Musical Monday - A Talk With George by Jonathan Coulton

So, with the New Year coming on, it is somewhat natural to be thinking about how one might spend the upcoming trip around the Sun. And those thoughts have brought me to the Jonathan Coulton song that posits receiving some advice from the ghost of participatory journalist George Plimpton - a song with lyrics that always remind me of both the smallness and the importance of the days of a single person.

Granted, the specific advice is very much tied to a particular time and a particular set of places. After all, none of us can make friends with Robert F. Kennedy or Hunter S. Thompson, because they are dead. And even if boxing wasn't a mostly moribund sport, no one today could go see the Rumble in the Jungle, because that happened in 1974. And the advice is very much tied to a particular social and economic class - very few people move in social circles that would allow them to befriend a former President's widow or possess the financial resources to publish an entirely profitless magazine. The song, on its surface, is advice on how to live from the perspective of a fairly financially privileged white guy whose heyday was in the 1960s and 1970s as filtered through a moderately privileged white guy whose heyday started in the 2000s, and continues to the present.

But all of the suggestions in the song really are just window dressing for the real point. The song is not, ultimately, about wearing neckties and drinking cocktails. The real heart of the song is summed up in one line, "Do the things that really matter". You may not be able to get in a boxing ring with Archie Moore (him being dead probably being the greatest impediment) or hang out with Hemingway (once again, him being dead serving as the primary obstacle), but you can use your time to do things. Go places. See things. Experience things. Not everyone can finagle their way into being allowed to participate in the Detroit Lions' training camp like Plimpton did, but that shouldn't get in the way of living as much as you can. Our time is finite, and there are more things to experience than anyone could ever do in a single lifetime, so you have to pick which ones matter the most, and then try to do them while you can. Because when the end comes, you won't get another chance to do them.

Previous Musical Monday: Christmas Eve Eve by Paul & Storm

Subsequent Musical Monday: Our Place in the Universe by Symphony of Science

Other Holiday Songs     Musical Monday Playlists

Jonathan Coulton     Musical Monday     Home

Book Blogger Hop December 27th - January 2nd: There Are Thirty-Five Free Hexominoes

Jen at Crazy for Books restarted her weekly Book Blogger Hop to help book bloggers connect with one another, but then couldn't continue, so she handed the hosting responsibilities off to Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer. The only requirements to participate in the Hop are to write and link a post answering the weekly question and then visit other blogs that are also participating to see if you like their blog and would like to follow them.

This week Billy asks: What books are you looking forward to reading in 2014?

This is the part where I explain that I don't read in the same way that many other book bloggers seem to read. I mean, I sit down and absorb words on a page just like I am sure they do (although I expect many of them absorb words on a screen), but  the difference seems to be that I don't really read new releases very much. I usually read a handful of newly published books in a given year, but most of those are ARC's that I have been sent by authors or publishers. What I don't do is eagerly await the new books that are coming out in the upcoming year and plan my reading around getting and reading them. Usually, I don't even know what books are coming out in the new year.

Instead, to the extent that I plan my reading schedule, my focus is typically on older books, mostly books that have won or been nominated for genre specific awards. I am planning on rereading The Lord of the Rings, so I can complete my read-through and review of the winners of the International Fantasy Award for Best Fiction Book. I am still working my way through the winners of the Hugo Awards, and I hope to get started on the Nebula Award winners this year as well. I hope to finally read something by John Green this year - probably Looking for Alaska or An Abundance of Katherines, and I want to read through all of the A.S. King books that I have not read yet. Other than these admittedly loose plans, I don't really have anything specific set for the upcoming year.

Go to previous Book Blogger Hop: Rule 34. That Is All.

Go to subsequent Book Blogger Hop: Superman Loves 36, Because He Is the First Son of Krypton

Book Blogger Hop     Home

Follow Friday - The Hymn to Apollo Was Written in 138 B.C.

It's Friday again, and this means it's time for Follow Friday. There has been a slight change to the format, as now there are two Follow Friday hosts blogs and two Follow Friday Features Bloggers each week. To join the fun and make now book blogger friends, just follow these simple rules:

1. Follow both of the Follow My Book Blog Friday Hosts (Parajunkee and Alison Can Read) and any one else you want to follow on the list.
2. Follow the two Featured Bloggers of the week - Magic of Words and The Storybook Kingdom.
3. Put your Blog name and URL in the Linky thing.
4. Grab the button up there and place it in a post, this post is for people to find a place to say hi in your comments.
5. Follow, follow, follow as many as you can, as many as you want, or just follow a few. The whole point is to make new friends and find new blogs. Also, don't just follow, comment and say hi. Another blogger might not know you are a new follower if you don't say "Hi".
6. If someone comments and says they are following you, be a dear and follow back. Spread the love . . . and the followers.
7. If you want to show the link list, just follow the link below the entries and copy and paste it within your post!
8. If you're new to the Follow Friday Hop, comment and let me know, so I can stop by and check out your blog!

