Just Kids by Patti Smith

Finally, by the sea, where God is everywhere, I gradually calmed. I stood looking at the sky. The clouds were the colors of a Raphael. A wounded rose. I had the sensation he had painted it himself. You will see him. You will know him. You will know his hand. These words came to me and I knew I would one day see a sky drawn by Robert's hand.

-Just Kids 

I can't say I knew much about Patti Smith before beginning Just Kids. I could have picked her out of a lineup, sure, and I knew of Horses. I'm pretty sure I've heard "Gloria." That's about all I had.

And I wouldn't have done much better with Robert Mapplethorpe, frankly, despite having majored in Art History. I knew photographs of flowers, and knew of some others that were somehow scandalous (though I don't know if I saw any slides of those ones, to be honest). I knew he'd died young.

So there was a lot to take in in Just Kids, which traces the relationship Smith and Mappelthorpe had, both romantic and artistic. It's also a portrait of New York City at a very particular time, a time of The Factory and the Hotel Chelsea and automats. I warmed quickly to Smith, but I especially loved reading about the city--a place I know--in a totally new way. It was really amazing to watch how Smith grew as an artist, from poet to rock and roll star, and how she encountered all the bright lights of that era in New York.  I loved hearing about her place in Brooklyn, about her going to Blick's Art Supply, about the bare-bones spaces she shared with Mapplethorpe in Chelsea (no bathroom, for one). In addition to recounting her history with Mapplethorpe quite beautifully, she also captures a moment in time. And I must say, I got teary when I read the passage I quoted above.

Up next: Almost nearly caught up! Drop Dead Healthy by A.J. Jacobs, which I just finished this afternoon.

A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

Sasha tipped back her head to look at him. She made a point of doing this now and then, just to remind Coz that she wasn't an idiot--she knew the question had a right answer. She and Coz were collaborators, writing a story whose end had already been determined: she would get well. She would stop stealing from people and start caring again about the things that had once guided her: music; the network of friends she'd made when she first came to New York; a set of goals she'd scrawled on a big sheet of newsprint and taped to the walls of her early apartments:

                                    Find a band to manage

                                    Understand the news

                                    Study Japanese

                                    Practice the harp

-A Visit from the Goon Squad

It now seems appropriate that I procrastinated for a week on writing this review, as Sasha's set of goals up there looks not unlike a list of resolutions. Also gives my blog that classy--albeit slightly dated--touch to start the year with 2010's Pulitzer Prize winner for fiction, dontcha think?

A Visit from the Goon Squad tells the story of--well, what exactly? A bunch of people, a city, an era, their music. It encompasses a lot, really. Egan spends each chapter with a different character, and these characters weave their way in and out of each other's stories; this method that must have involved a heck of a lot of notes, I'd imagine. The bulk of the story takes place in the first decade of the 21st century, but jumps back as far as the 60's and forward into the near future. It's a pretty impressive feat.

It's also a pretty easy story to get wrapped up in, and I found myself regretting that I hadn't saved it for my recent travels--I finished it sitting in an airplane right before takeoff, actually. There's something about the world that Egan creates that really draws the reader in, even though I wouldn't describe it as a particularly warm book. There wasn't a character I really loved, but the format of the book helped to engender sympathy with all of them, which is a pretty nifty trick. It's not necessarily a book I see myself returning to--although having said that, a reread probably would allow me to make connections between characters I'd missed the first time around. It's a bit hard to imagine rereading anything right now, with more new books on my shelves than ever. Lucky me!

Up next: World War Z, which I just finished yesterday and hopefully will be back to post about relatively soon.

In the Shadow of Gotham by Stefanie Pintoff

What Joe did not know was that I had come here this past May in search of a quieter existence with fewer reminders of Hannah, a victim of last year's General Slocum steamship tragedy. I was not alone in my grief; nearly every family in my Lower East Side neighborhood had lost someone that awful day--June 15, 1904. For almost a full year following Hannah's death, she haunted me, particularly in cases where other young women met tragic, violent ends. I had planned to marry Hannah and build a life with her--but I had no desire to live with a ghost.

-In the Shadow of Gotham 

With that passage, narrator Simon Ziele lays out a fair chunk of the premise of In The Shadow of Gotham. Ziele, a detective, had hoped to escape those tragic young women after leaving the city for the small town of Dobson, New York. But homicide is not confined to the island of Manhattan, of course, and Ziele is soon brought in on a case just as brutal as any he handled in the city. Sarah Wingate, a graduate student in mathematics, is killed at her aunt's home, and the police are left with a horrifying crime scene and very little in the way of leads. That is until a Columbia University criminologist named Alistair Sinclair shows up and insists that he knows exactly who the killer is: the subject of his own research, a man named Michael Fromley. Unable to ignore the evidence Sinclair puts before him, Ziele sets off to track down Fromley, using both psychological research and good old-fashioned detective know-how to aid him along the way.

I enjoyed the setting of the novel, and Ziele was a likeable enough detective. I wouldn't say the mystery itself was particularly compelling--though, again, setting it at the turn of century in New York City helps a lot. I was more put off by a certain clunkiness in the exposition. On the whole, Pinkoff did a nice job of pacing the story, which kept me absorbed despite not being particularly captivated by the plot. So it was all the more glaring when characters' dialogue was suddenly laden with exposition so forced as to take me out of the story entirely. It's very similar to the problem I had with The Night Villa--I'm not quite sure why an author would think so little of her readers to believe that they wouldn't look up a reference they didn't understand. At the worst, they'd just move past it and perhaps not get the full import of what a character was saying, but I'd prefer taking that risk than having my characters reduced to speaking in completely unbelievable ways. I guess it turns out that that might be a particular pet peeve of mine--it just seems so easy to avoid.* I have the sequel to In the Shadow of Gotham sitting on my shelf, but I can't say I'm terribly inclined to pick it up at the moment.

Up next: Still catching up! Need to write up Dark World  by Zak Bagans.
 
*What makes this all the more annoying is that the General Slocum disaster--to which most of Pintoff's exposition refers--is not particularly obscure. In fact, it's one of the worst disasters in New York history. I'd certainly heard of it before, although that could be because I felt it important to read up on potentially haunted places in the vicinity of New York City. While I would not categorize it as common knowledge, I would think that the General Slocum would be familiar to a fair amount of readers inclined to read historical fiction, and the rest can easily look it up.

The Van Alen Legacy by Melissa de la Cruz

When she woke up that morning, the first thing that came to mind was that the bright white shutters looked familiar. Why did they look familiar? No. That wasn't right. That wasn't the right question to ask. She was getting ahead of herself again. It happened. But now she had to concentrate. Every day she had to ask herself three very important questions, and that wasn't one of them.

