Months and Seasons

I find short stories to be like snapshots, quick peeks into worlds and situations I would otherwise never have experienced. The best of them have an easy rhythm that lends itself to an almost effortless reading experience and allows me to lose myself in the stories for the whole time it takes me to read their fifteen or twenty pages. But all too often these days, short story collections are similar to the CDs being produced by the major record labels: great title track, one or two other catchy tunes, plus a whole lot of filler material needed to bring the whole thing to the required twelve tracks. I am pleased to report that if Months and Seasons, the new collection from Christopher Meeks, was a music album, many of its twelve pieces would be destined for the charts – no filler here.

As suggested by the book’s title, the stories offer short looks into the lives of characters that are experiencing the various seasons of a lifetime. There are stories about children, about young singles and couples, about couples closer to middle age, and about men even closer to the ends of their lives. But whatever their age, all of these characters are coping as best they can with the problems and situations that life is throwing at them at that moment. Some of their conflicts are of the life-changing variety and others are of the everyday type similar to what most readers will have experienced for themselves at some point in their own lives. The particular beauty of this story collection is how Meeks is able to make his reader care as much about the little girl trying to get over her fear of water as for the aged writer who is about to lose a lifetime’s accumulation of memories to an out-of-control brush fire.

I find it difficult to choose a favorite Months and Seasons story from those that strike me as being exceptionally memorable. If pressed to choose just one, I would likely end up with “The Wind Just Right,” the story of a little girl who is lulled into losing her fear of water, and actually learns to swim, in the hands of a young teacher who herself learns that she is exactly the teacher this little girl needs, someone the little girl will probably remember for the rest of her life. The way that both girls gain self-confidence and the ability to trust their instincts makes this a beautiful story.

In “The Sun Is a Billiard Ball,” one of the longer stories in the book, a couple fearing they have been exposed to AIDS and a man exhibiting symptoms of a deadly cancer find their lives intersecting in a way that could have not been foreseen by any of them even a split second before it happened. The courage, love and humor of this story make it one destined to be remembered. But, because I don’t want to mislead anyone, I should note that Meeks handles humor and absurd situations as well as he handles serious topics. In fact, he opens the book with the humorous “Dracula Sinks into the Night,” about what starts out as the costume party from hell for one man but turns into an unexpected blessing for him and his wife.

There is even a “bonus track” at the end of the collection, a preview of the book that Mr. Meeks is working on now, The Brightest Moon of the Century, a novel that will, in short story form, cover thirty years in the life of its central character, Edward. “The Hand,” which closes Months and Seasons, is actually the first chapter of that new book, a chapter in which young Edward and his father are both forced to do a bit of growing up. I can’t decide whether to call “The Hand” a trailer or a teaser but its inclusion in this collection was a brilliant idea because it has left me so intrigued to learn the rest of Edward’s story that I will jump at the chance to read The Brightest Moon of the Century when it is available. Trailer, teaser and very fine short story all rolled into one, it worked well.

Rated at: 5.0

When a Writer Becomes Just a Brand

James Patterson and Tom Clancy have managed to turn their very names into bestsellers. All they have to do these days is to slap their name on the cover of a book, let someone else do the actual grunt work of writing the book, and laugh all the way to the bank. I'm not saying that the books upon which they place their names in huge print are necessarily bad books. In fact, in the case of Patterson in particular, the books might very well be better than the ones he actually wrote himself before figuring out that he really doesn't have to work that hard in order to keep multiple titles on the bestseller list at the same time.

The Morning Call has an interesting interview with Andrew Gross, an author who has written six of the James Patterson bestsellers, a conversation in which Gross is surprisingly candid about how the process works:

Q: What's the process by which you co-wrote? How did that work?

A: I would say that every book I did came from Jim's initial idea, none would have been conceived without him. He would have given a loose idea about characters and plot.

Generally they would have extended that into a very detailed outline and we'd work on that together. If he liked it I would basically write it and he would review it each month. As the books went on each ended up at No. 1. Not everyone comes out with a book with 1 million readers.

...

Q: Do you worry about your books being the shadow of the ones you've written with Patterson?