And now for the Follow Friday Question: Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays! What books did Santa stuff your stocking with this holiday season? Do a holiday book haul for us! If you don’t celebrate just show off your books that you got this week. Pictures!!!

Zero. I got zero books as gifts this year. I received lots of very nice geeky gifts like DVD copies of both The Hunger Games and The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, as well as a Lego Quinjet that included three of the Avengers and a Lego Batman helicopter. I even got a gift card for ThinkGeek. So all in all, it has been a good Christmas for me. But no books. Maybe I'll get some for my birthday next year.

On the other hand, I gave a lot of books for Christmas. My father got a book about Teddy Roosevelt by Doris Kearns Goodwin, and my mother got a companion book for the Downton Abbey television series. I also have four nieces, two nephews, six soon-to-be nieces, and four soon-to-be nephews, and they all got books for Christmas. Roald Dahl books. Bruce Coville books. Books about bugs and snakes. And on and on. Lots and lots of books.

Go to previous Follow Friday: There Are 137 Atoms in a Chlorophyll Molecule

Go to substitute Follow Friday: Operation Entebbe Was to Rescue the Passengers of Air France Flight 139

Follow Friday     Home

Musical Monday - Christmas Eve Eve by Paul & Storm

So today is December 23^rd, a day that is only really notable because there really isn't anything notable about it. It isn't the Winter Solstice. It isn't Christmas Eve, or Christmas, or even Boxing Day. It is just the day that seems to be the pregnant pause between the frenzy of holiday preparation and the actual Christmas holiday celebration. As Paul & Storm say, the 23^rd seems to be a day that is mostly about waiting for other days to arrive.

But as frustrating as a day like December 23^rd is for those who are young enough to be looking forward to Santa's arrival, I think it is more and more necessary to have this day and other days like it stuck into the middle of the hectic holiday season. More and more it seems that people run themselves ragged trying to create the perfect Christmas, and in the process it seems like we are missing actually enjoying ourselves during the Yule time. Instead, we have to put up piles of Christmas decorations, cook enormous amounts of food, drive insane distances, shop for a myriad of Christmas gifts, and put in a lot of other work in order to meet the artificial standards we think we must meet. And in the process, we tire ourselves out so that instead of being an enjoyable, relaxing time with family and friends, we are exhausted and must crawl back to work after the holidays just to recover.

So I'd like to suggest that we should all take December 23^rd and do nothing. Make it a national holiday of rest so we can all sleep late and not do anything productive at all. Require all of the stores and businesses across the country to close, and let everyone have the day off work. We'll all be better off.

Previous Musical Monday: 12 Days by Straight No Chaser

Subsequent Musical Monday: A Talk With George by Jonathan Coulton

Christmas Songs     Musical Monday Playlists

Paul & Storm     Musical Monday     Home

Book Blogger Hop December 20th - 26th: Rule 34. That Is All.

Jen at Crazy for Books restarted her weekly Book Blogger Hop to help book bloggers connect with one another, but then couldn't continue, so she handed the hosting responsibilities off to Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer. The only requirements to participate in the Hop are to write and link a post answering the weekly question and then visit other blogs that are also participating to see if you like their blog and would like to follow them.

This week Billy asks: What is your favorite book set around Christmastime?

I may sound like a broken record here, as I almost always reference this book when asked about Christmas-oriented books, but my favorite book set around Christmastime is, and probably always will be, J.R.R. Tolkien's Letters from Father Christmas. Picking this book is cheating a little bit, because it isn't set during a Christmastime, but rather during many. And it isn't really about Christmas so much as it is an example of a father's love and affection for his children.

The gist of the book is this: Like many children, Tolkien's offspring wrote letters to Father Christmas (or as the character is better known in the United States, Santa Claus) every year between 1920 and 1942. However, the twist is that Father Christmas wrote back to Tolkien's children, sending them beautiful hand-written and illustrated letters telling the tales of the doings of Father Christmas, the Great Polar Bear, and the red and green elves. And sometimes the evil goblins. Because you can't have a Tolkien story without goblins. It is a magnificent work of Christmas-themed devotion and love, and is my favorite Christmas book.