The first question she had to ask herself was, What is my name?

She couldn't remember. 

-The Van Alen Legacy 

Well, I definitely made a mistake here in not reviewing this book immediately after reading it, as now it's been a week and the books are starting to blur together. Let's see: Schuyler and Oliver are on the run from the Venators, who believe she's responsible for a recent murder; Bliss is having a seriously unfortunate identity crisis/extended possession; and Mimi is down in Brazil with the redeemed Kingsley Martin, searching for any lead in the disappearance of Bliss's little sister, Jordan. Plot-wise, things are hopping.

At this point, though, I feel like I'm running out of things to say about the series. Bliss's story was headed in quite a strange direction, though the events of this book mean things should change fairly substantially. Schuyler's, as always, was not quite as engaging as it should be--she's just not that dynamic of a character. I am, however, growing more invested in Mimi. She's certainly become more nuanced as a character, and her relationship with Kingsley vs. her relationship with Jack leaves me curious to see what she will do going forward. I'll definitely be back for the next book, but for now I'm taking a bit of a breather.

Up next: The Minotaur by Barbara Vine

Revelations by Melissa de la Cruz

She had almost dropped off to sleep when there was a shadow on the terrace.

Schuyler looked up expectantly, feeling a mixture of anticipation and a deep and abiding sadness. Her heart was racing a million miles a minute. Even if she saw him every day, it would always be like the first time.

"Hey, you," a voice said. And a boy appeared from the shadows.

But he was not the one she was waiting for.

-Revelations 

I'll admit that at times reading the Blue Bloods books seems a bit like eating candy for breakfast*--a sweet, guilty pleasure in the moment, but not something you'd want to make a habit of. Still, after Little Dorrit I was in need a of a sugar rush, so I picked up Revelations, the third book in Melissa de la Cruz's series.

What's happening with Schuyler Van Alen this time around? Well, there are nefarious Silver Blood happenings afoot, of course, particularly tied to the reappearance of the troubled Dylan Ward. But Schuyler for the most part is consumed with more mundane problems; specifically, how to choose between the two loves of her life. There's Oliver Hazard-Perry, the human who's been her long-time best friend, not to mention the only person with whom she's performed the Sacred Kiss (otherwise known as sucking blood). And then there's Jack Force, the handsome vampire she can't help but feel drawn to despite the fact that he's promised to another. Decisions, decisions.

I can't say that Revelations was the most compelling of books, but I must admit that whenever I was reading it, I wasn't particularly inclined to stop. The book did offer up one unexpected twist**, but I'm not exactly sure what I think of it--we'll see, I suppose.

Up next: Reading the next Blue Bloods book, The Van Alen Legacy.

*Full disclosure--I'm not sure I have actually ever eaten candy for breakfast, though I recall getting into some pretty early on more than one Christmas morning.

**Well, unexpected to the series as a whole; it was pretty well telegraphed within the book itself. 

Bossypants by Tina Fey

Why is this book called Bossypants? One, because the name Two and a Half Men was already taken. And two, because ever since I became an executive producer of 30 Rock, people have asked me, "Is it hard for you, being the boss?" and "Is it uncomfortable for you to be the person in charge?" You know, in that same way they say, "Gosh, Mr. Trump, is it awkward for you to be the boss of all these people?" I can't answer for Mr. Trump, but in my case it is not. I've learned a lot over the past ten years about what it means to be the boss of people. In most cases being a good boss means hiring talented people and then getting out of their way. In other cases, to get the best work out of people you may have to pretend you are not their boss and let them treat someone else like the boss, and then that person whispers to you behind a fake wall and you tell them what to tell the first person. Contrary to what I believed as a little girl, being the boss almost never involves marching around, waving your arms, and chanting, "I am the boss! I am the boss!"

-Bossypants 

So I decided I needed to take a bit of a breather from Little Dorrit, which I hate to admit is fairly slow going so far. I'm nearly halfway through, and I'm hoping things will kick into high gear soon. In the weeks I've been reading it, a dozen books from various sources have piled up on my shelf, and I thought it might be better to take a break and read a couple of those. Thus, Bossypants, a birthday present from my most excellent brother.

I've loved (and identified with) Tina Fey since she first came into the spotlight as co-anchor of Weekend Update. I always have solidarity with ladies who wear glasses, but beyond that she seemed both funny and incisive, which is about the best you can ask for in a comedian. Also, she went to my alma mater, which means I was lucky enough to see her perform on stage with a touring company of Second City during my time there.

All of this led me to believe that I would be a great fan of Bossypants, and I was absolutely right. Tina (I feel like I can call her Tina, right?) starts with a self-deprecating look at her nerdy childhood, which is always a good start in my book. She covers everything from her college years* to her time running 30 Rock, with enough room in between to share the story of a honeymoon cruise gone wrong and the travails of working at the YMCA. Tina has that enviable talent of a great writer to take a fairly mundane situation and make it both funny and engrossing--you just want her to tell you about everything. 

It's a very quick read--ideal for bringing along on a plane trip or to the beach if you don't mind risking looking a bit crazy while stifling laughter in public. I'm quite pleased to have a copy, as I can definitely see both rereading it and lending it out in the future.

Up next: I am quite behind in blog posts, so I've already finished Spoiled by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan.

*I was pleased when she took a line to explain a bit of the terminology we use at Mr. Jefferson's University. It's absolutely pretentious of us and I love it so.Wahoowa!

Masquerade by Melissa de la Cruz

 

"Aduivo Amicus Specialis. Nihilum cello. Meus victus est tui manus." I come to you for aid as a secret, special friend. I have nothing to hide. My life is in your hands.

He looked into her eyes with an icy stare that could only belong to Schuyler's kind, and her words faded into silence.

"Dormio," he ordered, and with a wave of his hand, she felt the darkness come upon her as she fainted.

-Masquerade

If you were to pick a city a vampire might haunt, Venice would have to be among your top prospects. So it comes as no surprise that that's where we find Schuyler Van Alen at the outset of Masquerade, the second Blue Bloods book by Melissa de la Cruz. Schuyler has come to Venice in search of her grandfather, a man whom she has never met. Nevertheless, he's her last hope to learn more about the Silver Bloods, the corrupted vampires believed to be behind a recent string of attacks in New York.

It's gotten dangerous out there for the Blue Bloods, and things are particularly difficult for Schuyler and her friend Bliss. Both girls have been dealing with mysterious blackouts--and things only get more complicated when they consider taking their first human blood...

