Book Review: Chasing the Bear (A Young Spenser Novel)

Chasing the Bear: A Young Spenser Novel, by Robert Parker (Philomel Books [Penguin Young Readers Group], $14.99 HB, 169pp, 2009)

Remember Sheldon and then young Sheldon of the Big Bang Theory? Now we have Spenser and young Spenser, the PI (private investigator). We have 54 (or 40) Spenser books as well as other series that author Robert Parker has bestowed us with. 

Chasing the Bear begins in today's world (not the world of Spenser's childhood) with his girlfriend Susan, a brilliant Harvard psychiatrist,  and Spenser having a conversation in author Robert Parker's delightful manner: full of one-liners that come out with a bang over and over again - delightful!

Young Spenser is 14 and manages to save a friend who is a girl, not a girl friend, then inserts himself into a bullying situation. And young Spenser is raised by his father and two uncles, a family not known before in literature but unique and with plenty of situations to get into. 

Adults will like this book as it vacillates between the young Spenser of yore and the current-day of Spenser and his girl friend. Young boys will like this book for all the boxing terms and even young girls will like this book, skipping over the fights, but dwelling on young love.

If you are familiar with the Robert Parker who-dun-its, you will like this book, if not, you may just become a fan - and there is always a dog named Pearl!

Book Review: Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women (OT) (also, a movie)

Radium Girls: The Dark Story of America's Shining Women, by Kate Moore (Sourcebooks, 2016, 480pp HB, $26.99)

In the 1920s with the 1898 discovery of radium by Marie and Pierre Curie, the "healing" properties of this new element came to people's attention. Plus its ability to shine (glow) in the dark.

It was this latter property that made it so valuable. Girls* were hired to paint the numbers on watches and clocks with this new 'magical' paint that allowed people to tell time at night. This was especially valuable for soldiers in the field so these dial-painting companies became quite busy and the girls who were the dial-painters made a very good salary during the Depression. And 'girls' they were: some started in the 'studios' at the age of 14.

Dial-painting was a very prestigious job and not only for the rather high salary. The girls worked as much as they could and became very close: it was a fun job. 

Until they started dying. First their teeth fell out, then they had skeletal weaknesses. All this took from mere months to  years. They became living corpses and were fired for limping. By 1925 the world knew radium was  poison but the companies refused to believe it.

Ghost Women

The living dead became shrunken and shapeless, mere eggshells of their former selves. Most of them.

Radium Girls is a long book (nearly 500 pages) that reads quickly. Author Kate Moore wanted to give credence to all the girls so the reader may have a hard time remembering who is who: that's why the list of key characters goes on for four pages. And perhaps because they were young girls, their legal fights went on longer than necessary but may be the main reason we today have organizations like OSHA - to protect the naive who work so hard for the company executives.

Also a play in England and a movie, Radium Girls will stay in your mind for a long time.

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*I found it interesting how the girls were called 'girls' in the book but men were called 'men,' This might have mirrored society as a whole during those days. This reviewer also noticed some other little quirks in the writing that made her think English may not have been the author's (editor's) first language (then I found out the author is British).

Book Review: Green on Blue (Afghanistan civil war)

 Green on Blue, by Elliot Ackerman (Simon and Schuster, 243pp PB, $18, 2015)

Ah, Afghanistan - but from the viewpoint of a 'sort of' conscripted Afghan boy-soldier with an American, Mr. Jack, in the far background (blue refers to the US military while green refers to the 'other' side).

A Couple of Short Stories

Much of Green on Blue gives us the daily life of a soldier in the Afghan 'civil war' around a couple of critical incidents that might easily be missed. We start out meeting two brothers growing up alone in a village whose market is bombed by the Taliban: Aziz and his older brother Ali learn to  live on the street as beggars. Ali loses a leg but medical care is rationed, generally for the wealthy. Therefore, in exchange for Aziz joining a militant* group, his salary goes to care for his brother.

Pashtunwali

Author Elliot Ackerman gets the Afghan Code of Ethics down pat: nang** is honor, badal is justice, revenge or retribution, and the book is a demonstration of Pashtunwali all the way through, the unwritten rules that the country lives by. 

