I always re-read The American Way of Death around the Fourth of July. I’m not sure why, I just do. This classic expose of the American funeral industry kind of summarizes so many of the things wrong with America and American attitudes, from the rampant capitalism to the greedy desire to expand into other countries, reforming their ideas about the funeral, death, and burial in the interest of shoveling more money into the coffers of the death care industry.

If you haven’t read this book, you really should. It was radical when it came out in 1963, and it’s still relevant today, if not more radical; I happen to have a revised edition, which includes a bunch of material Mitford added before her own death in the late 1990s. It’s a cold, clear look at the way we handle funerals, and it contains a lot of information which may interest or surprise consumers.

Some parts are graphic, like the famous description of the embalming process, and others are sad, like Mitford’s reprints of letters sent to her by grieved and cheated consumers. Throughout, the book has the famous Mitford wit, which aptly pierces the armor of the funeral industry with a few well-timed jabs. This book was the first book about the world of the American funeral I ever read, and it planted the seeds of my own funeral plans, which do not involve any funeral home whatsoever, let alone the barbaric practice of embalming and the garish horror of the commercial funeral.

I’m not the only person who felt that way after reading The American Way of Death; the book spawned huge reforms, many of which have unfortunately been weakened over the decades, and I think it was the inspiration behind the do it yourself funeral movement, which is pretty awesome, if you ask me.

Demographics:

The American Way of Death Revisited, by Jessica Mitford. Published 1998, 282 pages. Sociology.

I read so many bad reviews of this book that I was prepared to hate it, but when I picked it up at the library, I resolved to like it. I decided that it was my duty, as it were, to defy the numerous scathing reviews about how boring and pointless the book was; after all, it’s easy to agree with a crowd, and harder to go against it, I always say.

And I have to say, I actually did kind of like it. I think that people who reviewed it so negatively kind of missed the point in a pretty major way. I’m not going to say it’s the most amazing book I’ve ever read or anything, but it is actually a pretty complex, layered, interesting story, if you’re willing to focus on it, and to push through the atrocious abuse of the English language which litters many of the pages.

Of course the book is boring. That’s the entire point. The heroine is oppressed by middle class life, but also trapped in it. She’s exiled to some dull little off-season hotel to “recover” from a social gaffe which is only revealed towards the end of the book, and the hotel is bland and dull, because it represents the life she could have, if she’s not careful. And then, at the end, she’s offered the choice of becoming a decorative object in the world of middle class blandness, and she almost took it, to my horror, but luckily came to her senses.

I will say that the book is a bit misogynistic. The female characters, including the lead, are all a bit hateful, the worst sort of women, but I think that’s also kind of the point of the book. We’re introduced to a cast of characters who are almost like potential models of what might happen to the lead, and by being confronted with them, she realizes that she is not, in fact, like them. I can’t say that any of the men are particularly amazing, either, to be fair, especially Mr. Neville, who is a complete twit of the worst order.

The book also hangs in a curiously timeless world. While it was written in the 1980s, it doesn’t seem like a product of that era, but I can’t quite put my finger on when the book is set, and that’s obviously a deliberate choice on Brookner’s part. The uncertainty makes the book seem a little bit dreamlike and allegorical, and that, I suspect, is why the book won a prize. Prize committees go crazy for that kind of thing.

Demographics:

Hotel du Lac, by Anita Brookner. Published 1984, 184 pages. Fiction.

I first read this book in a community college literature course I was taking to defer my student loans. I remember fighting viciously with the instructor for most of the course, being frustrated to tears by one student’s sheer, unrivaled stupidity and need to comment, and feeling generally frustrated by all of the things happening around me those months just on principle. This book was one of the few bright spots.

It’s macabre. It’s meandering. It’s maddeningly elusive and yet it’s right in front of your face, all at once, and it’s one of my favourite books. I even said so to the instructor at the end of the class, when I said that he had been a good sport considering that I’d given him grief all term, and I appreciated the fact that I had read In the Lake of the Woods because of him.

In the Lake of the Woods raises the question of how well we really know other people, including ourselves, and it illustrates that no act of magic is perfect, that an attempt at total erasure is not always guaranteed to work out.