Go to previous Book Blogger Hop: "33" Is the Pilot Episode of the Reimagined Battlestar Galactica Series

Go to subsequent Book Blogger Hop: There Are Thirty-Five Free Hexominoes

Book Blogger Hop     Home

Follow Friday - There Are 137 Atoms in a Chlorophyll Molecule

It's Friday again, and this means it's time for Follow Friday. There has been a slight change to the format, as now there are two Follow Friday hosts blogs and two Follow Friday Features Bloggers each week. To join the fun and make now book blogger friends, just follow these simple rules:

1. Follow both of the Follow My Book Blog Friday Hosts (Parajunkee and Alison Can Read) and any one else you want to follow on the list.
2. Follow the two Featured Bloggers of the week - Words with Sarah and The Storybook Kingdom.
3. Put your Blog name and URL in the Linky thing.
4. Grab the button up there and place it in a post, this post is for people to find a place to say hi in your comments.
5. Follow, follow, follow as many as you can, as many as you want, or just follow a few. The whole point is to make new friends and find new blogs. Also, don't just follow, comment and say hi. Another blogger might not know you are a new follower if you don't say "Hi".
6. If someone comments and says they are following you, be a dear and follow back. Spread the love . . . and the followers.
7. If you want to show the link list, just follow the link below the entries and copy and paste it within your post!
8. If you're new to the Follow Friday Hop, comment and let me know, so I can stop by and check out your blog!

And now for the Follow Friday Question: Pick a book in your favorite genre that you’d recommend to a reluctant reader.

If I wanted to get someone to read fantasy, I'd give them Ursula K. Le Guin's book  A Wizard of Earthsea. The first reason I'd hand them this book is that it is written by Le Guin, and in my experience, her writing is the best way to get someone to read genre, whether it is science fiction or fantasy. The second reason is that this is one of her best, and most accessible books. Le Guin's science fiction is filled with fairly overt political and social commentary, which could serve to push a potential reader away if they were adamantly opposed to the viewpoints that she brought to her science fiction - for examples see books like The Dispossessed or The Word for World Is Forest. And although her fantasy is also filled with political and social commentary, it is more subtle, and thus less likely to rub a potential reader the wrong way.^* While the story in A Wizard of Earthsea deals with the nature and responsibility of power, the struggle to choose between a life of being and a life of doing, and the folly of youth, it is at its heart a coming of age story set in a world that is both fantastical and at the same time comfortable and almost familiar. A Wizard of Earthsea is also a self-contained story. Although it is the first in a series of books set in the world of Earthsea, the story told in the book stands on its own, without needing the following books. This means that the new reader will get to the end of the book and have a satisfying conclusion to their read rather than a "to be continued" sign. Finally, I'd choose this book because it is reasonably short. Nothing turns off a potential reader to a new genre like a book that could double as a doorstop. The new reader wants a book that they can give them a taste and a feel for the genre. If they have to wade through five or six hundred pages to get their toes wet, they are likely to just throw their hands up and not bother. So, for all these reasons, the book I'd hand to a potential new fantasy fan is A Wizard of Earthsea.

*On the other hand, anyone who would be turned off by a science fiction or fantasy book that challenges their preexisting ideas about politics, society, and religion is someone that genre fandom might be better off without, but that's a discussion for another day.

Go to previous Follow Friday: The BBC's "Who's Line Is It Anyway?" Ran for 136 Episodes

Go to subsequent Follow Friday: The Hymn to Apollo Was Written in 138 B.C.

Follow Friday     Home

Review - Silver on the Tree by Susan Cooper

Short review: All of the characters introduced in the previous novels return and band together to defeat the Dark one last time.

Haiku
Together again
To stand up against the Dark
Give up eternity

Full review: Silver on the Tree is the fifth and final book in Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising sequence. In some ways, the book feels a little anti-climactic, which may have been inevitable following the mostly excellent books that preceded it. Still, the main difficulty with the book is that it tries to do two, possibly incompatible things: It tries to make the Dark a formidable and dangerous foe, and tries to keep the tone of the book firmly aimed at younger readers. One or the other of these goals needed to give way, and unfortunately, the end result is that the Dark is less ominous and threatening than one would have hoped.

The book brings back all of the main characters from the earlier books: Will, Bran, Merriman, the Drew's and others. They prepare for a final showdown against the forces of the Dark, seeking once again to decipher ancient prophecies in the form of poems and hunt down required McGuffin artifacts. The whole plot seems to have something of a rehashed feel to it, and the outcome never really seems to be in doubt. The book wraps up all the story lines and packages them neatly with a bow on top, which is probably to be expected of a young adult novel, but after the more mature tone showing through in parts of The Grey King, this book seems like somewhat of a disappointment.

The book is still quite good, and is better than most young adult fiction out there (and better than a lot of fantasy fiction written for the adult market), but it just isn't as good as the book that preceded it, which makes reading it something of a disappointment. As with all of Cooper's books, it is better written than most young adult offerings, but it just feels like a series as good as The Dark Is Rising sequence should have had a better final book. I still recommend it, just not as highly as Over Sea, Under Stone, The Dark Is Rising, and The Grey King.