Coming of Age

Besides the theme of honor, Green on Blue takes us through winter, the season for military training, followed by the spring offensives, using roadblocks as a common method of gaining funds for supplies. Aziz somehow quickly ascends in rank and is requested by name to accompany some of his higher commanders.

The climax is very much food for thought in that some readers just won't 'get it' while others will thank the publisher for the book club guide and for Phil Klay's (Redeployment) interview of Ackerman in the back.

And yes, there is a dog in this novel and a pet dog at that (an animal not usually considered a pet in this country).

Writing Style

Ackerman, who spent a couple of tours in-country, knows the Afghan military. Still, I wonder at Aziz and his cohorts having IBAs (individual body armor) which would protect them but also slow them down. I also wonder about Mr. Jack, the American traveling alone to coordinate some of the Afghan troops. 

The author also has a unique writing style consisting mainly of many short choppy sentences interspersed with longer ones. The reader does become accustomed to this though.

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*Afghanistan is composed of many tribes, the largest of which is the Pashtun (the two main languages are Pashtu and Dari [similar to Persian Farsi]) tribe who usually rules even though they are located primarily in the south, in Kandahar, rather than around the capital Kabul. During the conflict of the Taliban around 2000, Afghans either took the side of the Americans or of the Taliban.

**Ackerman's book is missing a glossary that would make the reading so much easier:

shalwar kameez (like the Vietnamese woman's ao dai, wide pants with a long tunic)

shura, jurga, loya jurga (council)

zakat (tithe)

Book Review: The Fault in our Stars (OT)(teen love story, cancer)

 The Fault in our Stars, by John Green (Penguin Books, 318pp, $12.99, 2012, a number one book on many lists and now a movie) 

A true, made-up love story but also a life lesson in growing up. . . . another book that is probably on your list of books to read, that keeps getting longer and longer. My advice to you: get it and read it. Then watch the movie. Or, watch the movie and then get the book.

Love the Names!

Our teens are Hazel Grace and Augustus "Gus" Waters - the perfect pair - of names, that is. As far as being a couple, they are so much older than their years: they sprout poetry (with a surprise poet at the end).

Hazel has been stable for three years but homeschooled for that time. Her lungs are weak from thyroid cancer so she must use oxygen. Gus, on the other hand, seems quite healthy, in remission since his leg (and the cancer) was removed. He latches on to Hazel when they meet in a teen cancer survivor therapy group in the basement of a church. Eventually they become close and live through the demise of some of their friends.

Perhaps you have heard of the last wish? Hazel used hers for Disneyworld a couple of years ago but Gus has saved his so far. 

Poetry

The teens speak in poetry more and more as the pages fly by and Hazed and Gus end up in Amsterdam to see their favorite author - a trip full of memories, both good and frustrating. Fortunately, Hazel's mom is wonderful (and her dad is the sensitive one).

After Amsterdam, they hold a pre-funeral that is meaningful and . . . but I won't tell you how the book ends. Suffice it to say that this is a book you will hold in your heart for a long time.

Book Review: Where the Crawdads Sing (OT)(North Carolina swamps, girl)

Where the Crawdads* Sing, by Delia Owens (Random  House, Reese's Book Club, $18, 2021, 400pp PB, New York Times Bestselling Author)

Where the Crawdads Sing has probably been on your list to read for a long time: my advice is to read it. Now. Especially if you love, and who doesn't - To Kill a Mockingbird.

This reviewer read the large print version so she could read it better in bed at night, in low light. It was still a long book but a short read in that this book simply grasps you and doesn't let go yet, at the same time, it is smooth.

Kya, the March Girl, is left to fend for herself in the swamps at a young age and manages somehow to not only survive but, though terribly shy, to thrive. Author Delia Owens must have either grown up near the North Carolina swamps or perhaps she is an environmentalist, for she gets things right: the bird feathers, the grasses, navigating the coastline and interconnected islands, the shells. How she manages to also make Kya's story so captivating that we want to meet her shows her true skill as a first-time novelist.

