Woodsburner

Only one year before the move to Walden Pond that would result in his literary masterpiece, Henry David Thoreau had a very different experience with the rustic environment near his Concord, Massachusetts home. In a careless attempt to start a cooking fire under unusually dry circumstances, Thoreau watched helplessly as a strong wind spread his small fire, and as almost 300 acres of the Concord Woods were destroyed. In fact, if not for the efforts of the townspeople, Concord itself might have burned to the ground.

John Pipkin looks at this surprising incident from Henry David Thoreau’s personal history through the eyes of Thoreau and several fictional characters in his strong debut novel, Woods Burner. In the process of creating a back-history for each of his main characters, Pipkin provides a revealing look at Massachusetts society of the 1840s and theorizes on how Thoreau’s mistake heavily influenced the rest of his life and career.

Pipkin uses three main characters other than Thoreau: Eliot Calvert, a bookstore owner who considers himself a budding playwright; Reverend Caleb Dowdy, a radical preacher who plans to build a new church in the Concord Woods; and Oddmund Hus, a simple Norwegian immigrant farmhand who works on one of the small farms surrounded by the woods.

Surprisingly enough, this novel of almost 370 pages takes place in just one real-time day, beginning shortly before Thoreau and his friend, Edward Sherman Hoar, make the fatal decision to turn some of their fresh catch into fish chowder, and ending not long after the locals finally manage to control the runaway fire. Pipkin uses the bulk of his novel to illustrate the 1840s lifestyle by creating detailed backgrounds for his three main characters, each of whom has an interesting story worthy of its own novel.

Circumstances bring Pipkin’s characters together in a way, and at a pace, that allows the reader to gain a clear picture of Massachusetts life of the period at several different societal levels. The novel also offers insight into how Thoreau’s budding environmental concerns were strengthened and focused by what happened to him and his friend in the Concord Woods that day – suggesting, perhaps, that tragedy oftentimes produces positive change.

Rated at: 5.0

Will Sony Stiff PRS-500 Owners?

Those who follow technology news, particularly as it regards the various ebook readers on the market, will recall Sony's recent announcement of a partnership with Google that will provide free access to 500,000 copyright-free books on the Sony Reader. I was happy to see the announcement and anticipated downloading lots of classic or out-of-print books to my Sony Reader.

Silly me - that service is only available on Sony's newer readers. Owners of Sony's PRS-500 (I'm guessing there are at least 200,000 of us out there), the first Sony Reader, cannot take advantage of the new service because the PRS-500 software is not compatible with the Google-provided ebooks. Admittedly, I am not a software engineer and have absolutely no programming skills - but how difficult can it be to make updated software available for download from the Sony website that will let Sony's loyal early-adaptors participate in this new bonanza?

I wish I had an answer to that question, and I would certainly share it if I did, but I cannot get Sony to give me the courtesy of a response to my email asking them what their plans might be to add a little value and usefulness to my PRS-500. That's despite their email thanking me for my interest...blah, blah, blah...

Honestly, I love the little gadget and use it on those occasions when a book is too bulky to carry with me. I own dozens of ebooks and have traveled all over the world with my Sony Reader. Despite all the travel I've done with the reader, it still looks new and works as well today as it did several years ago when I first purchased it. It does not need replacing right now, but one day it will. Whether or not I go with Sony again over the Kindle II (or whatever the latest gadget happens to be at the time) will at least partially depend on what Sony does to share this book bounty with all of its customers - not just the latest ones to jump on the ebook bandwagon.

A word to the wise, Sony Corporation: loyalty is a two-way street.

East Garrison

G.M. Weger’s debut novel, East Garrison, packs one heck of a punch. Make no mistake about it; this first novel is filled with brutal and gory details that are sometimes hard to stomach – especially if you are one of those who enjoy reading while eating lunch. Each time I figured the worst was surely over for Weger’s characters, she managed to top herself yet again.

Weger sets her story in an abandoned section of old Fort Ord called East Garrison, a sort of ghost town surrounded by acres and acres of what used to be shooting ranges and training ground for the U.S. Army. The property has been abandoned long enough that nature is fast reclaiming it, as evidenced by a bountiful wildlife population that includes at least one predator dangerous to man.

Tracy Dade finally has things going her way after years of struggling with family and personal problems. She is married to a police officer who patrols the Fort Ord area and she is about to give birth to their first child. Despite her good fortune, however, Tracy is still fighting a few demons from her past. She is insecure about her marriage, deep down inside herself wondering why her husband even stays with her, and she suffers from occasional depression. Tracy grew up in a family headed by a pot-smoking, neo-Nazi fanatic, a man with whom she seldom has contact, but she suddenly decides that reconciling her differences with her father is something she must do in order to ensure a normal life for herself and her new family – and she has to do it before she has her baby.