Previous book in the series: The Grey King

Susan Cooper     Book Reviews A-Z     Home

Musical Monday - 12 Days by Straight No Chaser

Sometimes an adaptation improves upon the original work. I don't much like the traditional song The Twelve Days of Christmas. It is tedious and dull, mostly consisting of mind-numbing repetition. The only song I can think of that is more repetitively boring than The Twelve Days of Christmas is 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall, and that song is only useful when used by elementary school students on field trips who want to annoy their teachers. But 99 Bottles of Beer seems to be intended to be annoying, whereas Twelve Days has no such excuse.

And the song is also somewhat deceptive, because when people start singing it, you've forgotten how incredibly mind-numbingly long and awful it is. So for the first couple of verses, when you're skipping through the first couple of numbers of quirky bird-themed gifts, you are thinking that the song isn't as bad as you had thought. But then it drags on. Somewhere about the time the gifts start being milkmaids or pipers, you get tired of the song, and realize with some small horror just how much more is left. And you look at the people around you, and know that some of them share your distaste for continuing, but that there are some truly awful and evil people who have cherubic smiles and too much holiday spirit and who expect that everyone will continue right to the drummers at the bitter end. And so, out of social obligation, you continue to sing this awful song. Unless you're me. I just stop singing and go into the other room. Because life is too short to spend it singing interminably long and boring songs.

But this version of the song is brilliant, because it takes the song and cuts it down to a manageable size while throwing in some variety and humor. Straight No Chaser managed to capture the spirit of the song, the portion that makes it joyful and exciting, and excises all of the tedium. This, unlike Peter Jackson's incredibly overlong and padded out adaptation of The Hobbit, is an adaptation that takes the source material and makes it better. Plus, given that I lived in Africa for several years, the song strikes something of a resonating tone for me.

Previous Musical Monday: The Hobbit Christmas Song by The Doubleclicks

Subsequent Musical Monday: Christmas Eve Eve by Paul & Storm

Christmas Songs     Musical Monday Playlists

Straight No Chaser     Musical Monday     Home

Book Blogger Hop December 13th - December 19th: "33" Is the Pilot Episode of the Reimagined Battlestar Galactica Series

Jen at Crazy for Books restarted her weekly Book Blogger Hop to help book bloggers connect with one another, but then couldn't continue, so she handed the hosting responsibilities off to Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer. The only requirements to participate in the Hop are to write and link a post answering the weekly question and then visit other blogs that are also participating to see if you like their blog and would like to follow them.

This week Billy asks: What books do you want for Christmas?


Ever since I read Please Ignore Vera Dietz and Dust of a 100 Dogs, I have loved A.S. King's work. Unfortunately, I have been remiss in keeping my collection stocked with her books, and I'd like to remedy that situation so I would like Ask the Passengers, Everybody Sees the Ants, Monica Never Shuts Up, and Reality Boy for Christmas.

Go to previous Book Blogger Hop: A Full Adult Set of Human Teeth Consists of Thirty-Two Teeth

Go to subsequent Book Blogger Hop: Rule 34. That Is All.

Book Blogger Hop     Home

Follow Friday - The BBC's "Who's Line Is It Anyway?" Ran for 136 Episodes

It's Friday again, and this means it's time for Follow Friday. There has been a slight change to the format, as now there are two Follow Friday hosts blogs and two Follow Friday Features Bloggers each week. To join the fun and make now book blogger friends, just follow these simple rules:

1. Follow both of the Follow My Book Blog Friday Hosts (Parajunkee and Alison Can Read) and any one else you want to follow on the list.
2. Follow the two Featured Bloggers of the week - Head in the Clouds and In Vogue With Books.
3. Put your Blog name and URL in the Linky thing.
4. Grab the button up there and place it in a post, this post is for people to find a place to say hi in your comments.
5. Follow, follow, follow as many as you can, as many as you want, or just follow a few. The whole point is to make new friends and find new blogs. Also, don't just follow, comment and say hi. Another blogger might not know you are a new follower if you don't say "Hi".
6. If someone comments and says they are following you, be a dear and follow back. Spread the love . . . and the followers.
7. If you want to show the link list, just follow the link below the entries and copy and paste it within your post!
8. If you're new to the Follow Friday Hop, comment and let me know, so I can stop by and check out your blog!

And now for the Follow Friday Question: Bookselling Time: Go to your biggest bookcases. Go to the second shelf from the top and pick out the sixth book from the left. Hardsell that book to us – even if you haven’t read it or if you hated it. (if you don’t have bookcases, don’t have six books on one shelf, etc, pick a book at random).

