Book Look: Will

Maria Boyd has taught high school and knows the world she writes of in Will when she takes on the matter of "choir nerds" and "band nerds" (think "Glee"). Will Armstrong commits an act of adolescent foolishness (saving this from being a spoiler by not divulging) at his prep school in Australia. His English teacher and the deputy principal "Waddlehead" (hilarious nickname and so appropriate for the age group) develop a punishment just for Will: join the band and help with the high school's musical. He's humiliated and furious, but what can he do? He is an accomplished guitarist and finds expression in music, so it's actually a good fit though it's painful for him to hang out with geeks.

Will tells his story first-person, using Australian slang (suss, wanker, bloke), which sounds a lot like British slang. The only odd word that threw me out of the story was the constant repetition of "reckon" since in American English "reckon" has a distinctly antique and dialectical sound, say Texas or the South of yesteryear.

Will himself is thoroughly engaging, both sweet and troubled, loud mouthed and thoughtful, as he navigates his role between the cool world and the drama geeks. He is thrown into contact with a beautiful girl, Elizabeth. From day one at the practices, a wannabe begins to worship him, much to Will's aggravation, and some of the most comical scenes in the book occur between Will and the kid, nicknamed, The Freak.

Boyd allows Will to bring in a lot of back story for his recent tendency towards backsliding ways.

The book begins well but in Act III things get a little tedious, perhaps because of the over-reliance on long exchanges of dialog that don't seem to mesh with the mind set of the kids.

I am giving thumbs up for the high number of caring adults and the dignity of the friendship and compassion; thumb's down on the wearing dialog.

I am recommending this book for YA readers, teen and adult, but you'll have to push through some extraneous goings on to reach the concluding chapters.

Word Nerd: Reckon

Reckon can mean to add numbers and get a balance or to bring to account.

It is American slang for "I believe."

In the book reviewed today by an Australian author, the reader will need to get used to the kids' use of "reckon" to mean something like our slang use of "actually."

Good luck.

Book Look: The Lies We Told

In "The Lies We Told" Diane Chamberlain writes of families and relationships, but places them in the larger world, in this case, Raleigh and then Wilmington, North Carolina. The kicker is that the state is hit by two successive hurricanes and the disaster surrounding the population overwhelms civic services.

The protagonists, sisters Rebecca and Maya, are both doctors. The death of their parents by murder when they were in their teens inflicted horrible psychological injury on them. Yet, each dealt with that trauma by focusing on school and ultimately, the work of doctoring. Rebecca has chosen the danger zone of an emergency response doctor, while Maya craves a controlled atmosphere as an orthopedic pediatric surgeon. Maya married a doctor, Adam. I like Chamberlain's portrayal of Adam as caring and good, not just another Napoleonic personality. Adam has fresh optimism and romantic good looks.

Their world comes crashing down in two steps: Maya suffers a fourth miscarriage and the hurricanes hit. Rebecca and Adam join the emergency team of physicians. Adam pressures Maya to join them,and the balance of the relationships changes. Maya is put into a dangerous situation, Rebecca begins to question her own motives for the vagabond life, and Adam continues charm.

Like Picoult, Diane Chamberlain cuts to the heart of these characters' secrets. Her plotting is amazing and the villains sneak up in such a way as to tantalize us to read just one more chapter, even when time is pressing us to do something else.

"The Lies We Told" glows with truth about knowing ourselves and unburying the past that threatens our souls.

Word Nerd: Tar Heel

In keeping with the setting of today's Book Look, how about the etymology of Tar Heel, since North Carolina is the Tar Heel state. Although there are disputes about the term (as with any nickname), most agree that the pine forests and the resulting heavy pitch are associated from early colonial times with North Carolina. A Tar Heel is also known for a stubbornness that sticks, like tar on the heel.

The motto of North Carolina is "essa quam videri" to be rather than to seem. North Carolinians are proud of being the real deal, without all the false airs put on by other populations.