I love the almost violent emotions that John feels about his wife, describing wanting to climb inside her viscera, or holding the flesh of her waist so tightly that it pinches, just a beat too long, leaving his wife with an uneasy feeling. He wants to devour her, to eat her up, even as he is being eaten by madness. Quite a thing.

I love the layered alternate versions of the story which nest on top of each other while the real version glides silently through the book, dropped in hints and murmurs which are so subtle that you might miss them, if you aren’t reading carefully. I enjoy books that force you to slow down and absorb every word, every scene, every moment. I can see why our instructor chose this book, because it’s so complex and layered that it screams for analysis, even if it is just a woeful community college English class that mauls it and picks through its bones.

There’s a faint hint of Vonnegut in this book, what Vonnegut would be if he was good, wasn’t a hack. It’s a subtle angry shifting spicy sickly green sort of book, and maybe I love it so much because it shows human nature at what I see as its truest, harsh and cold.

Demographics:

In the Lake of the Woods, by Tim O’Brien. Published 1994, 303 pages. Fiction.

The Sandbox is a collection of entries from the blog of the same name, and it is awesome. I am ashamed to admit that despite the fact that I am very interested in military blogs, I had not actually discovered The Sandbox, despite the fact that it was masterminded and spearheaded by Gary Trudeau, the genius behind Doonesbury. It’s a collective blog, with entries from all kinds of people, and it’s really good, and I would highly encourage you to check it out.

One thing I love about this book is the sweeping cross-section of entries. All of the essays are pretty short, since they are blog entries, and they range from poetic appreciations of sunsets to reports of action the authors have been involved in. There are stories about dead people, and descriptions of trips taken while on leave. Some of the entries are very hooah, and some are bitter, and some are wistful. It’s a very humanizing sort of book.

I really cannot stress how awesome this book is. I think that a lot of Americans feel really abstracted from the war, and what’s happening there, and this book is a huge collection of information about Iraq and Afghanistan and the people who serve there. I got introduced to some really interesting characters and places, and I got a very small taste of what it’s like in some regions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Whatever your stance on the war and military service, I would really recommend this book. I think you’ll probably find something in it that you will like.

Demographics:

The Sandbox: Dispatches from Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, edited by David Standford. Published 2007, 302 pages. History.

Wow, was this bad. I mean. Seriously. Really, really, really bad. I don’t know what kind of crack all the reviewers are smoking, but I definitely want to get my hands on it if it would make a book this bad seem that good. I know that there’s no accounting for taste and all, but some books should just be universally accepted as bad.

I was really excited about it, too, because I love libraries and librarians, and I loved the idea of a superlibrarian. Only, I already have a librarian superhero, Giles, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Giles is way cooler than Libris. Oh, sure, Libris is immortal, but that’s about all his has going for him in this graphic novel, which seems simultaneously ripped off from about 12 different sources, with a heavy dose of Buffy.

I also really, really, really, really loathed the sections where we see Rex interacting with his editor, maintaining some kind of weird fiction that he wrote the book. I hate it when fiction books get all weird and self-referential, and graphic novels are no exception to my hatred. Aside from the fact that the dialogue was just stupid in those scenes, they were also just so not necessary that they made my head hurt.

People somewhere obviously liked this, and that’s great for them, but I think I’ve read the worst book of July already, and it’s only the first!

Demographics:

Rex Libris: I, Librarian, by James Turner. Published 2007, 184 pages. Graphic novel.

Bill Bass is basically one of the coolest forensic anthropologists alive, and I would argue that he contributed in a pretty major way to the field of forensic anthropology with the Anthropological Research Facility (ARF), more commonly known as the Body Farm. So when this book came out, I devoured it, and every now and then I return to it.

The book talks about the history of the Body Farm, and also about interesting cases Bass has dealt with. It’s really neat to read about these real-life forensics cases and Bass’ role in them, from identifying largely burned remains to putting a serial killer in prison. And yes, while the book is pretty graphic, it’s not sensational, and it’s well presented and interesting and, perhaps most importantly, relevant. It makes me want to go to the University of Tennessee just so I can take classes from him.