First, I'll point out that the terms of the challenge were designed in such a way as to guarantee that I'd pick a book written by an author with a name early in the alphabet since I organize my books alphabetically by author. As a result, I was entirely unsurprised when the book that popped up was The Postman by David Brin.

Second, I'll admit that yes, that is the cover of my copy of the book. I don't like book covers that are built around the movie adaptation of the story, but that's the copy I was able to find when I went looking for the book several years ago, so that's the copy I have.

But about the book. Ignore the self-indulgent Kevin Costner movie, which didn't really follow the book much at all. Excise it from your mind. Have you done that? yes? Good. Now we can talk about the book.

The Postman is a set of three connected stories set in post-apocalyptic America that focus on a character who works as a postman. He isn't actually a postman. Instead, he found a postman's van with a long-dead postman in it and took the corpse's coat because he was cold. He also took his bag of undelivered mail, because the blasted landscape of the Pacific Northwest is a little light on reading material following the devastating events that reduced the United States to a lawless pre-industrial wilderness. The first, and best, of the three stories describes the way this character almost accidentally restores the populace's faith in their country and civilization.

The second story, which is quite good, is about how this emergent society reaches out to make contact with other struggling communities to form alliances. The third story, the weakest of the three, deals with the push-back from those who don't want a reemerging American Republic to succeed. Or at least they don't want it to succeed unless they can be in charge. The third story has some interesting plot points about the responsibilities of the strong when they deal with those who are weaker than they are, but I found it to have a few flaws, mostly in the form of a kind of deus ex machina style ending. This only mildly detracts from the overall excellent quality of the book.

If you want a thoughtful and interesting set of stories about how civilization might reemerge after a nightmare of destruction, then The Postman is the book for you.

Go to previous Follow Friday: Stony Plain 135 Indian Reserve Is Home to the Enoch Cree Nation

Go to subsequent Follow Friday: There Are 137 Atoms in a Chlorophyll Molecule

Follow Friday     Home

Review - The Grey King by Susan Cooper

Short review: Will Stanton goes to Wales and meets Bran. Together they oppose the machinations of the Grey King and Bran meets his destiny.

Haiku
Once he goes to Wales
Stanton meets albino Bran
Who is his father?

Full review: The Grey King is the fourth book in Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising sequence. It is also my favorite book of the series. Perhaps this is because the book features Welsh and Arthurian myth so heavily, or perhaps it is just because I read this book for the first time when I was the target age for the book, or, as I believe, just because the book is simply that good. The book focuses once again on Will Stanton, but this time he is ill and sent to stay with his uncle in Wales to recuperate. Once there, he meets up with and befriends an albino loner named Bran.

The book is essentially a second coming of age story for Will Stanton, and he is aided by Bran along the way. They must unravel a series of mysteries, mostly by figuring out what some cryptic poetry means, and prepare for a coming confrontation between the Light and the Dark. Many of the disparate threads started in the first three books begin to be tied together in this book, and the true nature of many of the things the characters have done (and the true nature of some characters) is made clear. The novel is more grown up in tone than the earlier books in the series – Stanton is older, there is more danger, and the villains are creepier. Still, it is a young adult book, and a very well-written young adult book at that.

The book won a Newbery Medal in 1975, and the reasons for that seem abundantly clear when one reads it. I loved this book when I read it when I was eleven (even though I had not read any of the others in the series), and I loved it again when I reread it as an adult (as part of the series).

Previous book in the series: Greenwitch
Subsequent book in the series: Silver on the Tree

Susan Cooper     Book Reviews A-Z     Home

Review - Greenwitch by Susan Cooper

Short review: Jane Drew participates in a village festival and makes a compassionate wish.

Haiku
Village festival
A wish-granting effigy
A wish for a witch

Full review: Greenwitch is the third book in Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising sequence. It is an odd book in some ways, and is both the shortest, and in my opinion, the weakest book in the series. The book is so short, in some ways, that it feels like it should have just been part of one of the other four books in the series. The book takes place between The Dark Is Rising and The Grey King, bringing Will Stanton and the Drew children together for the first time. The story revolves around a local folk festival in Cornwall, and the decisions made by Jane Drew.

As the book focuses on Jane Drew, and a folk festival that only women can participate in, this is the only book in the series that is told primarily from the perspective of a female character. Consequently, the fact that the folk festival is so obscure, and the book is so short is somewhat disappointing. Whereas the other books in the series are full of references to the myths and legends of the British Isles and have interesting storylines, this book seems to be very thin in comparison. The central myth dealt with in the book is, when you really look at it, quite small, especially since it is surrounded by the key elements of Arthurian, English, and Welsh national mythology. Even though the story is short, it doesn't feel rushed, just short, like there just wasn't much to say, and Jane just didn't have anything more to offer as a character.

