I Want To Read: Deadwood

Summer is in full swing, and I think we all know the effect that has on good television: for the most part, it's gone. I unashamedly love TV*, but I appreciate getting a breather from watching a series on a weekly basis. Instead, summer is the time to...turn off the idiot box? Nah. Summer is the time to catch up on DVDs!

And I have had more time than usual to catch up this summer, given that I've been laid up with my broken leg rather than run ragged at summer camp. The best discovery I've made, by far, is Deadwood.

I've almost finished the second season of the HBO series, which ran from 2004 until its abrupt end in 2006. I was immediately enthralled with the Wild West in a way I'd never been before, drawn in by vivid, complicated, yet sympathetic characters** and by the day-to-day realities of a world I was wholly unfamiliar with. It's maybe hard to say, given that I haven't finished watching yet, but right now I'd call Deadwood my second favorite show ever. (It's hard to beat The Wire.)

I'm already looking toward the end of the series and realizing that it's not going to last long enough to suit me. I was excited to find that Pete Dexter's novel Deadwood covers the same period of the town's history. A little research informs me that despite having many of the same characters, there are a fair amount of dissimilarities between the book and the show. All the same, I know I'm going to want to spend a little more time in the town of Deadwood once I'm done watching. Although I have many, many books on my to-read list, I'm hoping I can get a hold of a copy of Deadwood sharpish. Until then, I'm happily devouring Jo Nesbø's The Devil's Star. Bookstore gift cards are the best, no?

*Though I do love books more, naturally.

**I've amused myself by trying to order my top 5 Deadwood characters. It's tough. As of this moment I'd go: 1. Doc Cochran (Brad Dourif) 2. Calamity Jane (Robin Weigart) 3. Sol Star (John Hawkes) 4. Al Swearengen (Ian McShane) 5. Seth Bullock (Timothy Olyphant). But then what about Charlie Utter (Dayton Callie) and Joanie Stubbs (Kim Dickens)? Or the characters I love to hate, like the slimy E.B. Farnum (William Sanderson) and the sociopathic yet dapper Francis Wolcott (Garret Dillahunt)?

I Want To Read: New in Mystery

I love a good mystery, as I think I've made abundantly clear. Naturally, I was excited to hear that Henning Mankell, author of the Wallander series, had written a new novel. I was a little disappointed that it didn't feature Wallander, of course, although I still have plenty of that series left to read. The Man from Beijing instead focuses on Birgitta Roslin, a judge dealing with the aftermath of a massacre in a small Swedish village. As the title indicates, she soon discovers that the case is a bit more far-reaching than it might first appear. I read this review from Entertainment Weekly, in which the reviewer calls Mankell's latest "hands down the best thriller [she's] read in five years." Okay, I'm sold. NPR is pretty positive as well, in case you'd like another opinion.



Technically, P.D. James's latest book isn't a mystery - it's about mysteries, however, so I don't feel too bad about lumping it with Mankell's in one post. P.D. James is one of the preeminent modern mystery authors, and I've enjoyed several of her Adam Dalgliesh novels. In Talking About Detective Fiction, James traces the roots of novels featuring detectives (paging Wilkie Collins) and considers their evolution to the modern day. The New York Times review makes it sound really, really good. (Those digs at Agatha Christie! Who knew?) I am 80th on the library hold list - though someone with a 600 page Keats biography sitting on her shelf probably shouldn't be placing any holds at all. At 80th, I imagine I have a while, at least.

I Want To Read: When Will There Be Good News?

This is Kate Atkinson. She is awesome.

Well, I don't know her per se, so perhaps I should qualify that her writing is awesome. Her most recent book, When Will There Be Good News?, was released last year. The only reason that it's not already in my hot little hands is because I am trying to preserve some modicum of fiscal responsibility. (It's not in American paperback until January 2010).

When Will There Be Good News? is Atkinson's latest mystery featuring the Scottish detective Jackson Brodie. I picked up the first, Case Histories, based on strong reviews and the intriguing title. (Atkinson has a way with titles: I like Behind the Scenes at the Museum and Emotionally Weird).

It was a good pick. Great, really. The thing with Atkinson is that she infuses well-crafted mysteries with language that is associated with literature, as opposed to (heaven forbid) genre fiction. It's not uncommon to find a mystery writer who can navigate a tricky plot but who doesn't rise above mediocrity on a sentence by sentence basis. And of course there are many, often more well-respected writers who can write beautiful stories in which very little seems to actually happen. Atkinson fuses the best of the two. Her stories are ambitious, complicated, sometimes messy, but absolutely enjoyable.

It's the reason I haven't just checked the book out from the library. I'm convinced that once I've read it, I'll want to hold on to it. It's nice to have that level of trust in an author. It doesn't always work out of course (see: The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell). Also, of course, I don't feel that I can go to the library when I have a pile of unread books sitting in my apartment. Oh, the troubles of a reader.

I Want To Read: Drood

I was reading Bleak House on the train the other day, as I do, when the man sitting next to me commented on it. Nothing particularly profound - "Great book," I believe he said. I agreed. We didn't settle into a conversation, mostly because I don't think he intended to really interrupt my reading of said-great book, and because I was inclined to keep reading as well. Also, this is New York City. I think the gruff, closed-off attitude is overhyped, but small talk on the train isn't terribly common, either. (This man had luggage, which undoubtedly was filled with awesome books.)

Anyway, as the train approached this man's stop, he mentioned that I should read Drood, which he praised highly. As I like to think someone who appreciates Bleak House knows his stuff, and because I wanted to read Drood anyway, I think this sounds like a fine suggestion.