Book Look: Promise Me

Harlan Coben keeps rolls out his hero Myron Bolitar after a six-year absence who swears he's not going to shoot at anyone, throw any punches, or do any other acts of mayhem. He quickly is forced to break his vow, BUT IT'S NOT HIS FAULT! Some REALLY bad people are after him (one kills by biting, now that's a bad dude). Poor Myron, trying to help a damsel in distress.

Promise Me flies in every chapter with Myron working on the mystery of two teenage girls, missing from the same high school. The problem for him is he is the last person known to have seen the newest victim. There are a good assortment of possible suspects to keep us guessing and putting the clues together..

The fists, bullets, blood, and wise cracks fall fast and furious, and I kept turning pages, even as the flight I was on was diverted to Wichita "to take on extra fuel" (?) I was engrossed enough in Myron's plight for my own to barely register.

Clever and well-plotted with an appealing hero, Promise Me has a lot of heart as the reader peeks into the "private" lives of two high girls, each running with a different crowd and each sharing the same threat to their future.

Word Nerd: Actually

This discussion idea came to me from one of my faithful followers (thank you, Kathleen).

Who else has noticed how the word "actually" clutters up conversations and news announcements?

"Actually" has become the "like," "know what I'm saying?" and "you know" of this decade. It is a filler, more often than not.

You can use the word appropriately to mean "in fact" (I can't believe you're ACTUALLY here!) or to overcome the imagined (These are, actually, the costs of the project)--but this latter meaning seems to underline the first meaning.

In everyday speech, why not work on deleting some uses of "actually"?

Book Look: The Year of the Flood

Margaret Atwood hits humanity where it hurts--in the reality of the world we live in. She comes fully armed with her fury of wit, brash humor, and word play.

"The Year of the Flood" shows us humanity's last gasp for life after our animals have gone extinct and new animals have been created through gene splicing. It's the pious Gardeners against the faceless Multicorporations.

But that only begins to tell the story of man's work to wreck our Earth: we also have pollution of the air, the water, the seas, and a viral plague that hits mankind. The bees, our friends, are disappearing.

The resonance of Atwood's vision of "the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico" is now coming alarmingly and sickeningly true in June, 2010.

The characters range from the fully pious Gardeners (and some wannabes), the Adams and the Eves, who cherish all life and all recycling, to the sex shop girls of the Scales and Tales, the suburban moms and "pleebrats" with their logo golf shirts, and the faceless, remorseless corporate robots.

I found this book both frightening, funny (in a bleakly humored way) and a clear call to arms to love the Earth and quit fouling our own and only home. As the Gardeners pray ask towards the end, "Would God make us a second Earth? Why would He?" (paraphrased)

Word Nerd: Ozarks

Since I am in the beautiful state of Missouri, looking out at a clear lake on a HOT day, how about the origin of Ozarks?

Originally, the word was the French, Aux Arcs---those bows (hills), as in rolling green hills surrounding me as I write.

Americanized to Ozarks. And don't believe everything you read in Woodrell's Winter's Bone (or see in the film of that book). Lovely neighbors, good friends.

Book Look: Raven Stole the Moon

Raven Stole the Moon is one of Garth Stein's early works, now re- touched and reissued. This novel, like The Art of Racing in the Rain, is about marriage and grief.

Jenna cannot get over her grief of her drowned son.... she tries drugs and alcohol. She tries forgetting. Her marriage rips at the seams. Her husband, Robert, thinks he is over the death and it is time for her to act like a grown up and also forget the pain.

Jenna runs away to the place of the tragic incident: Alaska. She meets a shaman,a dog, a young and vulnerable man, also ripped apart. Worse, she learns about the kushtaka, a clan of Tlingit spirits who take humans into their world if they can. Shapeshifters,they take the form of otters, dogs, and humans who are in the spirit world.

Read this book only if you possess the willing suspension of disbelief. There are lots of turnabouts with bad guys and good guys, other worldly experiences, and deep emotions to rip you raw.

How Raven Stole the Moon is educational, satisfying, and fast-paced revealing a beautiful culture and a beautiful, wild place as well as people caught in a web that threatens to destroy all they have loved.