For those of you who don’t know about the Body Farm, it’s a facility where people study the process of decay. They’ve got bodies in all sorts of environments and situations, and they use their research to help criminal investigators. Before the Body Farm, decay wasn’t really very well understood, and after…a slew of academic papers on forensic entomology, knife marks, chemical signatures left by organisms which feed on the body as it decays, and a variety of other neat topics.

I’m all about research like that done at the Body Farm, so I love reading about it first-hand, from the man who developed it. (And one of the founding fathers of forensic anthropology, to boot.) It sounds like Bass is ready to practice what he preaches, too; in the last chapter, he says that he intends to sign the donation forms which will allow him to be a research subject, although he’s deferring the final decision to his wife.

Demographics:

Death’s Acre, by Dr. Bill Bass and Jon Jefferson. Published 2003, 304 pages. Forensics.

I’ve always rather liked this book. It’s by a man who grew up in a small town, moved away, did some things, moved back, and joined the fire department while working as a writer. Other than the fire department thing, remind you of anyone you know? New Auburn, Wisconsin, the small town in the book, is a lot smaller than Fort Bragg, but it has a lot in common with my very own small town.

And Michael Perry struggles with a lot of the same things that I do. He wants to avoid being an intellectual elitist, and feels more at home in the laid-back environment on his home town, but at the same time, he wants to resist the excessive “aw shucks” thing. He’s well read and he writes poetry, which differentiates him from a lot of his friends and neighbors, but he wants to emphasize his similarities, to feel a connection, rather than focusing on what sets him apart. He also deals with the us and them divide, the people who grew up in town and the people from the outside who don’t understand it.

I really enjoy reading about his fire calls, both because they are interesting and because they illustrate the lines of connection in his community. It’s not just a structure fire or someone collapsed with a heart attack, it’s a person or a place you know, and you have a history with the people who go out on the call with you. It kind of makes me want to get my ass in shape and join the fire department, to do something concrete and productive for the community.

Perry writes about intense experiences without succumbing to bathos, and I appreciate that. It’s a book which ramble and meanders, but manages to stay pretty tight and together, all at the same time. That’s a bit of a feat, if you ask me.

Demographics:

Population: 485, by Michael Perry. Published 2002, 324 pages. Autobiography.

Well, the Book Project is officially a half-year old, which is cause for celebration, I think. I tell you what, I didn’t realize the scope of insanity that embarking on the Book Project really entailed when I offhandedly talked about it with a friend in December. It really is hard to write about every single book I read in a year, since sometimes I just don’t have that much to say about books, and I read a fair amount of trash.

At any rate, in June I read 30 books, an average of one a day, and 11,441 pages, roughly 381 pages a day. I also read some pretty good books in June. New books that I read and liked included Skeletons at the Feast, The Mourner’s Dance, Lady Lazarus, The Cloud Atlas, and Invisible Monsters. I also enjoyed re-reading City of Quartz, and it’s safe to say that The Almost Moon was the worst book I read in June. I’m having a tough time deciding what my favourite book was, though, because I really did read some good books in June. I may have to go with Lady Lazarus, just because it was so rich and complex, and I am really glad that Vicki recommended it to me.

Of course, no half year review is complete without, you know, a half year review.

So far, I have read 176 books in 2008, and 59,249 pages. I read the most books in March, when I read 40 books, and 13,174 pages. January was the low point, with 21 books and 6,261 pages. My favourite books this year have been The Sparrow, This is the Way the World Ends, Dracula, Everything Conceivable, Nation of Rebels, and Lady Lazarus. This is the Way the World Ends was, hands down, the best book I read this year. It’s just that awesome. And I am pleased to note that three of the books I loved this year were recommended by people, while two were re-reads, and one was a book that just caught my eye at the library one day. I think that’s a nice, diverse cross section.

One thing that the Book Project has done is introduce me to all sorts of books I would never have read, and I’m really grateful for that. I haven’t liked all of the books sent to me or recommended so far, but I’ve loved some of them, and I’m glad I had the chance to read them. It’s also been very interesting to track my reading habits, and to examine what I read, and when, and why.