Of all the books in the series, this one left me feeling the most disappointed. I felt like Cooper should have been able to give a more extensive story, but just couldn't come up anything more than a brief and linear tale to fill the gap between her other books. Though the writing is good, the plot is somewhat predictable and not really all that interesting. Fortunately, it is short, and as a bridge between the first and second halves of the series, it serves decently.

Previous book in the series: The Dark Is Rising
Subsequent book in the series: The Grey King

Susan Cooper     Book Reviews A-Z     Home

Review - The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper

Short review: Will Stanton is one of the Old Ones who stands against the darkness. The trouble is, he is only eleven years old.

Haiku
Four Things of Power
Must be found to aid the Light
By a seventh son

Full review: The Dark Is Rising is the second book in Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising sequence. In this book, the series moves away from the Drew children who had been featured in Over Sea, Under Stone, and introduces Will Stanton, an eleven year old boy just discovering that he has supernatural powers, and a burden to take up an age-old fight on the side of Light against the Dark.

The story is a combination coming-of-age story, as Stanton adjusts to his new status, new powers, and the new threats to his safety (and the safety of those around him), and a quest story, as Stanton is sent to recover pieces of a powerful artifact that the Light needs to combat a new threat from the Dark. The book is loaded with references to English folklore and Arthurian myth, and part of the fun of reading the story as an adult is seeing how many of these you can spot.

The Dark Is Rising is a superlative young adult book, which, I suspect, is why it was recognized with a Newbery Honor, and why it has endured for more than thirty years while many other young adult books published contemporaneously have been cast into the dustbin of obscurity. The book suffers from a problem I have found common in young adult fiction in that the adult characters seem to be stiff and uninteresting, while the younger characters are well developed and shine, but the story still flows well enough that this can be overlooked without too much trouble.

The story of this book is, to a great extent, the central story of the entire series of books, and, like all of the books in Cooper's The Dark Is Rising series, it is quite good.

Previous book in the series: Over Sea, Under Stone
Subsequent book in the series: Greenwitch

1974 Mythopoeic Award Nominees

Susan Cooper     Book Reviews A-Z     Home

Musical Monday - The Hobbit Christmas Song by The Doubleclicks

I love Tolkien's work. In his prose, Tolkien was able to capture a fantasy world that felt undeniably real, filled with mystery, wonder, and a little bit of whimsy, but organic, and without a feeling of forced artificiality that some fantasy fiction falls into. Consequently, I have been both delighted and disappointed by Peter Jackson's adaptations of his work, mostly because Jackson's vision, although very close to the mark, is sometimes just a bit off target, resulting in a product that is excruciating because it is so close to being spot on and yet not.

The Lord of the Rings is a story of an epic nature, and so Peter Jackson built an epic series of movies to tell the story. But The Hobbit isn't an epic story. Sure, it is about a quest to slay a dragon and restore a nation of dwarves to their homeland, but that's just the excuse for the real story, which is the journey and self-discovery of a very small and provincial hobbit. The story of the hobbit is small, personal, pastoral, and in many cases childish. And so when Peter Jackson decided to try to make it a series of big, epic movies just like the one he had made for The Lord of the Rings, it was the exact wrong thing to do. The first movie was overlong and tedious, bloated with a level of self-importance that the story just couldn't hold up. Instead of elevating the movie and making the story more interesting, the added material doesn't build the story up, but instead weighs it down. And the second movie doesn't look to be any better in this regard.

But that doesn't stop the Doubleclicks from making the perfect Hobbit song which captures the wonder and spirit of Tolkien's book while wishing and hoping for a Hobbit movie that they can love unreservedly. Granted, they wrote and recorded the song last year, before the first installment of the bloated trilogy was released, so they were justified in some of their happy optimism. And I shared that optimism. I desperately wanted a beautiful Hobbit movie that would capture the tone of the book in the same way that Angela and Aubrey have captured the book's tone in their song. But even though I was disappointed by An Unexpected Journey, I'll still go to see The Desolation of Smaug, and I'll still love the joy and happiness in this song.

Previous Musical Monday: Merry Christmas from the Family by Robert Earl Keen

Subsequent Musical Monday: 12 Days by Straight No Chaser

Christmas Songs     Musical Monday Playlists

The Doubleclicks     Musical Monday     Home

Book Blogger Hop December 6th - December 12th: A Full Adult Set of Human Teeth Consists of Thirty-Two Teeth

Jen at Crazy for Books restarted her weekly Book Blogger Hop to help book bloggers connect with one another, but then couldn't continue, so she handed the hosting responsibilities off to Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer. The only requirements to participate in the Hop are to write and link a post answering the weekly question and then visit other blogs that are also participating to see if you like their blog and would like to follow them.

This week Billy asks: What book would you recommend for a Christmas present?