Word Nerd: Alaska, State Motto

The State Motto of Alaska is "North to the Future," adopted in 1967. Those who knew Alaska during the building of the first pipeline or before that, come back from a trip there stunned by the changes to the beautiful state. Towns are growing; cities have traffic.

Alaska is doing all it can at the state level to protect its resources, but the federal government seems to waffle about what is right and what is wrong when it comes to protecting the wilderness.

"North to the Future" does not have to mean "north to destruction."

Book Look: The Lion

Nelson DeMille brings back his brash, bad-boy cop (Federal Agent, former cop) John Corey in this sequel to "The Lion's Game." Corey has been the voice of five other novels, and DeMille seems to have him down to a t.

returns back from "The Lion's Game" in which he escaped Corey and company last time. Now Khalil has unfinished business: he intends to kill all the pilots involved in the US bombing of Libya and all those involved in trying to prevent his mission. Asad is a sadistic opponent, with a calm, intelligent manner of approaching murder. He kills those who help him and those who stand in his way.

DeMille ratchets up the suspense page by page.We know the targets, and Khalil seems to be quite of a few steps ahead of Corey's in this chess game. A wild card tossed in creates even more angst: Khalil must also have financial backing from a group and needs to repay them with a major statement of hatred for the US--so what building, city, monument will he attack? Will he do that before or after his showdown with Corey?

The dialog is the kind we expect in a good cop novel, snappy and wry, the action is relentless, and for all his bravado, John Corey is hard to dislike.

Take this book on vacation or to the beach: it's fast, fun, and entertaining if you don't mind the gory and numerous kills.

Word Nerd: War

The word war was once wyrre (1121 a.d.) and after that uuerre (1175) probably from the French guerre.

In its verbal history, the word has meant struggle, strife, confusion, and discord.

The transliteration of the word from Old North French into Old High German and eventually, Old English, emphasizes how so many of the basic words in English today (man, woman, child, ox) come from the oldest form of our language.

The Latin for war is bellum, still seen in antebellum and bellicose.

Book Look: Private Life

In Private Lives by Jane Smiley, we meet Margaret Mayfield, the not beautiful, not smart, but good sister. She lives in Missouri, outside of St. Louis and seems to be destined to old-maid status. Then the odd but engaging Andrew Early steps into the path of her bicycle.

Margaret's high-spirited joy rides on the bicycle give way to a married life of trying to please Andrew, an astronomer, physicist, and writer, whom the world does not understand and who is not exactly a model husband.

When Margaret chooses to live in her husband's shadow, the reader may fume. When she herself makes many friends and also engages with the excitement of San Francisco, the beauty of the Bay Area's natural life, and getting to know herself, we cheer for her. Slowly, she begins to wonder if her marriage is what it should be, and we have been privy to from the start.

The rants of Andrew about physics and politics become tedious but these reflect his character more clearly than Margaret has shares with us.

I liked this book. The core tension of the prologue (set in 1942)"Who is Pete?" and "What happened to the Kimuras" and "how is Andrew involved in all this? are important," but the beautiful soul of Margaret was my primary reason to keep reading. The joy of St. Louis growing into itself as "the new Paris or London" also pleased me, especially as my husband and I intend to retire in the Ozarks!

In April, I was lucky enough to attend a seminar led by Jane Smiley at UCLA for two hours. This lovely and gifted writer, shared some of her beliefs about writing and the joys of reading and made me feel that yes, writers are human beings who look at the world in a special way. It is not simply intelligence or wit, but the act of observing carefully that makes Smiley's work so completely enthralling. Her trained eye reveals the world she creates. Astoundingly beautiful.

Word Nerd: Show Me State

The motto of our adopted state, Missouri, is "Show Me." The meaning today is that someone from Missouri is somewhat conservative, very stalwart, and certainly not going to let you pull the wool over his/her eyes.

The saying is variously ascribed to both a U.S. Congressman and a group of Missouri Miners. The Congressman, Willard Vandiver, said, "I am from Missouri. You have got to show me." He was railing against the hot air coming out of Washington in 1897 (imagine that! It's still coming!)

