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.
Friday, June 17, 2011
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."
Monday, May 9, 2011
Heads You Lose by Lisa Lutz & David Hayward
Lisa Lutz is one of my favorite writers. She's written a series of books about the Spellman family who are dysfunctional private investigators. (They're great investigators but a crazy family.) This is her first book without the Spellmans. I was reading it to tide me over to her next one.
Her co-writer is a former boyfriend who is also a poet and editor. They alternate chapters throughout. The book is good, and it's funny, but sometimes a little wildly confusing. Sort of like the game you played as kids where one person starts a story, then it goes around the circle with everyone adding on to it. Within the chapters the alternate co-writer leaves footnotes and at the end of each chapter you get to see the notes that they wrote each other on what just happened or what should happen next. The notes get more acrimonious as the book wears on. It all comes together in the end, but you wonder if they were speaking. Apparently, so, because they've done an interview on NPR and are now on a book tour.
Her co-writer is a former boyfriend who is also a poet and editor. They alternate chapters throughout. The book is good, and it's funny, but sometimes a little wildly confusing. Sort of like the game you played as kids where one person starts a story, then it goes around the circle with everyone adding on to it. Within the chapters the alternate co-writer leaves footnotes and at the end of each chapter you get to see the notes that they wrote each other on what just happened or what should happen next. The notes get more acrimonious as the book wears on. It all comes together in the end, but you wonder if they were speaking. Apparently, so, because they've done an interview on NPR and are now on a book tour.
The Scent of Rain & Lightning by Nancy Pickard
I can honestly say I had no idea "whodunit" until the author revealed everything near the end. I like that in a book. Partly set in the present day but mostly involving events 23 years earlier, you and the main character try to figure out what happened to her parents when she was a toddler. Her father was killed during a violent storm in a town on the Kansas plains. Her mother (or her body) was never found. When the presumed killer is released from prison after the governor commutes his sentence, their daughter tries to find out what really went on that night. In her small town where everyone knows everything about her it seems as if they all want to protect her, or keep her from digging too deep in the past. It was fascinating. And with all the vivid storm descriptions in the book, I felt like it was raining outside while I read it.
The Guynd by Belinda Rathbone
This book is by an American writer who marries a Scotsman and goes to live with him on his country estate. She vividly describes what a mixed blessing/curse it is to have the land and big house but not the money and servants that it was designed for, and needs to run. My only disappointment with it was that there were no photos. And, I had to go online afterwards to look at that and find out a little more about what happened in the author's personal life. Not only was the house a difficult proposition, the husband was, too. It was like Art's pack-rat-edness multiplied exponentially. Oh, and the title (and house) is pronounced so that it rhymes with "wind."
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