If you want to recommend books for me to read, please add them to the comments on this (and any other) Book Project post. You can also email me (meloukhia at gmail dot com) if you’re feeling shy. I pledge to make an earnest attempt to read every single book which is recommended to me this year.

If you really want me to read something, you can send it to me:

s.h. smith

po box 2764

fort bragg, california, 95437

I am also happy to return books which people want to lend to me; if you lend me a book through the mail, include a note to let me know that you want it back when I’m done.

One thing about not being able to go outdoors is that I got rather a lot of reading done, although I had to battle with Mr. Bell for custody of the chair. I tell you what, competition for the chair can be quite vicious, especially when restless cats are involved. At any rate, this weekend I read books 172-176, and I ate a lot of shrimp curry.

Black Swan Green

This book was recommended by Haddock, via Kris, so I guess I have to give both of them credit for the fact that I read it. I have to say, I rather liked it. Something about coming of age novels from England gets me all giddy, and the setting of the 1980s was particularly interesting. Thatcher’s England. The Falklands War.

One thing about the book that I really liked is that each chapter stood alone as its own story. While the chapters did string together, and clearly followed a plot line, they could also be read independently, and I rather dug that. The use of language was also quite interesting; I like how Mitchell played with the concept of the narrator’s stutter, using it as a plot device without being all overt about it, and while I don’t normally like books written in the first person, it worked for Black Swan Green.

This might be one of the better books I’ve read this month, and I have a sense that I will be returning to it at some point in the future. And I’m also going to order the right Cloud Atlas so I can read that, too.

Demographics:

Black Swan Green, by David Mitchell. Published 2006, 294 pages. Fiction.

Monday Mourning

I needed some cheesy mystery novels to flesh out my book table, so I grabbed a couple of Kathy Reichs books. There’s not a lot to say about mystery procedurals, except that these are rather interesting because Kathy Reichs is a real live honest to god forensic anthropologist, and that, I think, makes a big difference. There’s a note she strikes that other mystery writers don’t, because they just don’t have the experience. Small details from her career experiences make the books that much more alive and real.

I’m also a fan of Bones, the television series which is very loosely based on Reichs’ books, although it almost seems based more on her career than the books. Pretty much the only consistent thing between the books and the series is the lead character’s name. I think I like the Temperance Brennan of Bones much better than the Temperance Brennan of the books. The book Tempe seems like a bit of a dolt, honestly, running around doing very unbright things.

But it does make me add “forensic anthropologist” to my long list of “careers that would be neat to have someday.”

Demographics:

Monday Mourning, by Kathy Reichs. Published 2004, 305 pages. Fiction.

Nowtopia

The revolution is here, argues Chris Carlsson, and he wrote a book to prove it. It’s a pretty neat book, covering all manner of subversive behaviour in communities across the United States, from guerilla gardening to bicycle activism. It’s also a well-researched and interesting history, and while I don’t totally agree with the conclusion that the revolution is underway, it was still an interesting book.

I would argue that instead the book was a fascinating collection of profiles of people on the fringes of society who are trying to make a difference in the best ways they know how. But it’s not revolution until the people rise up as a popular collective. Sure, Nowtopia could be considered inspirational and all, but it’s only going to be read by people who are already engaging in revolutionary activity, so I’m not sure how much it accomplishes, honestly.

In a way, the book really illustrated the huge gulf between the thriving subculture, and the reality of American culture. Yes, people are doing things that are amazingly cool, but how much of a difference does it really make, when the vast majority of Americans aren’t paying attention?

Demographics:

Nowtopia, by Chris Carlsson. Published 2008, 278 pages. Sociology.

Deja Dead

The first book in the Temperance Brennan series, and it shows. Deja Dead is clunky, a bit overstuffed, and obviously struggling to find its footing, but it’s not necessarily a bad book. I think it laid solid groundwork for the rest of the series, establishing characters and issues so that they can be developed later. Obviously, it’s highly autobiographical, but there’s no need to view that as a bad thing. After all, Kathy Reichs has a pretty interesting life, and she can’t write about it explicitly for ethical and legal reasons, so why not fictionalize it?

