Years ago I stumbled across Max Brooks' Zombie Survival Guide. It was good mainly because it was so deadpan as it described the best ways to outsmart and defeat the zombie menace. When I heard that Brad Pitt was making a movie out of World War Z, I decided to pick it up for our trip to the beach.
I understand that this is not a book for everyone. It is an oral history of the zombie war. Two things make it good: one, as a former history grad student, the oral history part is dead on. Two, there is no tongue-in-cheek here. If you just took out the word "zombie" and inserted "Communist" or "Fascist," etc., it would sound just like a real history book.
So, if you are so inclined, and this sounds interesting to you, check it out. But don't say I didn't warn you. Interesting author note: Max Brooks is the son of Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft. He has also written for Saturday Night Live.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
I picked up this book that's a few years old because the author has a new one out that looked interesting and the library didn't have it yet. To explain the title, the devil is a serial killer and the White City is the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893. I thought it would be interesting because of the true crime part but the world's fair information is fascinating. So many inventions and people got their start at the fair - the Ferris Wheel, architects like Louis Sullivan who had Frank Lloyd Wright as an intern briefly. Walt Disney's father Elias helped to build the exposition buildings and it is believed that this perfect city they build on the edge of the lake inspired him to build Disneyland.
The crime story is interesting, too. It's awful to think about what happened and what criminals got away with before forensics and modern communications. The book alternates between the two sides of the story. It's a lengthy book but I thought it was worth the time to read it.
The crime story is interesting, too. It's awful to think about what happened and what criminals got away with before forensics and modern communications. The book alternates between the two sides of the story. It's a lengthy book but I thought it was worth the time to read it.
Friday, June 17, 2011
The Wilder Life by Wendy McClure
Okay, if you don't know what the book is about, the title is fairly misleading. The author is a fan of the Little House on the Prairie series of books and becomes obsessed with them. I guess you would call it obsessed, unless you were a writer. Then I think it becomes your next book idea.
I was a big fan of Laura Ingalls Wilder's books when I was young. (I had the series in paperback but I have no idea where they are now. Hmm, guess I need to ask Mom if she's seen them in the past 20 years or so.) Anyway, over about a year the author delves into all things Wilder. She re-reads not only the books in the series but almost everything she can get on the series, the author's life, the real settings of the books, cookbooks with recipes from the books - everything.
Then she goes a step further. She churns her own butter and makes a recipe from The Long Winter. That doesn't quite satisfy the obsession, so she decides to make a couple of pilgrimages to places where the Ingalls family lives. She and her long-suffering but good natured husband travel from Chicago to South Dakota, Iowa and Minnesota to see what is left of the places mentioned in the book. They have varying degrees of success. Some places have reverted to prairie, but there are also replicas, similar structures moved from elsewhere and a wide spectrum of museums and memorials devoted to the books and the TV show.
I agree with the author about the TV show.
I was a big fan of Laura Ingalls Wilder's books when I was young. (I had the series in paperback but I have no idea where they are now. Hmm, guess I need to ask Mom if she's seen them in the past 20 years or so.) Anyway, over about a year the author delves into all things Wilder. She re-reads not only the books in the series but almost everything she can get on the series, the author's life, the real settings of the books, cookbooks with recipes from the books - everything.
Then she goes a step further. She churns her own butter and makes a recipe from The Long Winter. That doesn't quite satisfy the obsession, so she decides to make a couple of pilgrimages to places where the Ingalls family lives. She and her long-suffering but good natured husband travel from Chicago to South Dakota, Iowa and Minnesota to see what is left of the places mentioned in the book. They have varying degrees of success. Some places have reverted to prairie, but there are also replicas, similar structures moved from elsewhere and a wide spectrum of museums and memorials devoted to the books and the TV show.
I agree with the author about the TV show.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
10th Anniversary by James Patterson
I know, I know, he's very formulaic. But I've invested in reading the first nine books of the Women's Murder Club series, so I'm not about to stop now. I don't know how James Patterson cranks out books the way he does, but they are good summer reading!
The Blooding by Joseph Wambaugh
Sometimes one book will lead you to another one. I was reading one on forensic science a few weeks ago, and it referenced this book. (Sorry, this is one of my obsessions. I'm convinced that I am qualified to either catch or be a serial killer by now!) Anyway, this is an older non-fiction book about a serial murderer in England caught by DNA testing. It was the first case where it was used and successful.
In the mid-1990s two girls from small towns in the English countryside were raped and killed, about a year apart. Despite a huge police task force, massive publicity and thousands of tips, the killer wasn't caught for 3 years. During the investigation a suspect was arrested, seemed to confess and was held in jail. His father didn't believe that he'd killed the girls. (The guy was guilty of being creepy but was not a murderer.) While he was in police custody his father remembered reading about a British scientist who had developed "genetic fingerprinting" using DNA. They had a blood type for the killer and samples enough to do his DNA profile.
What they did next still amazes me. I'm pretty sure you couldn't do it now, at least in America. The police sent out letters to every man who fell into a certain age at the time of the murders who lived in the small rural area and asked them to come in voluntarily to have their blood tested for a DNA match. While they knew that the killer probably wouldn't come in on his own, they thought they might get lucky. They were also watching for those who refused to come in, or who protested.
In the end, they found the killer. The ins and outs of how it happened were very interesting.
In the mid-1990s two girls from small towns in the English countryside were raped and killed, about a year apart. Despite a huge police task force, massive publicity and thousands of tips, the killer wasn't caught for 3 years. During the investigation a suspect was arrested, seemed to confess and was held in jail. His father didn't believe that he'd killed the girls. (The guy was guilty of being creepy but was not a murderer.) While he was in police custody his father remembered reading about a British scientist who had developed "genetic fingerprinting" using DNA. They had a blood type for the killer and samples enough to do his DNA profile.
What they did next still amazes me. I'm pretty sure you couldn't do it now, at least in America. The police sent out letters to every man who fell into a certain age at the time of the murders who lived in the small rural area and asked them to come in voluntarily to have their blood tested for a DNA match. While they knew that the killer probably wouldn't come in on his own, they thought they might get lucky. They were also watching for those who refused to come in, or who protested.
In the end, they found the killer. The ins and outs of how it happened were very interesting.
Archangel by Robert Harris
The history major in me is a fan of Robert Harris. His first book, Fatherland, imagined a world where the Third Reich won World War II. Enigma was a fictional version of the codebreakers based in England during WWII (trying to solve the Enigma machine messages). Archangel is the first of his books, at least that I've read, set in the present.
The main character is an historian who specializes in Soviet era Russian history. While he is at a conference in Moscow he stumbles upon information that he believes that will lead him to a secret notebook that belonged to Stalin. It's almost a Cold War thriller in that there are still a lot of those same elements at work in Russia today. What he eventually finds is much more than a notebook.
The book really captures the spirit of the old saying about those who are doomed to repeat history. And, of course, my all time favorite Faulkner quote: "The past is not dead; it is not even past."
The main character is an historian who specializes in Soviet era Russian history. While he is at a conference in Moscow he stumbles upon information that he believes that will lead him to a secret notebook that belonged to Stalin. It's almost a Cold War thriller in that there are still a lot of those same elements at work in Russia today. What he eventually finds is much more than a notebook.
The book really captures the spirit of the old saying about those who are doomed to repeat history. And, of course, my all time favorite Faulkner quote: "The past is not dead; it is not even past."
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