Although I don't do a very good job keeping up with modern fiction, I read a great review of Drood (by Dan Simmons, for the record) a few months back and title stuck in my head. I mean, Dickens? Good. Mystery? Good. Great review? Well, good, hopefully.

It seems like it could be helpful/interesting to read Dickens's The Mystery of Edwin Drood first, but I think I'm going to find it very hard to get completely invested in a story without an end. Terribly frustrating. Drood, however, is 100% complete is far as I know, which is certainly another point in its favor.

I'm in the home stretch on Bleak House: 150 pages to go; I anticipate I'll be back to write about it later this week.

I Want to Read: Chéri

A few weeks ago, I felt like going to the movies. I'd planned to see Public Enemies. I love the book of the same name by Bryan Burrough, and I'd been waiting for it to come out for ages. Suddenly, when the time came....I found I wasn't in the mood to see it. I blame the slightly tepid reviews and, possibly, Christian Bale, whom I've never found to be particularly charismatic.

I was still ready to go to the movies, though. I recalled the positive review I'd read of Chéri, which was playing at the Angelika. Considering the price of movie tickets, especially here in the city, I normally try to save moviegoing for films that really demand the big screen (Star Trek, Up, etc.). Chéri, as you might expect, does not fall into that category, having a decided lack of special effects.

So I went on a lark, and it turned out to be great idea. The plot is quite simple: Léa (Michelle Pfeiffer) is an aging courtesan who takes the son of a fellow lady of the evening (Kathy Bates, awesome as always) under her wing. The son, called Chéri (Rupert Friend), is a bit aimless and dissolute, and his mother relies on Léa to help push him into adulthood. Of course, when the time comes, she expects Chéri will make a more suitable match. The problem being, of course, in the meantime, Léa and Chéri fall in love. Le sigh, I know.

It's a light film, although it's sad as well; sadder than I might have expected from the trailer. I've never found Michelle Pfeiffer to be particularly relatable in the past, but she did a fine job here. I also think it would be hard to dislike Friend (the blue-eyed Orlando Bloom, though I'm far from the first to make that comparison).

Altogether, I liked the film enough that I was interested in exploring the original book, which was written by Colette. Even better, I began to entertain the idea of reading it in the original French, with the hope that my knowledge of the movie's plot would be enough to guide me through any tricky passages. It hasn't gotten past the idea stage, yet, which is partly just because I can't walk into Barnes and Noble and buy the French-language version. I read a few paragraphs at Project Gutenberg and followed them without a problem, but I'm not particularly keen on reading the whole novel off a computer screen - or printing it out. Oddly, I'm not really compelled to read it in English. Funny that.

So we'll see. It would be an ambitious undertaking, but I would enjoy practicing my rusty French.

Bleak House update: more than halfway through. Oh, I can't wait to write about it!

I Want To Read: The Omnivore's Dilemma & In Defense of Food

I have been a busy moviegoer recently, and I've been lucky to see a run of good films, including Up, The Hangover, and Away We Go.

And then there's Food, Inc. A much tougher sell, I realize. It's difficult to talk about the food industry, I feel, because I don't want to sound pedantic or shrill. Yes, I was the kid who mooed at her parents when they ordered beef at restaurants, but I like to think that I've become more mature in understanding people's food preferences. On the other hand, that beef probably came from a cow who spent its whole life eating corn and standing in its own manure before being killed and sprayed down with all kinds of fun chemicals. Not to sound like a jerk, but: that's gross, right?

There are two well-known authors who offer commentary in Food, Inc.: Eric Schlosser, who wrote the excellent and highly recommended Fast Food Nation, and Michael Pollan, who wrote the two books I indicated in this post's title. Fast Food Nation covered the rise of the fast food industry, the state of farms that supplied the industry's needs (especially for beef, chicken, and corn), and the conditions for workers in slaughterhouses*. These topics are covered in Food, Inc. as well; it is my impression that Pollan's books cover other aspects of the food industry, including differences between more highly processed and organic foods.

Some people don't want to know where their food came from. Perhaps it's just because I am naturally curious, but I'm not one of them. I love to know these things, and try to adjust my grocery store purchases and restaurant choices accordingly. So these are on my to-read list, although I'm not sure when I'll get to them. Now that summer is in full swing and I'm at my summer job, I've realized that I may not have a lot of energy for books that require critical thinking. We'll see.

*To me, this was the most powerful part of Fast Food Nation. Again, not to be overly didactic, but even if you don't care about the treatment of animals or how food is processed, I think it is important to be aware of the people who do highly dangerous work so that we can have readily available meat.

PS - I promise my next post will be more lighthearted. Pinky swear.

I Want To Read: The Wallander Series

I have been on a huge British mystery television kick recently: Life on Mars, Ashes to Ashes, Cracker, and, most recently, Wallander. Wallander, which is has been the featured program on PBS's Mystery! these past two weeks, stars Kenneth Branagh (above) and is based on the books by Henning Mankell.

Wallander is a morose detective - he's gotten teary in both episodes so far, overwhelmed by the senselessness of the violence he's seen - operating out of Ystad, Sweden. He's not the sort of the detective who solves cases through brilliant epiphanies, but rather through steady, thorough policework. Accordingly, Wallander is not a fast-paced show. It's slow, and a bit sad, but quite engaging.

This is mostly due to the character of Wallander himself (and the wonderful, understated way Branagh has played him); accordingly, I'd love to start reading the Wallander books. Of course, the public television and public library demographics seem to overlap quite a bit, so they're on a long wait there. I'd love to buy them, but at thirteen bucks a pop, I think I'd be better off being patient. However, if your community has not caught on yet or you're interested in stimulating the economy, I think they look good.