Okay, it can sound a little silly at times. But once you get wrapped up in the Blue Bloods world, Masquerade becomes a pretty good pageturner. I certainly read it quite quickly, and I'm sure I'll be getting to the third one before long. 

Up next: I've already finished The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield, and I'm looking forward to coming back and writing about it. 

Blue Bloods by Melissa de la Cruz

Across the street, Schuyler saw a cab pull up to the curb, and a tall blond guy stepped out of it. Just as he emerged, another cab barreled down the street on the opposite side. It was swerving recklessly, and at first it looked like it would miss him, but at the last moment, the boy threw himself in its path and disappeared underneath its wheels. [...]

Schuyler ran across the street, fully expecting to see a dead body, but the boy was standing right in front of her, counting the change in his wallet. He slammed the door shut and sent his taxi on its way. He was whole and unhurt.

"You should be dead," she whispered. 

-Blue Bloods


Schuyler Van Alen has a fairly ordinary sort of life--well, by Manhattan standards, at least. She's grown up with her grandmother in a dusty mansion on Riverside Drive and attends school across town at the tony Duchesne. For fun, she enjoys nothing more than hanging out with her best friend Oliver and reading magazines. Every Sunday, she goes to the hospital to visit her mother, who has spent the last fifteen years in a coma--okay, that's a little out of the ordinary.

Things change when Schuyler's classmate Aggie Carondolet is found dead of an apparent drug overdose. One of the most popular girls in school, Aggie was often in the company of Duchesne queen bee Mimi Force, who has never had any use for the offbeat Schuyler. So Schuyler is surprised when Mimi's equally popular twin brother, Jack, approaches her with a theory: Aggie Carondolet didn't just die--she was murdered.

Thus begins Schuyler's initiation into the world of the Blue Bloods--those who are not only the world's most wealthy and influential citizens, but also something far older and more powerful: vampires. Needless to say, life is no longer remotely ordinary for Schuyler.

Melissa de la Cruz has a breezy style that made Blue Bloods an enjoyable light read. Her mythology for vampires is interesting--there is a reincarnation angle that I haven't seen explored before. I did find her penchant for explaining what every character is wearing--down to the brand--somewhat amusing, but I guess it's not totally unexpected for a book set on the label-conscious Upper East Side. All in all, a fun read, and I'm sure I'll be reading more.

Up next: In fact, I've already read the second book in the series, Masquerade. I hope to be back to blog about it before heading out of town for a few days.

The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan

The palace was as big as the city on Mount Olympus, with wide courtyards, gardens, and columned pavilions. The gardens were sculpted with coral colonies and glowing sea plants. Twenty or thirty buildings were made of abalone, white but gleaming with rainbow colors. Fish and octopi darted in and out of the windows. The paths were lined with glowing pearls like Christmas lights. 

The main courtyard was filled with warriors--mermen with fish tails from the waist down and human bodies from the waist up, except their skin was blue, which I'd never known before. Some were tending the wounded. Some were sharpening spears and swords. One passed us, swimming in a hurry. His eyes were bright green, like that stuff they put in glo-sticks, and his teeth were shark teeth. They don't show you stuff like that in The Little Mermaid.

-The Last Olympian 


I am getting to this entry a wee bit belatedly, since I finished the book about a week ago, but we'll see what I can do, shall we? The Last Olympian is the final book in Rick Riordan's series about the adventures of Percy Jackson, teenage demigod. In The Last Olympian, Percy, a son of Poseidon, has come to his greatest challenge yet: he must take on the vengeful Titans, those whose power was usurped by the Olympians so long ago.

Things aren't looking so good for the Olympians at the moment. One Titan has escaped his prison in Mount Saint Helens and is merrily making his way east, wreaking havoc among the human population as he goes--and even Zeus himself can barely slow him down. Meanwhile, Kronos is heading straight to New York City, home of Mount Olympus, where Percy and his fellow campers are the last--and only--line of defense. With infighting among the gods and demigods and the presence of a spy among them, a happy outcome begins to seem like a dim prospect. Percy has to go to Hades and back--again--to have any chance of saving life as he knows it.

As always, I found that this series is a blend of some truly intriguing, creative ideas and a sensibility that is designed to appeal almost exclusively to younger readers--and, fair enough, it is YA. But there's just something about Percy's voice that is much more teenager-y to me than, say, Harry Potter's. I don't know if it's an American vs. British thing, or because Riordan was a teenage boy himself at one point; because Percy is just not as mature as Harry or perhaps because he had a more normal childhood--for whatever reason, The Last Olympian and other books in this series feel more like books strictly aimed at children than the Harry Potter ones do. I can't say it's a bad thing--again, these are books written for children--but it does dampen my own enthusiasm somewhat.

That having been said, I'm glad I stuck with the series. I found some of the strands of the story to be pretty compelling--I especially liked the resolution to the Percy/Annabeth/Rachel triangle. The treatment of the secondary gods like Hestia was interesting, and I couldn't help but smile at Riordan's characterization of Persephone and Demeter. The spy thing had me turning pages pretty quickly at a certain point (though I thought the resolution was a little rushed). It's a likeable series and I wish it had been more successful as a film venture, as the books seem as though they would have lent themselves very well to adaptation. As it stands, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend these books to a child--I just might not suggest them to an adult.

Up next: Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time. Yeah. Well, it seemed like a good idea at some point...

An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin

At Sotheby's, she started to look at paintings differently. She became an efficient computer of values. The endless stream of pictures that passed through the auction house helped her develop a calculus of worth. Auction records were available in the Sotheby's library, and when a picture of note came in, she diligently searched the Art Price Index to see if it had auction history. She factored in condition, size, and subject matter. A Renoir of a young girl, she had witnessed, was worth more than one of an old woman. An American western picture with five tepees was worth more than a painting with one tepee. If a picture had been on the market recently without a sale, she knew it would be less desirable. A deserted painting scared buyers. Why did no one want it? In the trade, it was known as being "burned." Once a picture was burned, the owner either had to drastically reduce the price or sit on it for another seven years until it faded from memory. When Lacey began these computations, her toe crossed ground from which it is difficult to return: she started converting objects of beauty into objects of value.

-An Object of Beauty 

Man, did I need a book like this one. I've had a steady string of good, but not great books in the last six weeks--I don't think I've read one I found truly absorbing since Mockingjay. An Object of Beauty came along at precisely the right time.

Honestly, I wasn't expecting to like it so much. I read Steve Martin's novella Shopgirl and felt that, while it was technically good, something about it left me cold. It was an aloof sort of book, if that makes sense. An Object of Beauty is similar in a sense. Lacey Yeager, the character whom we follow as she climbs the social and corporate ladder of  the New York art world,  is ambitious and cunning, not particularly easy to warm up to. But it doesn't really matter--you don't need to like Lacey to enjoy the story. Because while Lacey is the chief personage we get to know in An Object of Beauty, she's not the book's true main character. Art is.

