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Ten Cents a Dance
Sure, I was going to do the noble thing and write a review of my very own, but then Leila Roy went and said just about everything I'd had in mind about this super-good book. So you should read her review instead, and I'm going to sneak back to the couch and the Christmas tree with the next book on my TBR pile. Ha! Or you can read Becky's review, which made me pick up Ten Cents a Dance in the first place.
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Now that's gotta be one of the crazier plots I've ever fallen for. Not the part about an uber-rich family descending into an elaborate underground compound to escape nuclear winter - that I can believe with virtually no effort. It's all the twists that came barreling at me six years after the explosion that made a section of my brain whisper, "Really? You're just going to roll with that?" Yes, as a matter of fact, I am, because the thrills and intensity are totally worth it. Sit back and enjoy the ride.
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A funny thing happens when a pair of companion novels narrated in the first person by different characters become audiobooks: ALL the voices change. (And I'm not just talking about the obvious fact that one narrator is male and the other female.) The essence of her character is the same, but Ron McLarry's version of Grandma Dowdel differs in her tones and vocal mannerisms from Lois Smith's. Being such an avid fan of A Year Down Yonder made those differences a challenge to swallow at first, but after a while it stuck me as kinda cool to hear another person's interpretation of the characters I love.
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Homer P. Figg may be bound and determined to liberate his big brother after Harold's illegally sold into service with the Union Army, but there's a whole heap of trouble standing in his way: scoundrels and scallywags, underground railroad conductors and Quakers, ministers and flimflam artists, and to top it all off, a little thing called the battle of Gettysburg. At first, Homer seemed a trifle too much -- almost like Forrest Gump in the way he finds himself entangled in so many quintessential elements of his time -- but he won me over when all was said and done. Homer is folksy and fond of stretchers, yet earnest and full of heart. He's also got a voice that'll make for one whopper of an audiobook or read-aloud with the right performer. It's a great story; the adventure packs a wallop, the history never obscures the spotlight, and the end will wring you dry.
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Did you know I like biblical fiction? (Which, incidentally, is different from Christian fiction.) For the record, I do. Quite a lot, in fact. Narrated in turns by Noah, his wife, their sons and their wives, The Preservationist follows the story of the ark from God's blueprints to the rainbow and beyond. If you prefer your Bible stories crisp and formal, with thees and thous and begats, maybe you should pass on this one, but me? I ate it up, sex, dung, slang and all. A few questions David Maine dares to address: How did Noah convince his family to go along with this scheme? What's it like, being married to a 600-year-old man who talks to God? How did Noah collect all those animals? What did Noah's daughters-in-law think of all this? What about the bugs -- did they bring insects on board, too? What did they do in there for all those months? What's the deal with Noah getting drunk and passing out naked in the tent after the flood? How does a single family re-populate the earth without violating certain age-old taboos?
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Holes
This story still boggles my mind, and it still works. How did Louis Sachar DO that? Audio quibble: I would have liked slightly longer pauses before the switches between the stories of Stanley and Kissing Kate Barlow.
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Scat
Off the top of my head I can think of three authors who seem to write equally well for adults and children. Carl Hiaasen's one of them. (The others? Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett.) Scat is everything you've come to expect from Hiaasen's children's department: mystery, environmentalism, and hijinks, all unfolding in a Florida setting. I also appreciated the way the Iraq war held a relevant niche in the plot without dominating it.
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Guardian
As good a punch in the gut as you're likely to get in the realm of children's lit when the subject is lynching. And don't let the first couple pages throw you -- the story is NOT told from the tree's point of view. (Though I don't doubt Julius Lester could pull off such a feat if he put his mind to it.)
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Art & Fear
In short: To the critic/audience/public, "art" is a noun. To the artist, it's a verb. This volume doesn't have quite the same emotional resonance for me as Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird, but its thoughtful ruminations on the importance of the process (as opposed to the product) to the artist gave me plenty to contemplate. I suspect the tidbits on artmaking that have stuck in my mind will turn out to be subtle confidence-builders over time. Thanks to Darcy Pattison's Revision Notes blog for the recurring recommendation.
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Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You
Honestly? Going by the title I was revved up for an extended vicarious riffle through nightstand drawers and medicine cabinets. Instead, this was rather more clinical than I expected, complete with charts, lists, and examples primarily from academic studies. In essence, Gosling focuses on how to identify classic personality traits like openness, extraversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness, and agreeableness based on fairly broad observations about a room and its contents. He also clues you in to common misconceptions (a cheerful, colorful space does not indicate agreeableness, for instance) and the usefulness of stereotypes in certain situations. All that was informative and interesting enough to keep the pages turning, but I'd hoped for more specific, nitty-gritty sleuthing. Not to mention tips for how to pull off a successful, satisfying snoop outside of a research project. For example, what does the fact that my bedroom is as perpetually neat as it is dusty say about me? And how would someone bent on snooping get up there to notice that fact in the first place?
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The Compound