I'll recommend the book that I almost always recommend: J.R.R. Tolkien's Letters from Father Christmas. The book compiles the letters that Father Christmas (better known to Americans as Santa Claus) wrote to the children of J.R.R. Tolkien starting in 1920 and lasting until 1943, complete with the accompanying illustrations of the doings of the inhabitants of the North Pole. Before he wrote The Hobbit or the Lord of the Rings, Tolkien was creating a magical world full of magic, elves, and mysteries for his children, and now that they have been compiled into one volume, for everyone else too.

Like most children, J.R.R. Tolkien's progeny wrote letters to Father Christmas. Unlike many other children, Tolkien's children received letters back. Beautiful, hand written letters telling a tale of the doings of the inhabitants of the North Pole, mostly Father Christmas himself, and his well-meaning, although somewhat dim and clumsy friend the Great Polar Bear. Through the letters, we learn that Father Christmas had a very nice house right next to the towering North Pole named Christmas House. I say "had", because when the Great Polar Bear tried to climb the Pole, he broke the giant spike and it collapsed on top of Father Christmas' home. The North pole was repaired, but Father Christmas built his new house on top of a conveniently nearby cliff and named it "Cliff House".

The story winds its way through various events - the Polar Bear tries to help deliver gifts, Father Christmas explores the ancient caves beneath his new home, the goblins living in those caves try to invade Cliff House and must be repelled, and so on. Most of the letters are written in Father Christmas' spidery handwriting, but some also include the sloppy and thick messages written by the Polar Bear, and all contain illustrations depicting the events described in the letters. The letters even contain the details of a secret goblin pictographic alphabet - even at this stage of his life, Tolkien couldn't resist creating new languages and new alphabets to go with them. Everything about the book demonstrates the care and affection Tolkien felt for his children, and displays the kernels of the ideas that gave rise to the themes that dominated his later work. The book is beautiful, magical, and manages to capture everything that makes Christmas wonderful.

Go to previous Book Blogger Hop: There Are Thirty-One Musical Triads

Go to subsequent Book Blogger Hop: "33" Is the Pilot Episode of the Reimagined Battlestar Galactica Series

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Follow Friday - Stony Plain 135 Indian Reserve Is Home to the Enoch Cree Nation

It's Friday again, and this means it's time for Follow Friday. There has been a slight change to the format, as now there are two Follow Friday hosts blogs and two Follow Friday Features Bloggers each week. To join the fun and make now book blogger friends, just follow these simple rules:

1. Follow both of the Follow My Book Blog Friday Hosts (Parajunkee and Alison Can Read) and any one else you want to follow on the list.
2. Follow the two Featured Bloggers of the week - Books Make Me Happy and Booksane.
3. Put your Blog name and URL in the Linky thing.
4. Grab the button up there and place it in a post, this post is for people to find a place to say hi in your comments.
5. Follow, follow, follow as many as you can, as many as you want, or just follow a few. The whole point is to make new friends and find new blogs. Also, don't just follow, comment and say hi. Another blogger might not know you are a new follower if you don't say "Hi".
6. If someone comments and says they are following you, be a dear and follow back. Spread the love . . . and the followers.
7. If you want to show the link list, just follow the link below the entries and copy and paste it within your post!
8. If you're new to the Follow Friday Hop, comment and let me know, so I can stop by and check out your blog!

And now for the Follow Friday Question: Tell us at least one new or unusual thing you’ve done in 2013.

I've done a couple new things this year, some interesting, some not.

I went to Gen Con for the first time. It was everything I hoped it would be, and I wrote about it here.

I saw the Doubleclicks perform live. They were fantastic, and I highly recommend everyone go see them at the earliest opportunity. I wrote about their concert here. I also saw them when I went to Gen Con.

While I was at Gen Con, I helped set a world record for the most people ever to play in a single board game when I joined more than nine hundred other people to play a massive game of Settlers of Catan. I've never been part of a world record setting event before.

I also got divorced. I've never done that before either. That was less fun.

Go to previous Follow Friday: The Highest Temperature Ever Recorded in the United States Was 134 Degrees Fahrenheit

Go to subsequent Follow Friday: The BBC's "Who's Line Is It Anyway?" Ran for 136 Episodes

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Review - Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper

Short review: A mysterious treasure map leads to adventure for the Drew children in Cornwall.

Haiku
Down on the seaside
A map leading to treasure
And into a myth

Full review: Over Sea, Under Stone is the first book in Susan Cooper's The Dark Is Rising sequence, which was so poorly served by the recent awful movie allegedly based upon it. Aimed at the young adult market, the books hold up well even for older readers (although an older reader will likely figure out the mysteries in the books long before their answers are revealed in the text). The book follows the adventures of the Drew children on holiday in Cornwall as they try to figure out the meaning of a treasure map they found in the dusty attic of their vacation home. Through the book, the Drew children are opposed by mysterious enemies, and aided by their Great Uncle Merry.