And art--well, that I love. I studied Art History in college, but now it would be a rare day indeed when someone asked me my opinion on Joseph Beuys, or even Picasso. But this story is full of people with opinions on these and other artists, and spending time with them was like getting to know people with whom I have mutual friends. It doesn't matter if I like them or not (and I would not choose to spend time with a Lacey in real life), but we do have something in common. Martin is clearly extremely well versed in modern art, and his tale of Lacey's rise from lowly Sotheby's drudge to gallery scenester is note perfect. There's a vicarious thrill in getting access to this world, and as little as I truly sympathize with Lacey, I absolutely understand the power that a painting can hold over a person.

Story time: When I was just about to graduate from college, I applied for an internship at a very prestigious art gallery in Manhattan. The time came to schedule an interview, and I panicked--I didn't have the money to fly to New York from an interview, much less to live there on a meager stipend. But it's one of the moments that makes one wonder, what if? When I did finally move to New York, my parents most thoughtfully gave me the gift of a membership to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, probably my favorite place in New York City. (Central Park is a close second. These places are iconic for a reason.) I've lost track of the number of times I've visited the Met. At least twenty. Over time, there were certain paintings that I began to identify as "mine." I sought them out every visit, filled each time with the sense of joy that comes with seeing an old friend. They once temporarily removed a favorite Monet* and I was quite incensed. That was my Monet, didn't they understand?  I felt like I loved it more than anyone in the world could, and, selfishly, I would have taken it with me if it had been offered. So yes, all that is a way of saying that I suppose I do understand part of the way that Lacey appreciates art. But, going back to the excerpt I chose, I never made the transition that Lacey did--I don't see paintings as objects of (monetary) value. And for that I'm glad.

Would one like An Object of Beauty if one doesn't care about art? I wondered that as I read. I've certainly read my fair share of books that involved subjects that I had little interest in or knowledge about. In this case, I think an appreciation for art would certainly heighten one's enjoyment of the book. I mean, Martin includes little reproductions of some of the paintings under discussion. If that's the kind of detail that makes your heart go pitter-patter (or at least spares you a trip to Google), then I think this book would be a winner. But even if that idea provokes an overwhelming meh, I think that it's worth a try all the same. It's a pretty classic tale of the pleasure and pain inherit in gaining access to the most elite part of society, when it comes down to it. Joyce Carol Oates has compared it to an Edith Wharton novel (specifically, The Age of Innocence, which I haven't read); I myself thought of Vanity Fair's Becky Sharp. I was surprised to see there were very mixed critical reviews, as I (obviously) thought it was quite good, and could even see myself rereading it in the future.

Up next: American Nerd by Benjamin Nugent. Dang, there goes the title for my autobiography.

*And yeah: I'm a huge fan of art, but I'm definitely no snob. I love Monet.

The Guinea Pig Diaries by A.J. Jacobs

After Julie and I watched the John Adams miniseries on HBO, I had two reactions. The first was unsettling: if I'd been alive in Colonial times, I would not have been on the side of the patriots. This is an unpleasant epiphany for someone who's always considered himself moderately patriotic. But I'm convinced of it.

I wouldn't be a king-loving Loyalist, mind you. I'd be somewhere in the middle. John Adams estimated that a third of the country was patriots, a third loyalist, and a third neutral. That'd be me: neutral. 

I don't have a revolutionary nature. I'm not confrontational enough. I'd probably grumble about the tax on tea, but in the end, I'd cough up the money rather than putting on a feathered headdress and storming a ship. I mean, I've shelled out $3.45 for a tall pumpkin latte without declaring war on Starbucks. That's truly intolerable.

-The Guinea Pig Diaries

So I was doing a little research on The Guinea Pig Diaries, for my own personal edification—or perhaps because I was having trouble getting started with this entry—and I stumbled across a couple of interesting pieces of information. 1) In paperback, this book has a new name: it's now called My Life as as Experiment. I've Googled the reason for this change without success. (Frustrating! It's so stupid, yet I must know.) 2) Jack Black's production company has bought the rights to turn The Guinea Pig Diaries/My Life as an Experiment into a TV show. Intriguing.

Anyway, what's this book all about? Anyone who's read A.J. Jacobs' previous books, The Know-It-All and The Year of Living Biblically, knows that he is game to completely reorder his life around a certain goal or idea. (Perhaps that's why the title changed. My Life as an Experiment does sum that up pretty nicely). His latest book includes nine essays that cover some of the other projects he has taken on, from living his life according to George Washington's principles to outsourcing everything he does to India. Naturally, there are consequences to all of these decisions: some funny, some aggravating, and some that actually lead to lasting  change.

The Guinea Pig Diaries is a quick, funny read, but it's ultimately less satisfying than either of Jacobs' previous books.  Because each experiment is short, it can never be as absorbing as one of his longer projects—for either him or the reader. I'm not sure that any of these projects could have been sustained for that length—so good for Jacobs for not trying to stretch something that shouldn't have been—but I am eager to see him get back to such a project. Jacobs really excels at taking things on that benefit from in-depth exploration, and making those projects both informative and funny. The Year of Living Biblically even had an unexpected profundity, when Jacobs realized how his challenge to himself had changed his life. (In The Guinea Pig Diaries, he notes that he still is devoted to the concept of thanksgiving, which he first practiced in the previous book.) I did enjoy The Guinea Pig Diaries, but I don't expect to return to it the way I have with The Know-It-All, or the way I feel I could with The Year of Living Biblically.

Up next: Watching Frost/Nixon, I discovered I have some serious gaps in my 70s American history knowledge. Thus, All The President's Men by Woodward and Bernstein.

Word Freak by Stefan Fatsis

To play competitive Scrabble, one has to get over the conceit of refusing to acknowledge certain words as real and accept that the game requires learning words that may not have any outside utility. In the living room, Scrabble is about who has a better working vocabulary. It's a sort of crossword puzzle in reverse. But in the tournament room, Scrabble has nothing to do with vocabulary. If it did, I – an Ivy league-educated professional journalist, for crying out loud – would rule. But I can only dream of competing with the champions. No, Scrabble isn't about words. It's about mastering the rules of the game, and the words are the rules.

-Word Freak

I love Scrabble. I've played it since I was kid and I consider myself to be a decent living room player. But I'll never play at the same level at Stefan Fatsis and, honestly, I wouldn't want to—I get hung up on the whole "real word" thing he discusses in the passage above. Nevertheless I love love love Word Freak.