The Plot

Kya raises herself, teaches herself to cook (mostly grits), which birds to befriend, which mushrooms to eat, as she spends her days collecting shells and oftentimes, before dawn, gathering mussels to sell to the black man in town. People know about Kya - the kids her age who taunt her for not knowing how to read, and a few adults who take her under their wing, and a couple of boys. One teaches her how to read and shares nature while the other merely takes. And then Kya is recognized for being a naturalist but one of 'her' boys is found dead and so, a trial ensues. 

The Magic of the Writing Style

Owens manages to modify the conversations according to who is speaking and, for Kya, her grasp of English grammar is mirrored as she reads biology textbooks for the more she educates herself, the better her speech becomes. 

*crawfish, crayfish, freshwater crustaceans

And one of the biology books she mentions was written by a professor where I did my undergraduate work!

Book Review: How Books Can Save Democracy (OT) (a little book with big ideas)

 How Books Can Save Democracy, by Michael Fischer (Trinity University Press, 12.95$, 2025, 84pp)

A Little Book That Packs a Big Wallop!

A book so small you can fit it easily in a pocket - new meaning for pocketbook! 

All I can say is, "Wow!" This is the book that can save democracy. It is best for a conversation-starter like in a book club or an upperclass college seminar (where the students have lived a bit and experienced different situations and, perhaps, different cultures, or at least have known different generations and SESs (socio-economic status').

When I found myself highlighting nearly every page in this little book, I knew I had to stop, and start to sing its praises.

How Books Can Save Democracy should be required reading for boards of directors and elected leaders, or anyone encountering varying opinions, power and responsibility for others.   

In a nutshell, literature and resulting discussions are safe places to practice disagreement and compromise, and that can be a good lesson for plain old families like those whose members disagree about politics over Thanksgiving dinner, especially if alcohol is served. People can agree to disagree which is more than simply avoiding a certain subject: it means a give-and-take in the conversation, finding some points to agree on and others not to.

Using titles and quotes from well-known books and authors, from Desmond Tutu to Dickens, author Michael Fischer, an English professor, opens the book with a multi-page synopsis from a case in point: in the park one day, three women friends find they disagree and argue when along comes a man who listens in and sparks them to stop, look and listen to each other. They eventually do.

Suggestion

I would make the opening literary synopsis shorter and from a book most people are familiar with as I would for most of the examples - being a STEM person I am not familiar with much of English literature so perhaps examples from children's books might be more meaningful. I would get more out of examples from To Kill a Mockingbird

or Tom Sawyer,

for example.

However

On the whole, this is an excellent little book to take along with you and read slowly over and over again.

Book Review: Still Alice (OT)(early onset Alzheimer's, also a movie)

 Still Alice, by Lisa Genova (Simon and Schuster, 2009, $16, 293 pp PB)

The Plot

An enthralling movie (2014) made me pick up the book* when I saw it and not want to put it down. For some reason, I identified with Alice even though I am not a Psychology professor at a prestigious college that I and my science professor husband can walk to, don't live in New England, don't have a house on the beach or three adult children with one grand on the way, am not a runner - so I don't know why I liked this book (and movie) so much. Perhaps it is because Julianne Moore won an Academy Award for portraying Alice.

I believe that if you read a book and see the movie, or see a movie and then read the book, that your favorite is the one you read/watch first. In rare circumstances you like both equally: To Kill a Mockingbird,

The Help,

and now, Still Alice. 

The astute inhabitant of today's world will know how the book ends but will keep reading it to hope against hope and to experience what gradual loss of memory feels like from the patient's point of view and because all the characters are likable. We want to shake Alice's husband, however, but love the estranged daughter for handling Alice so naturally - real, with all the bumps experienced in life. 

Written by a neurocientist, you will wonder just how much is true in this work of fiction. Most likely, the science and medicine are true, as well as the characters' feelings, emotions and reactions. And you will find the book and movie to be wonderfully on track** with each other. Remember that Alice has early-onset Alzheimer's which seemed to progress fairly rapidly. And keep it on your bookshelf to read again next year, after watching the movie again.

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* and yes, butterflies are significant

** This reviewer found a couple of scenes in the book that are not in the movie and vice versa but perhaps the bookmark fell out and was replaced in the wrong chapter. . . .