When Tracy, dangerously headstrong as ever, decides to search for her father in the most isolated parts of old Fort Ord despite being only hours from going into labor, things get interesting – and dangerous for all involved. Tracy’s husband has no idea where she is and only reluctantly begins a desperate search to save the lives of his wife and unborn child. Everything that can possibly go wrong for Tracy does go wrong and what happens to her, her father, and her best friend makes East Garrison one of the most gut-wrenching thrillers that I have read in 2009, so gut-wrenching, in fact, that I have to warn readers one more time that this is not lunchtime reading.

Rated at: 4.0

Baby Jesus Pawn Shop

Lucia Orth’s debut novel, Baby Jesus Pawn Shop, is long on setting and atmosphere, immersing its readers in the brutality of a 1982 Manila still under the thumb of Dictator Ferdinand Marcos. By 1982, Marcos was dying of kidney failure but he was determined to win one final “democratic” election to solidify, in the eyes of the rest of the world, his hold over the Philippines. Most people, of course, suffered tremendous hardships under his rule and some of the braver ones were now turning to demonstrations, bombs and assassinations in hope of overthrowing the Marcos regime.

It is a world in which no one can be trusted, including representatives of the U.S. government stationed in the Philippines. Marcos wants to stay in power and will do whatever it takes to make that happen. The U.S. government fears losing access to the military bases it maintains in the Philippines and appreciates the relative stability of the brutal Marcos regime. Those who want to overthrow Marcos and his henchmen fear the spies who seem to be everywhere.

Into this tense and volatile world comes Rue Caldwell, a woman whose husband represents the United States in its dark dealings with Marcos and his generals. Rue may be a naïve woman when she arrives in Manila but she is nobody’s fool. She is a compassionate woman and she tends to identify with the people who cook, clean, and drive for her, a quality that exposes their world to her in all of its precarious ugliness.

The blinders finally come off Rue’s eyes for good when she comes to know her driver, Doming, a man who, some years before, had been forced to flee his native village after making a symbolic attempt to avenge the government’s murder of his father. From the beginning, there is sexual tension between the two but more important is the way the world is changing drastically for both of them. Rue is shaken by the realization that her husband and her country are not what she thought them to be, and Doming is being drawn deeper and deeper into the Marcos opposition.

The question becomes how much each is willing to risk to do the right thing.

Lucia Orth’s story of what life under Marcos was like for the average Filipino puts the dictator and his ludicrous wife into perspective in a way that history books will never be able to do it. It is an education.

Rated at: 4.0

Book Signings - Not for Sissies

Ken Burger has written a book and now he's trying to sell it. As book lovers and folks who read a way above average number of books every year, we are the people with whom he wants to "make eye contact." This is what it is like for a relatively unknown author, the writer you see sitting at a table behind a stack of books when you enter your local bookstore:

Welcome to your book signing.

For the next two hours you try to make eye contact with strangers who don't want to make eye contact. You're friendly. You smile.

You say, "Hello, I wrote a book. This is what you do when you write a book. You stand around bookstores and bother people."

Most stop and listen because they're polite. You figure if they're near a bookstore they might want to buy a book.

But you could be wrong. What do you know? You're just a guy standing by a sign in the mall without a bunny suit.

Here's what you need to know about writing a book: It's 25 percent writing, 75 percent marketing. And you're in charge of marketing.

I wrote a book, "Swallow Savannah." It's a pretty good book, and I'm thrilled it was published and people seem to like it.

But book signings aren't for sissies. Leave your ego at home. You're not Pat Conroy. When people do come by your table, you have 4.6 seconds to tell them who you are and what your book is about.

A South Carolina story, you say. A riveting tale about the powerful forces of civil rights and the Cold War coming to bear on a small, rural Southern town.

If you don't hook them quickly, their kids drag them off to the toy section. Unless they're ravenous readers. God made a certain number of these people. They're like sharks. They eat three, four, five books a week.

The entire column is located at the Post and Courier website.

If you want to make "eye contact" with Ken, you can use the link, below, to take a look at his book (it will take a bit longer than the 4.6 seconds Ken usually gets from bookstore customers).

By the way, Ken lives and works in "Pat Conroy country" and Conroy has had kind things to say about the book. I'll be looking for this one.

Country Music Weekend

This has turned into an unexpected three-day weekend for me because my company is in the process of relocating to its new office building. The opportunity to sleep in on Friday and Saturday mornings gave me the chance to double up on some fantastic live country music (maybe even triple up if I can find another live show tonight) and I've really enjoyed the gift of that extra time. (I love living in a city where this kind of music is still available almost every night of the week.)

Last night, it was James Hand at Blanco's, my favorite Houston honky-tonk where he included the song shown in this recent YouTube video of one of his recent Austin shows:



Thursday night I caught up with Amber Digby and her band, another of my favorites. Here's a taste of what they do, a video from a show of theirs I attended a couple of years ago.



Now if I can just cram some reading in between some little league baseball this afternoon and, hopefully, another show tonight...all will be well in my world.