Word Freak chronicles journalist Stefan Fatsis's journey into the world of competitive Scrabble. It's a weird place, populated by all varieties of social miscreants.  Stefan begins at the bottom of the heap, playing the blue hairs—and not always winning, either. He begins studying words, which means memorization, and lots of it. Can you imagine memorizing a list of two-letter words that are valid in Scrabble? And then, when you've finished that, three-letter words? And four, five, etc. There are more words on each list, naturally. It's a Sisyphean struggle for Stefan, although he does make slow progress.

Word Freak is not all about words, though there are certainly plenty of them. Let's get back to those social miscreants, the real heart of the story. It takes a special kind of person to be an expert Scrabble player. Dedicated would be one word for it. Experts could doubtless think of many more, a fair amount of which might be less flattering. But while Stefan's new Scrabble friends may be single-minded in their devotion to the game, they're also pretty fascinating. There's the friendly but ever-ailing "G.I" Joel Sherman (the G.I stands for "gastrointestinal"). There's the funny, hot-headed Matt Graham, who takes smart pills by the handful in order to boost his performance. Matt's friend, Marlon Hill, a smart, temperamental player out of inner-city Baltimore who is working on a book about race in America. And there's Joe Edley, who has mystical approach to Scrabble and coaches Stefan on the psychological aspect of the game.*

There's many more, besides. Some of them, to be fair, seem perfectly well adjusted — but they also get less face time in Word Freak. Stefan is not condescending, although he is honest about the weirdness level, as are many of players. As time wears on, though, and his obsessiveness about the game grows, he finds he has more and more in common with his Scrabble comrades. It might have been a frightening realization to have, but Stefan often finds himself happy with this crowd, playing Anagrams and rehashing games past. They love the game, they truly do.

And I love this book. I enjoy spending time with people who are happy and successful in a way that might not make sense to the rest of the world.  Good for them. And I especially love that this revolves around language, even if many tournament players might not know (or care about) the definitions of the words they play. There is something exciting about finding the perfect word — be it in writing or, when the universe smiles upon upon you, in the mishmash of tiles on your Scrabble rack. I enjoyed celebrating that in Word Freak. It also really, really made me want to play a game of Scrabble.

Up next: For whatever reason, this entry took me forever to write, so I've already finished Tana French's Faithful Place; I imagine I'll be back to write about it soon. I'm planning on starting The Guinea Pig Diaries by A.J. Jacobs later this evening.

*If you're curious to see these players in action, the documentary Word Wars covers at least part of the same time period and features many of the same people.

Moonshine by Alaya Johnson

So I'd been on my bicycle all day and my tailbone felt like someone had been smashing it with a mallet and I had a dead boy—the kind you're never supposed to let turn, if you're an ignorant Other-phobe like Troy—who could double as a vampire pincushion draped across my neck, and damn if I wasn't getting some odd looks as I huffed my way through the busy Canal Street intersection. Why did things like this always happen to me?

I had to laugh, and saw my breath float away in the glare of the electric lamps. Because I'm certifiable.

-Moonshine

Meet Zephyr Hollis, resident of Prohibition-era New York City. She's an all-around do-gooder: night school teacher, blood bank volunteer, champion of women's and Others' rights. Others, of course, being vampires and other such fantastic beasties. They call her the Vampire Suffragette.

Zephyr hails from Montana, the daughter of a renowned vampire hunter (known as a Defender). She was a promising Defender herself, until she decided that Others deserved tolerance, not death. She's a progressive girl, our Zephyr; she's also a vegetarian.

As a night school teacher, Zephyr meets a lot of interesting characters. One of them, the smoldering, mysterious Amir, offers her a proposition: 200 dollars to locate the notorious vampire Rinaldo, overseer of much of New York's fang-friendly underworld. Zephyr's intrigued by Amir, and, generous as she is, she's always hard up for cash. She accepts.

Life, unsurprisingly, gets a lot more dangerous quite quickly for Zephyr. With some trepidation, she works on infiltrating the Turn Boys gang, a group of young vampires who, under Rinaldo's supervision, is responsible for turning children (such as the boy mentioned in the passage above). It's her best bet at getting to Rinaldo, but it's a risky move, particularly once a new vampire intoxicant known as Faust floods the market. Young, volatile vampires? Bad. Young, volatile, drunk vampires? Well, it's certainly not better. And time is running short, as it tends to do in these situations.

Alaya Johnson has created a wonderful world for her characters to inhabit. There's the period itself, which allows for flapper dresses, speakeasies, and some delightful slang. The fact that it's New York makes it doubly fun to me, and I enjoyed envisioning where Zephyr went. (Johnson helpfully includes a map of lower Manhattan if you're less familiar with the area.) What I really liked, though, was the conceit that vampires are just there: no secrecy, no mention of coming out. They're a persecuted, feared minority to be sure, but no one doubts their existence. Considering how commonplace vampire/human stories have been in recent fantasy, this is a nice way of shaking things up.

I thoroughly enjoyed this and would have undoubtedly finished it a lot sooner had I not been in the midst of moving. (I also stretched it out knowing I had no other new books at my disposal). I love Zephyr and I feel that the ending is open-ended enough that a sequel would be welcome. Here's hoping!

Up next: Almost finished with my reread of Word Freak, one of my favorite pieces of non-fiction. And I just received the new Tana French from Amazon today, hooray!

Commencement by J. Courtney Sullivan

The train rolled past Thirty-fourth Street, where tourist families with fanny packs and matching smiles piled into the car. Their blond children held on to the poles, swaying this way and that, thrilled by every jolt and bump of the train. Celia thought for a moment how strange it felt to simply live—to work, and go to the gym, and buy groceries, and wait for trains—in a place where so many people were visiting and in awe of their surroundings.

-Commencement

Commencement, as its name suggests, is a novel about beginnings. One beginning is the first day at Smith College for four young women: headstrong Celia, radical April, sheltered Bree, and seemingly flawless Sally. They form the kind of friendships it seems you can only form when you're young, when you can devote all your spare time to getting to know people. They go to wild parties and get their hearts broken and sing into their hairbrushes. They become each other's family.

Much of the action of Commencement takes place four years after their graduation. Graduation, of course, is an end and beginning unto itself, but that entire post-college period is marked by the possibility of many beginnings. (I should know, I'm still in the thick of it.) It's a time of finding your footing in the world, and the women of Commencement choose different paths. Celia lives in Brooklyn and dreams of being a writer. April is ready to embark on a dangerous endeavor to bring awareness to women in need. Bree is wrestling with the end of a long-term relationship. And Sally's getting married, which provides the perfect excuse to get the four of them back together—although they soon discover that picking up where they left off isn't as easy as they would like.