A: No, I really don't. I don't write identical to Jim. I generally use pace, and a lot of plot reversals. My books I think have a lot more emotional resonance and more scene-setting and texture. With the fast pace of Patterson's book, it's something that he doesn't always have in his books. It was cool to see my name at the top of the best-seller list. I don't know if that will happen again. But I don't think of it being in the shadow. The truth is he has a lead on me.

I don't know if Gross meant his comment (the part in bold print) to come across the way I am reading it, but it reads as a nice little put-down of the quality of a James Patterson novel, doesn't it?

I can't fault Mr. Gross for jumping at the chance to work with a bestselling writier like James Patterson. As the article says, Gross had taken two years away from his job to write a book, a book that he was unable to sell, and when Patterson called him about a chance to make some money from his writing he jumped at the deal. Who can blame him? No, what I find disgusting is Patterson's ability to slap his name onto a book and have it automatically hit the New York Times bestseller list even if his only contribution is to come up with a plot idea, a few character outlines and to edit and approve the efforts of another writer who follows his outline.

This just reminds me again why I distrust bestseller lists, in the first place, as any kind of guide to good books. Good books and bestsellers lists don't often cross paths.

Never Surrender

Winston Churchill was done no favor when he was named Prime Minister in May of1940 just hours before Adolph Hitler’s invasion of Belgium, Holland and France. As the world watched in horror, Hitler’s army marched through those countries with surprising ease and pushed Britain’s forces to the coast at Dunkirk where they seemed to be trapped like fleeing rats. Never Surrender tells the story of what turned out to be one of the most important three weeks of the twentieth century. It was during those dark days that Churchill almost single-handedly managed to keep his government from suing for peace with Hitler even when it appeared that his country would soon have no army or air force left with which to fight.

Michael Dobbs portrays a Winston Churchill who at times seems to succeed in spite of himself. Despite his bouts of depression, his drinking habits and the fact that most of his colleagues were convinced that he was already a failure, Churchill gave his countrymen the will to defy Hitler when it seemed near impossible that their resistance could ever succeed. The Winston Churchill of Never Surrender is a man filled with self-doubt, a man who still craves the approval of his long dead father, and a man who is willing to do whatever is necessary to save his beloved country. If he has to lie to his fellow ministers and staff, he will do it. If he has to ask thousands of men to sacrifice their lives in a hopeless battle to win time for others to escape Hitler’s trap, he will do that. He understands, even if only a few others do, that negotiating with Adolph Hitler is the same as surrender, and he will never surrender.

But there is more to Never Surrender than Winston Churchill. Dobbs uses side stories and characters to further detail what was happening at all levels of British society during those crucial days. There are Don Chichester, a young conscientious objector and orderly with the British army in France and his Anglican vicar father who considers him to be a coward for not taking up arms against the enemy. There is Ruth Mueller, a German refugee and Hitler biographer, who has fled to England after being sickened by what has become of her own country, and who becomes an unofficial adviser to Churchill about what makes Adolph Hitler tick. There is even Joseph Kennedy, U.S. ambassador to Britain, who watches smugly, and almost hopefully, as Churchill’s options become fewer and fewer, a man willing to mislead President Roosevelt despite the consequences.

Never Surrender is a suspenseful account of what one man achieved despite obstacles that would have stopped most men in their tracks. Faced with obstinate military leaders who would not follow orders, defeatist ministers who were ready to quit the fight, and self-doubts of his own, Churchill was still able to defy Hitler and to rescue more than three hundred thousand men from the beaches of Dunkirk, men who would live to fight another day. The world was lucky that Winston Churchill came along when he did. Michael Dobbs has done a remarkable job in explaining just how lucky.

Rated at: 4.0

As originally published on Curled Up with a Good Book

Did Random House Chicken Out?

According to the Wall Street Journal, no less, publisher Random House has decided that it wants no part of anything that might offend Muslim sensitivities, even a novel it bought and paid for and was scheduled to publish in just a few days.

This is scary stuff, to be sure. And I don't mean the possibility that radical Islamists might decide to cause Random House and booksellers a little grief with a bunch of insane threats again, a la Satanic Verses. No, the scary part for me is that a giant publishing house (now German owned) like Random House is willing to let even that remote possibility push it into censoring itself beforehand. Has Islam become such a fierce threat to the world that no one dares offend the religion or criticize it, even in literary fiction? Apparently Random House votes a resounding "yes" on that question.