The plot of the novel reads like a standard young adult mystery – I think it may be no accident that the Drew children share their name with Nancy Drew. However, the writing is good, and the mystery is interesting. There is just enough suggestion of the supernatural to set up the more standard fantasy elements of the later books in the series while still allowing for one to believe that this sort of story could really happen. In that regard, the novel captures one of the very wonderful things about childhood: That feeling that something magical may be hidden just around the corner, and if you just look for it hard enough, you could find it. Great Uncle Merry, through the revelations concerning his involvement in the story, hints at a larger hidden world full of magic and adventure.

The world depicted is somewhat quaint by current standards – sleepy seaside towns in Cornwall during the 1960s were apparently somewhat less than cosmopolitan, but without the homey atmosphere generated by the setting, the novel wouldn't work. The novel captures the magic of being a child, without talking down to the reader, or oversimplifying the story, making it a fine start to a very good series.

Subsequent book in the series: The Dark Is Rising

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Review - Smith of Wootton Major & Farmer Giles of Ham by J.R.R. Tolkien

Short review: Two short tales by J.R.R. Tolkien featuring cakes and fairies in one, and a giant-killing farmer in the other.

Haiku
Smith meets with fairies
And has cakes for dream dinner
Then Giles kills giants

Full review: This book contains two short tales by J.R.R. Tolkien featuring somewhat silly protagonists in reasonably standard fairy tale situations. Tolkien loved fairy stories, and hated that the genre had been transformed into little more than children's literature. The result was some very well-told fairy stories that draw upon the English tradition.

Smith of Wootton Major, the first story, centers on cakes, fairy stars, and the gaps between our world and the land of fairy. The tale isn't world-shattering in scope, and there is little threat to be dealt with other than vanity, arrogance, and pig-headedness, which doesn't ultimately feature much in the story anyway. It remains interesting in a dream-like manner - in some ways, reading Smith of Wootton Major feels a little like reading an account of a dream.

The second story, Farmer Giles of Ham, is a tale about an accidental hero. Farmer Giles doesn't intend to drive away a giant, but does so. He doesn't intend to be viewed as a dragon-slayer, but is. It is comical, absurd, and in some ways, it seems to be a variation of Jack the Giant Killer, although slightly off-kilter.

In the end, both stories are quite enjoyable, although they are entirely unlike The Hobbit (read review), The Lord of the Rings, or The Silmarillion. If you are looking for a book like those, this is not it. If you like fairy tales, this book will probably be right up your alley.

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Musical Monday - Merry Christmas from the Family by Robert Earl Keen

At first glance, my family appears markedly upscale. In my "real job" I am a lawyer who works for the Federal government. I am a graduate of the University of Virginia. I attended a private all-boys boarding school. My sister lives in New York, teaches English as a second language, and is married to a banker. She and her husband attended the College of William & Mary. My brother also works for the Federal government, is married to an engineer, and is posted overseas. He and his wife attended Vanderbilt University.

But the reality is that we are just a small branch off of a larger family tree, a sizable chunk of which is very much like the family depicted in Keen's song. And this is why I love this song - because I recognize and am related to the people Keen is describing. While Keen's lyrics do exaggerate for comic effect, they only exaggerate a very small amount. And it doesn't matter that Keen is from Texas, and my family is from Illinois and Indiana. The small town blue collar world that he describes is almost exactly the same - and is probably very similar no matter where you go in the United States, and probably beyond.

In the world of wood paneled houses and mullets, the Christmas party he describes wouldn't be out of place at all. And it is this core of truth that makes the song hilariously funny, at least to me. The song works so very well because it hits so close to home: I have been at holiday celebrations that were similar to this. I will say that I don't think I've ever been at one at which Mom got drunk and Dad got drunk, although I have been to more than one holiday celebration where the alcoholic cheer was flowing pretty freely, sometimes with moderately unfortunate results. But I'm pretty sure that I've seen some variation of just about every other vignette described.

One phenomenon that I have noticed is that people who don't have a family that is at least somewhat like the one described in the song simply don't find this song funny. It seems that unless you have family that you cannot remember how you are related to them, you're simply not close enough to realize that this song is so humorous because it is so brutally honest. I distinctly remember taking long car rides to attend family reunions and spending most of the travel time quizzing my mother so I would know how I was related to the approximately seven hundred and eighty-nine second and third cousins who would be attending the get-together.

Previous Musical Monday: Get Loki by P.L. Boucher

Subsequent Musical Monday: The Hobbit Christmas Song by The Doubleclicks

Christmas Songs     Musical Monday Playlists

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