I didn't particularly identify with any one character in Commencement, but I think J. Courtney Sullivan created four realistic young women. It seems clear that Sullivan, a Smith alumna herself, has drawn on her own experience in writing. It's certainly interesting to take a peek behind the curtain of a women's college, a place which seems subject to so much speculation and stereotyping. Although the college experience of the women of Commencement was fairly dissimilar from my own, I couldn't help but feel a touch nostalgic.

I also keenly understood the transitional period that the women were in, four years after graduation. Commencement really came at a great time for me, since I am navigating my own transition right now, one that is far more complicated than anticipated. It certainly helped me to understand what the characters were going through, even though their individual circumstances were different from my own. I also appreciated that, although Commencement dealt with very serious issues, Sullivan wrote with a deftly light touch that prevented the book from getting too dense or preachy. It would be a fantastic beach or traveling read.

Up next: I have many choices at my disposal right now, but I think I'm going to go with A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick.

The Magicians by Lev Grossman

In Brooklyn reality had been empty and meaningless - whatever inferior stuff it was made of, meaning had refused to adhere to it. Brakebills was different. It mattered. Meaning - is that what magic was? - was everywhere here. The place was crawling with it. Out there he had been on the edge of serious depression, and worse, he had been in danger of learning to really dislike himself. He was on the verge of incurring the kind of inward damage you didn't heal from, ever. But now he felt like Pinocchio, a wooden boy who was made real. Or maybe it was the other way around, he'd been turned from a real boy into something else? Either way the change was for the better.

-The Magicians

I've not read every review of Lev Grossman's The Magicians, but I think you'd be hard-pressed to find one that doesn't refer to Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia. The Magicians, a coming-of-age story featuring the moody Quentin Coldwater, draws heavily from both sources. Like Harry, Quentin is plucked from his ordinary life and sent to a school for magic - though Quentin, who was set to interview for Princeton, is significantly older. And what is our hero obsessed with? The fictional land of Fillory, as detailed in the series Fillory and Further, which chronicles the adventures of the Chatwin children. The oldest Chatwin, Martin, discovers a portal to Fillory in a grandfather clock. I think it's pretty clear that Grossman isn't trying hard to hide his influences.

But the story of Quentin Coldwater is very different. For one, it's absolutely not a children's story. It's really not even a fantasy, primarily. Or it's the most realistic fantasy ever. Grossman's magic is very much grounded in the real world, and a lot of that probably has to do with Quentin himself. Upon arriving at the magical school of Brakebills, Quentin discovers learning spells is tedious work. He's surrounded by competitive overachievers like himself, and it takes him a long time to make friends. Unlike Harry Potter, Quentin never really delights in magic. There's none of that euphoric sense of wonder that in Rowling's universe can be found in everything from Chocolate Frogs to Quidditch. Despite the passage I quoted above, Quentin is often desperately unhappy.

Wasn't there a spell for making yourself happy? Somebody must have invented one. How could he have missed it? Why didn't they teach it?

And then he graduates. Imagine the world of Harry Potter if there had been no Voldemort. Sounds idyllic, perhaps, but magic often requires epic, good-versus-evil confrontation. In Quentin's world there are too many magicians and not enough monsters. Quentin encountered one, known only as the Beast*, during a classroom spell gone awry. But after Brakebills, cushioned by a private fund set aside for young magicians, Quentin is aimless. He joins some other Brakebills alums in New York City, then spends his nights spiraling out of control and his days recovering. His unhappiness, never long absent, begins to engulf him.

The world shifts again. Quentin gets proof that, against all odds, Fillory is real. Surely, this will be it: the one thing that can really make him happy. But Fillory, it turns out, is nothing like Quentin imagined.

Quentin is a difficult character. I often found him unsympathetic, but I also found him to be quite realistic in his reactions to the world around him. And one afternoon, feeling grumpy after a long day at work, I pulled out The Magicians and sympathized with Quentin immensely. So perhaps it just depends on your mood. It's really not a happy novel, though. Well-realized? Yes. Clever? Absolutely. Happy? Not in the slightest. Bear that in mind.

I realize I haven't touched at all on the other characters in the novel. I thought Grossman assembled an interesting bunch, particularly brainy, quiet Alice and arch, oft-drunken Eliot. I sometimes wondered how the story might have played from their perspectives.

I am someone who, after disliking Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on first read, rediscovered it after loving the film adaptation; I then complained when the follow-up film wasn't dark enough to suit me**. In other words, after a rough transition to Rowling's darker world, I preferred it that way, and found the early gee-whiz aspect a bit childish. (No real complaint, though, they are children's books, and I love them.) I thought I would love a darker, more adult twist on Potter. Instead, though I did like The Magicians, I gained a new appreciation of Rowling's sense of whimsy. Interesting book, in the end, and certainly one that left me thinking afterward.

Up next: So excited to have Nemesis, Jo Nesbø's follow-up to The Redbreast!

*It's worth noting that The Beast is insanely terrifying and one of the best aspects of the book. Scary stuff.

**See, I'm a sucker for muddying the Potter world up a bit. Like this video, which is a montage of clips from the films set to "The Funeral" by Band of Horses. Oh so nerdy, and I love it - especially when the drums kick in and it all goes to hell.

Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain

I took a fateful cab ride many years ago. Rolling back from the Lower East Side with a bunch of close friends, all of us fresh from scoring dope, I jokingly remarked on an article I'd seen, detailing the statistical likelihood of successfully detoxing.

"Only one in four has a chance at making it. Ha, ha, ha," I said, my words ringing immediately painful and hollow as soon as I'd said them. I counted our number in the back of that rattling Checker Marathon. Four. And right there, I knew that if one of us was getting off dope, and staying off dope, it was going to be me. I wasn't going to let these guys drag me down. I didn't care what it took, how long I'd known them, what we'd been through together or how close we'd been. I was going to live. I was the guy.

I made it. They didn't.

I don't feel guilty about that.

-Kitchen Confidential

Tony Bourdain is not a rock star, although it would be an easy mistake to make. He's a (now-famous*) chef, and reputedly quite a good one. Kitchen Confidential details his misspent youth as a cook-for-hire, and how he cleaned himself him up, got serious, and started running Brasserie Les Halles here in New York.