The other story says that a group of Missouri miners ran off to a Colorado mine to help break the strike there. When they started to mine with the methods common to their state, their boss said, "He's from Missouri. You'll have to step in and show him."

Word Nerd will be spending some time with state mottoes this summer.

Book Look: The Nobodies Album

Carolyn Parkhurst has been at the top of my favorites list since I read her first book, the magical Dogs of Babel with its complex love story and beautiful lovers who are poles apart. I lost sleep awaiting this new book, The Nobodies Album. Darn.

The Nobodies Album begins when Octavia Frost, an author of some renown, finds out her son is the prime suspect in the murder of his girl friend, Bettina. The place she learns of the accusation is an eyestopper.

Octavia flies across the US to try to help her son, Milo. They have had issues for years over her writing, his life, and their life as a family touched by prior tragedy.

This is a murder mystery. But for some reason, at the same time, Parkhurst intersperses closing chapters to Octavia's previous works with chapters of the ongoing investigation. Octavia also provides new endings to those other works. She says, "the story might take a different turn." The result for me was an aggravating diversion from the characters and story line that I cared about (Octavia, Milo, and a child named Lia). San Francisco's neighborhoods are a good setting especially as described by Octavia, for she is a woman who finds the city less romantic than odd--which is a clear character trait for the protagonist.

Although everything wraps up in an ending that makes sense, the journey of the book felt jagged and forced. Octavia has a lot to say about the process of writing, which is great if you are a writer, but not that interesting if you're not.

I enjoyed the book, but felt betrayed by the interrupting chapters. I hope Parkhurst goes back to what she does best: tell us a story! Don't meditate on why people write or how they write. Don't weave in fairy tales! The Dogs of Babel and Lost and Found remain on my list of favorites, books I have read over and over again (especially Dogs of Babel and my favorite sentence: "I remember my wife in white." The Nobodies Album, once was enough. Sad and sorry to say this.

Book Look: The Quickening Maze

Like many others, I am interested in stories of the mentally ill, the criminally insane, the history of the insane asylum, and so on. For me, this interest dates back to a report I completed in 8th grade about Dorothea Dix, the same year I read of Rochester's mad wife in Jane Eyre. Then I read Cuckoo's Nest. Then I saw the films "The Snake Pit" and "Suddenly, Last Summer."

So here's a book about lunatics and their asylum in the late 19th century.

Adam Foulds is a poet. His first novel, The Quickening Maze, reminds me of works by Virginia Woolf or William Faulkner--seriously intellectual and hard work to read.

The main thread of the plot concerns poet John Clare as his rage and drinking lands him in an insane asylum. While John is there, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, accompanies his brother, Septimus, to be treated for "the English disease," melancholia (depression). Clare and Tennyson, who capture our interest because of their historical impact, interact with one another very little.

Instead, Foulds focuses on the asylum's head master, physician Matthew Allen. This man is in charge of the lunatics, yet he is somewhat of a lunatic himself. He creates financial schemes, inventions, and "new" treatments for the insane. Allen has a lovely ad lonely daughter, Hannah. She fancies herself in love with Alfred Tennyson and other men. Her primary goal seems to be noticed as a person instead of as just a member of an odd family. She does not want to live forever among the insane.

The book covers seven seasons of life at the asylum. The reader is shown shocking brutality against the patients and lovely moments of friendship between them. There are gypsies in the wood, who humanize the plight of the poor and unlanded.

This is a strange book that assesses strange people. There are many fine and beautiful phrases as one would expect of a poet, but the plot in the twisted maze of the novel lacks focus and tension, especially as John Clare calls himself by a number of names, which breaks the mood for the reader as wander about wondering who the heck is talking now.

Word Nerd: innuendo

From the Latin: to nod

Innuendo means to make an oblique allusion or hint at. The root, the Latin, nutare, means to nod.

Thus, innuendo comes from the habit of people to signal one another through a look (raised eyebrows, inclining the head) that someone in their company should be noticed.

The innuendo could be positive (suggesting a celebrity or being impressed) or negative (look at that fool with the red plaid shorts and the striped shirt!)