Although it's seldom that he ever comes close to calling it a problem, London's ruminations are enough for us to understand the subtle concern he carries for his well-being. In this regard, the reader gains a unique window into London's troubled, traveled soul.

It bears mention that London, on more than one occassion, and under the spell of booze, seriously considered suicide; perhaps the most notable was his swim in the Carquinez Strait when a final decision to live only came after drifting by Crocket. How different American Literature would have been had London opted to do himself in. Overall, the complexity and paradox of the Socialist-Spendthrift, Racist-Humanist is revealed in a lucid prose that only the short-lived London could deliver...