Kitchen Confidential also, famously, tells some tricks of the trade - I've been hearing the "never order seafood on a Monday" advice for years now, based on this book. That's really only one chapter, however, as Bourdain mostly hops from kitchen to kitchen, giving a behind-the-scenes look at some of the many places where he has worked. I especially liked the chapter in which he takes the reader through a day in his life at Les Halles, giving a comprehensive look at every thing a top chef must juggle, from ordering food to managing staff issues to, of course, actually cooking. It only reinforced my belief - initially brought on by reading the excellent Heat by Bill Buford and by watching bits and pieces of Hell's Kitchen - that I would make a lousy chef. Not only because of my absolute lack of culinary skills, although certainly that would be a problem, but because of the lightning-fast pace. Also, the yelling. I prefer slower, yelling-free environments. This is one of many ways in which Bourdain and I differ.

Despite the fact that I find the prospect of ever encountering him in real life slightly terrifying (the man is intense), I really enjoyed having Bourdain as a guide in the world of cooking. Kitchen Confidential is actually not the first book I've read by him**, so I knew to expect the cursing and the chain smoking and the jibes at vegetarians. I assume many people are also familiar with his persona from his show No Reservations which I, not having cable, have never seen. I mean, it took me this long to read the book. Clearly I'm a little behind.

Up next: Although I have My Life in France by Julia Child sitting here, I've decided I need a little breather from cooking. I'm rereading North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. Another reread, I know. Why, you might ask? Surely it's not just an excuse to post pictures from the miniseries, like this:


No, of course not. That would be terribly shallow of me. You'll just have to wait a bit to see why I think Mr. Thornton is perhaps a better catch than Mr. Darcy. Oh yes, I said it.

*He passes the dad test: If my dad knows who someone is, that person is really, truly famous (as opposed to Us Weekly-famous or only-on-music-blogs-famous).

**A Cook's Tour, which follows Bourdain around the world as he seeks out the perfect meal, is highly entertaining and informative. I believe it was also a tv show on the Food Network, which I'd love to see, if only because in the book he'd occasionally go off on great tangents about the hazards of filming.

Julie & Julia by Julie Powell

The kitchen was a crime scene. Eggshells littered the floor, crackling underfoot. What looked like three days' worth of unwashed dishes were piled up in the sink, and half-unpacked boxes had been shoved to the corners of the room. Unseen down the dark throat of the trashcan, yet as conspicuous as tarpaulin-covered murder victims, were the mutilated remains of eggs. If the purplish-stained shreds of yolk clinging stickily to the walls had been blood spatters, a forensics specialist would have had a field day. But Eric wasn't standing at the stove to triangulate the shooter's position - he was poaching an egg in red wine. Two other eggs sat on a plate by the stove. These I had poached myself before Eric's and my impromptu reenactment of that scene in Airplane! in which all the passengers line up and take turns slapping and shaking the hysterical woman, with Eric taking the roles of all the passengers and I the part of the hysteric. These three eggs were the sole survivors of the even dozen I had begun with three hours before. One incoherent gurgle of despair escaped me, seeing those two pitiful things lying there, twisted and blue as the lips of corpses. "We're going to starve, aren't we?"

-Julie & Julia

I've been flipping through Julie & Julia, which I finished last night, trying to find a passage that would best demonstrate Julie Powell's writing style. Although the one above does not illustrate her tendency to go off on tangents (my head was spinning in the opening pages, when she seemed to be cramming in every thought that flitted through her mind), it does give you an idea of the level of drama you will contend with throughout the book. It's not just some broken eggs, oh no, it's a massacre.

On the one hand, I can sympathize with Julie. She embarked upon an extraordinarily difficult project: to cook the 524 recipes in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a year, and to blog about the experience. She lives in a crummy (although spacious, and in New York that can't be dismissed out of hand) apartment, she hates her job, she's worried about turning thirty. These are all concerns that foster some sympathy.

But wow, is she ever melodramatic about it. See, Julie Powell is kind of neurotic, which I can identify with, but she is also super loud and in your face about it, which I find pretty obnoxious. To be fair, she is quite up front about acknowledging her own faults. However, after just the second or third tantrum over cooking, I felt my sympathy withering away. I mean, really. I guess I've never had a lot of patience for overly dramatic people, and I found her actions in a lot of instances to be so over-the-top as to be almost incomprehensible. Open to any given page and you're just as likely as not to find her crying over aspic or yelling at her long-suffering husband, Eric*. It gets a bit tiresome.

I feel like it's rather unkind for me to rag on Julie, considering she's a real person. But this is the way she chose to present herself to the world, for better or worse. Is it what she's like in real life? I have no idea. If you choose to read this book, though, you'll be spending time with this Julie, and to be forewarned is to be forearmed.

Onto the food. The food was interesting. I'm not really a foodie, and I'm certainly far from being a competent cook, so I was a bit out of my element. I cannot imagine making even one recipe out of MtAoFC, let alone all of them. To be honest, most of them did not sound that appetizing to me. There is a lot of offal involved, folks. And even putting that aside, it's hard to get excited about eggs in aspic. I mean, that's a culinary challenge, for sure, but what a nauseating result.

The food looks better in the film, which I saw prior to reading the book. Looking back, it was a great adaptation. Julie is played by Amy Adams, who has enough charm to temper her character's more obnoxious tendencies. And of course the real star of the show is Meryl Streep as Julia Child. Julie Powell invented little fictional passages from Julia's life and inserted them throughout the book; I didn't feel that they really added anything. The film gives a more fleshed-out account of how Julia came to cooking, and her struggles to first succeed in a male-dominated world, and then to work on the behemoth that was MtAoFC. I wouldn't normally say this, but in this instance I would recommend the film over the book. Not that the film is any masterpiece, but it's pretty enjoyable, and I predict it will cause far less eyerolling.

Up next: As I suggested in my last post, the food trend will continue, at least for a little while: Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain, which I have wanted to read for years. Exciting!

*In the film, Eric, played by Chris Messina, finds it irritating that Julie portrays him as so saintly in her blog. Obviously no one is perfect, but if Julie is being reasonably accurate in her book, the man put up with a lot of hysterical crying and screaming. A lot.

Burr by Gore Vidal

As a youth, Hamilton was physically most attractive with red-gold hair, bright if somewhat watery blue eyes and a small but strong body. It was our peculiar tragedy - or glory - to be of an age and quality and at a time and place certain to make rivals of us. Yet from the beginning we had a personal liking for one another. We were like brothers (yes, Cain and Abel come to mind with the difference that each was part-Cain, part-Abel). At first meeting I knew Hamilton straight through. I suspect he knew me as well, and could not endure the knowledge that of the two of us I alone had the means and talent to be what he most wanted to be, the president. He came to hate not only my capacity but my opportunity. Yet I wonder if he knew all along that I would fail, saw the flaw in me as I saw the one in him? [...] Curious to think that we would almost certainly have been friends had we not been two young "heroes" at the beginning of a new nation, each aware that at the summit there is a place for only one. As it turned out, neither of us was to reach the highest place. I hurled Hamilton from the mountain-side, and myself fell.