One flaw with these books, I think, is the sense of overwrought tension. Granted, I’ve only read two, and I’m not, you know, chomping at the bit to read the rest of the series, but there does seem to be a sense of constant, stressful tension in the books that makes them a bit unpleasant to read, because it’s like this never-ending barrage. What will happen next? Goodness gracious!

Anyway, for those who haven’t read anything by Reichs, but enjoy reading good procedurals, I would recommend taking a peek at the series.

Demographics:

Deja Dead, by Kathy Reichs. Published 1997, 411 pages. Fiction.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

I’ve been working my way through the Harry Potters again on the side, in the midst of reading other books, because the last time I read them all in a row was last summer, right before Deathly Hallows came out. I wrote about the book right after I finished it last year, and now that I’ve read it again, I have a few things to add. I said last year that it was “my favourite,” and I’m going to have to rescind that. I liked Deathly Hallows, but I don’t think it’s the best, because it was poorly edited, and it felt very rushed, and I absolutely loathe the epilogue, which, I believe I have said elsewhere, reads like a piece of fan fiction.

Yes, the story found resolution in Deathly Hallows, but it was also wrapped up almost too neatly, especially courtesy of the epilogue. I like long series that leave you wondering about what’s going to happen to the characters in the coming years of their lives, allowing you to continue building on the story after it ends, and we weren’t given a chance to do that at the end of Deathly Hallows, which was all wrapped up with a neat, tidy bow.

Deathly Hallows certainly confirms my ideas about the weakness of Ron’s character. I know that some people think that Ron redeems himself by returning, in the end, but I think that his actions can’t quite be forgiven that easily, and that’s going to be a wedge in their relationships for the rest of their lives. Yes, coming back is better than never returning, and yes, Ron contributes hugely to the outcome of the story, but the fact that he left at all is always going to be there, in the background, whether or not people like it.

And I thought Harry really developed some spirit and spine, making difficult choices and all. I love the scene where he shames Lupin for abandoning Tonks, while Ron and Hermione don’t seem to understand how passionately Harry feels.

Of course, what the book is really about (what the whole series is about) is the redemption of Snape. And I’m not sure how it is that I can be so hard on Ron when Snape has done much more evil things, but there it is. I respect Snape as a courageous and determined character who tried to atone for what he did, although true atonement can never be reached, and I still maintain that he is the most interesting and complex character in the whole series. Too bad there will be no Snape spinoff.

Demographics:

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J.K. Rowling. Published 2007, 759 pages. Fiction.

Apparently more than one book is named The Cloud Atlas, and I actually ordered the wrong Cloud Atlas, as I discovered when I picked this book up at the library. But I decided to read it anyway, because, hey, it came all this way, and it might turn out to be interesting, and wouldn’t it be serendipitous if I ended up liking a book I ordered accidentally? At least, that was my logic.

And I actually did end up liking this book. I don’t know if I would wax quite as poetic as some of the reviews on the back cover did, but it was a good book. It was an interesting story, and it was well crafted, and it had a hint of the mysterious and mystical, which I rather liked.

What would have happened if the Japanese had launched a major attack on the Pacific Coast in the form of explosives-laden balloons? That’s the centerpiece of the book, and it’s an interesting idea; in The Cloud Atlas, of course, the military decides to hush the whole affair up, and that’s where our tortured and confused main character comes in.

This is a book of stories within stories, and complex scenes with indiscernible undercurrents. I liked that most of the characters are imperfect, and that they spend their lives regretting this mistakes. Alaska, where most of the book takes place, is also a very interesting landscape to play with, and I like what Callanan did with it. Not having been to Alaska, of course, it’s easy to fall prey to the Great Alaskan Mystique, and this book definitely cultivated that, but it wasn’t heavy handed or intrusive, so I didn’t mind too much. It’s the sort of story which seemed like it could only unfold in the far reaches of the North, after all, so why not Alaska?

Demographics:

The Cloud Atlas, by Liam Callanan. Published 2004, 360 pages. Fiction.