Starting in 2002, Spokane, Wash., journalist Sherry Jones toiled weekends on a racy historical novel about Aisha, the young wife of the prophet Muhammad. Ms. Jones learned Arabic, studied scholarly works about Aisha's life, and came to admire her protagonist as a woman of courage. When Random House bought her novel last year in a $100,000, two-book deal, she was ecstatic. This past spring, she began plans for an eight-city book tour after the Aug. 12 publication date of "The Jewel of Medina" -- a tale of lust, love and intrigue in the prophet's harem.

t's not going to happen: In May, Random House abruptly called off publication of the book. The series of events that torpedoed this novel are a window into how quickly fear stunts intelligent discourse about the Muslim world.

...

After consulting security experts and Islam scholars, Mr. Perry said the company decided "to postpone publication for the safety of the author, employees of Random House, booksellers and anyone else who would be involved in distribution and sale of the novel."

...

This time, the instigator of the trouble wasn't a radical Muslim cleric, but an American academic. In April, looking for endorsements, Random House sent galleys to writers and scholars, including Denise Spellberg, an associate professor of Islamic history at the University of Texas in Austin. Ms. Jones put her on the list because she read Ms. Spellberg's book, "Politics, Gender, and the Islamic Past: The Legacy of 'A'isha Bint Abi Bakr."

But Ms. Spellberg wasn't a fan of Ms. Jones's book. On April 30, Shahed Amanullah, a guest lecturer in Ms. Spellberg's classes and the editor of a popular Muslim Web site, got a frantic call from her. "She was upset," Mr. Amanullah recalls. He says Ms. Spellberg told him the novel "made fun of Muslims and their history," and asked him to warn Muslims.

Read the whole article for all the nasty details regarding this University of Texas "academic," Denise Spellberg, and the efforts she went through to stir up the radical Muslim element that would result in Random House's cowardly decision to kill the book.

This is sad because Spellberg appears to be just another misguided professor whose actions will ultimately lead to the destruction of everything that makes this country a great one. The saddest thing is that people who think like her are a dime a dozen at our major universities because of the radical leftist political thought that now dominates those institutions. I simply cannot believe that we trust our youth in the hands of "teachers" like this woman.

Rating System for Books

I can understand why some people would think that having a rating system for books, something similar to what is done for movies, would be a good idea. I can understand it; but I can't agree with the premise. I'm perfectly happy with the general categorizations commonly used in libraries and bookstores now: Adult, Young Adult and Children. In fact, the books for children are often further broken down into what is appropriate for general age groups within that classification.

Toya Bryant, over at American Chronicle doesn't believe that is enough, however, and yearns for a true rating system even for the adult books:

I recently went to my local library and checked out a book that was written by a well-known author. It had a catchy title, the cover art was fascinating, and the storyline was one I thought would hold my attention. Unfortunately though, when I took the book home and began to read it I realized that it used odious lingo that I personally find distasteful. But because there is no rating system in place I was made to make a blind selection.

Modern day literature has gradually begun to reflect the licentiousness of society today. The inclusion of vulgar speech, sexual acts, extreme violence and even drug use have become the new normal for many literary works. That further necessitates a rating system that allows us to make an educated decision on what we opt to read.

I think the big difference between DVDs or movies watched in theaters and books is the ease with which a book can be closed for good if a single word or paragraph drives you to do so. It's not that easy to stop a DVD before exposing children to its content or to walk out of a movie that offends you.

We suffer enough from the Nanny States of America already, so please don't waste time and money slapping "Rs" and "PG-13s" all over books because more bureaucracy is exactly what we don't need today.

Do Book Trailers Work for You?

Although it's been a while (several years, actually) since I've read a Clive Barker book, I remember him as being a spooky guy, right up there with Stephen King at times when it comes to fantasy and horror novels. So I pretty much know what to expect from him - what I didn't expect to find was this creepy "book trailer" promoting his latest, Mister B. Gone.

I haven't heard much about the book at all, to be honest, but this book trailer has done its job superbly. Now, I'm curious. Take a look.



Has anyone out there read the book? Does the trailer do it justice, or perhaps even make it sound much better than it is?