-Burr

How much does the average person know about Aaron Burr? I honestly feel that the first thing that might come to mind is that (still funny) milk commercial. Consequently, I imagine many people might recall the Burr/Hamilton duel, even if that's all they know of either of those men. His vice-presidential term? His treason charge? I love American history, and I think these ideas would have only been vaguely familiar to me prior to Burr, which made it an illuminating read.

Burr centers on the life not only of the eponymous man, but also his fictional biographer, Charlie Schuyler. Burr has taken a shine to young Schuyler, a clerk in his law office who dreams of escaping abroad to become a writer. Soon Schuyler is taking down Burr's recollections, starting with his time as an absurdly young officer in the Revolution and continuing through his various political offices, the fateful duel, and his ill-starred venture out West. At the same time, Schuyler is sorely tempted to use his relationship with Burr to gather information that could damage the upcoming presidential campaign of Martin Van Buren, who is rumored to be Burr's illegitimate child - proof (or even reasonable conjecture) of which could win the penniless Schuyler a fortune.

Although Schuyler is ostensibly our protagonist, it's Burr's story through and through. The Schuyler scenes were fine, but Burr - that was a different level. I felt as though I were reading an amazingly candid autobiography. Seeing all of these famous men (Washington and Jefferson most notably) as humans, not demigods - well, it's almost like time travel, really. I felt as though I were just one tiny step from being in the room with them all.

Gore Vidal makes what must have been a herculean task of scholarship look effortless. His prose is easy and unforced. The characters were revelations, particularly Jefferson, for whom Burr has many an unkind word, to put it mildly. Vidal notes in the afterword that he likes Jefferson rather more than Burr did (and Jackson less); all the same, Jefferson remains a troublesome figure. I've mentioned it before, but I prefer to imagine Jefferson as he is in the John Adams miniseries (although about 6 inches taller) - the dreamy, brilliant Jefferson. Quiet to the point of being standoffish, sure, but that's something I've always understood about him. Now the slavery, and the calculating behind-the-scenes political machinations (such as paying papers to slander his rivals) - well, those are the things I still struggle to reconcile. Burr shows him in all his infinite contradictions. It would be an actor's dream role; Burr, too, of course.

All in all, this was a great read: engrossing and informative without being overly dense, easy to get lost in on my subway ride in the morning. I reckon I'll miss Burr a bit. He has inspired me to see the city in a new way - most of the novel is set here, and occasionally a familiar street was mentioned. His country estate, Richmond Hill, was actually in what is the city proper today (Although there is no sign of it; it was broken up during Burr's lifetime and I couldn't even find a historical marker). I'm making an effort to notice what could have been around in the era of the novel and I find it marvelous - buildings over 100 years old all around me. I even went to Trinity Church, where Alexander Hamilton is entombed. It's an amazing place, and there's even, eerily enough, a conversation between Burr and Hamilton set there in the book.

Up next: I'm all set for a reread of Bleak House, which I read for the first time about a year ago and enjoyed immensely.

Red-Tails in Love by Marie Winn

They'd been checking the place out for a few months now and things looked good. Plenty of food around - corn-fed pigeons and garbage-fed rats. A lake to bathe in. Protection available from wind and storms. Time to get the show on the road. On March 17th the hawk pair began to build a nest in Central Park. It was a historic event, for in the 119 years of the park's existence, no hawk had ever nested there before.

-Red-Tails in Love

Central Park is one of my very favorite places in New York City. I love to walk around there on sunny days and perhaps pick out a spot at Bethesda Terrace or along the mall where I can read. I have been many times, but I have to say I'd never given a lot of consideration to Central Park's birds, or birds in the city in general. I mean, I'd noticed a fair amount of pigeons, but I would have to say my observations stopped there.

Enter Red-Tails in Love, not only the story of the hawks' improbable urban nest, but also of all of Central Park's avian inhabitants and the people who love to watch them. The central saga, which details the life and loves of hawk Pale Male, is undoubtedly charming, but I was also taken with the community of birdwatchers. I love books that let you inside quirky, single-minded groups. (Word Freak is a favorite that immediately springs to mind.) I can't imagine knowing so much about birds, but I find it rather impressive. Being able to identify birds seems to be such a concrete, relevant thing to know, and I often wish I knew more of those sorts of things and fewer commercial jingles and actor C.V.s.

After finishing the book, I was inspired to go to Central Park today and have a look around. Now, I don't have binoculars and, as I already mentioned, my knowledge of birds is limited. That being said, I definitely saw pigeons (shock!), house sparrows, starlings, robins, blue jays, grackles, and mourning doves. I also saw something that may have been a female downy woodpecker (a common bird, but not one I'm familiar with), and possibly a gray catbird. All of this, and all I'd ever seen before was pigeons. They're all common birds, but that's still quite a variety.

On my walk, I started off at the Met, then walked south to the Inventors' Gate before heading west. I skirted the southern edge of the Ramble, which I've always been a little leery of - it's lovely and secluded, but the latter aspect makes feel a little less safe than the rest of the park; of course, it also has quite a reputation for illicit activities. There ended up being quite a few birdwatchers, however, so I'm glad I explored a bit. The Ramble definitely had the densest bird population, although I saw birds (granted, mostly pigeons and house sparrows) continuously as I walked over to Strawberry Fields and then south to Columbus Circle.

I also looked for the hawk nest, which is on a building on the corner of 74th Street and 5th Avenue. I could see where it probably was, but it is pretty high up to see clearly without assistance. The hawkwatchers were there, but I am not the kind of person who is good at sauntering up and asking to use someone's telescope. Besides, as no one was looking in the telescopes, I have to assume that the hawks were not at the nest at that point.

I realize this review has been about 25% about the book and 75% about me in Central Park. I think, however, that that is actually a mark of how much I enjoyed the book. I had a film professor in college who said that one of the aspects he considered in judging a film was its rewatchability factor; I think rereadability is an important aspect of books as well. Red-Tails in Love reminded me of an another important factor, which is a book's capacity to change the way you see the world. Now, I don't imagine I'll be taking up with the hawkwatchers any time soon, but if I learn a few more bird names and pay a bit more attention to the natural world around me, so much the better.

Next up: I borrowed Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks and The Battle of the Labyrinth (the 4th Percy Jackson book) by Rick Riordan from the library; Sacks is up first.