The Road

by Cormac McCarthy
If I had to describe The Road in one word, it would be "bleak." This relatively short novel follows a man in his young son as they try to survive in a post-apocalyptic world destroyed by nuclear holocaust. Human civilization has disintegrated, the landscape is covered with ash, and no plants can grow. The few survivors of the fall-out either scavenge for food or join together in violent, cannibalistic gangs.

This would be an excruciating book to read if it weren't so sublimely written. Cormac McCarthy's prose is as gray and spare as the landscape he describes. The story is so grim that I wanted to detach myself emotionally from the characters, but I was still wracked as the father internally debated whether it would be better to keep going or to accept death on their own terms.

The Road is undoubtedly the best book I read in 2009. I cannot recommend it highly enough. But I'm not interested in seeing the recent film adaptation, even though it stars the excellent Viggo Mortensen. I felt on edge the whole time I was reading the book, and some of the imagery was disturbing. To see it all on film would be too horrific.

Jump the Shark: When Good Things Go Bad

by Jon Hein

Jump the Shark is a pop culture reference to an episode of Happy Days in which Fonzie jumped over a shark tank on water skis. The stunt was so absurdly over the top, that moment came to symbolize the inevitable decline of the show. Thanks to Jon Hein and a clever website, the term "jump the shark" has been applied to almost any cultural figure or icon, and this book chronicles some of the famous shark moments.

My favorite jump the shark moments are often the ones with single-word answers. When did The Beatles jump the shark? Yoko. When did The Cosby Show jump? Olivia. Scooby Doo Scrappy. Harrison Ford? Sabrina. Napoleon Bonaparte? Waterloo. Bill Clinton? Monica.

But sometimes the past-their-prime moments aren't as obvious, which is where the fun comes in. The original Jump the Shark website (now run by TV Guide) had millions of people arguing back and forth about when their favorite shows or celebrities jumped. I don't agree with all of the assessments in this book. For example, Hein is convinced that The Simpsons never jumped the shark, whereas I say it jumped in the late 1990's when Barney went sober. But the disagreement and debate is part of the charm of shark-jumping analysis.

The book was released in 2002 so it's a little dated. For example, the entries on Joe Biden, Al Gore, and other public figures are off. But most of it is right on. The book essentially serves as a review of American pop culture, told in small packages of rise-and-fall stories. One thing I noticed about reading this book was that I really haven't watched much TV. I only watched a few of the shows mentioned with any regularity, and I wasn't very familiar with even some of the classic sitcoms. I guess it's a product of my deprived cable-less childhood.

Jump the Shark isn't anything brilliant, but if you like pop culture, it's a fun read.

Enna Burning

by Shannon Hale


Enna Burning is the sequel to Goose Girl, but it departs from the fairy tale retelling of the first book. Rather than following the story of Isi, the princess-turned-goose-girl-turned-princess, the second book follows the story of Enna, the forest girl who became friends with Isi in the first book. The country of Bayern finds itself at war with its southern neighbor and Enna comes across a text that teaches fire magic. But Enna soon finds the same thing Isi has discovered with wind magic, that b...more Enna Burning is the sequel to Goose Girl, but it departs from the fairy tale retelling of the first book. Rather than following the story of Isi, the princess-turned-goose-girl-turned-princess, the second book follows the story of Enna, the forest girl who became friends with Isi in the first book. The country of Bayern finds itself at war with its southern neighbor and Enna comes across a text that teaches fire magic. But Enna soon finds the same thing Isi has discovered with wind magic, that before too long she can't turn it off.

I enjoyed Goose Girl immensely, but this book lost a lot of the charm that the first one had. I even disliked it in the middle, although by the time it finished it was good enough. I never got attached or invested in the character of Enna, and the plot was a bit trite at times. Enna Burning is worth a read if you really liked Goose Girl, but if you're a newcomer to the series I would stick with the first book, which stands on its own quite well.

Guardian of the Spirit

by Nahoko Uehashi

Guardian of the Spirit is the first book in a popular ten-book Moribito series of novels by Nahoko Uehashi. The fantasy stories are set in far-away lands long ago, with warriors, magicians, and magical creatures. The best reason to read these books, however, is for the main character. Balsa is a female body-guard who was forced to train at an early age after her father was killed. She's smart and clever, and a very strong and entertaining female character. In this book she is forced to protect a young prince from his enemies, both traditional and magical. I saw the anime series before I read the book, and I actually liked it better because it showed more of Balsa's character, but I suspect the series as a whole is the best. It's a fun, quick read. Only the first two books of the Moribito series have been translated into English so far, but I hope the rest are on the way because it's a fun series.

The Picture of Dorian Gray and Other Writings

by Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde is easy to read and quite entertaining. This collection starts with The Picture of Dorian Gray, which is a fairly short novel. It's quite good, although rambling at times. I've only ever read Wilde's plays before, so it was strange to read his signature silly dialogue in a mostly serious novel. It was good, and worth the short read. This collection also included several of Wilde's plays: Landy Windermere's Fan, which was okay; An Ideal Husband, which is decent, and The Importance of Being Ernest, which is deliciously funny. My only problem about that last one is that I have seen the film adaptation, and I cannot imagine the characters of Jack, Agly, and Lady Bracknell as anyone but Colin Firth, Rupert Everett, and Judi Dench (respectively). The collection wraps up with the narrative poem "The Ballad of Reading Gaol," which he wrote in prison towards the end of his short but flamboyant life. It's a good assortment of his work; I highly recommend this collection to anyone wanting to get to know Oscar Wilde better.

This book also gets bonus points for using the famous photograph of Wilde taken by Napoleon Sarony, which was the subject of a very famous copyright lawsuit that established that photographs could be copyrighted.

Danny the Champion of the World

by Roald Dahl

Roald Dahl has earned his place in the Pantheon of beloved authors for children and young adults. His whimsical books offer windows to fantastical worlds that appeal to adults just as much as they appeal to children. Dahl has been wildly popular during most of my lifetime, selling millions of copies and having several major feature films made from his novels, such as The Witches, Matilda, James and the Giant Peach, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I love those books, but my favorite Roald Dahl book has always been Danny the Champion of the World. I reread it over the weekend, and it's still great.

The book is told by a small boy who grows up with his father in a small gypsy wagon, working in his father's gas station and mechanic shop. Danny's father is an almost magical character, full of fantastic stories and fun idea, and Danny loves his father more than anything in the world. One night Danny discovers his father's darkest secret, which leads them to a new adventure that makes Danny the Champion of the World. I won't elaborate any more, because the journey is so much fun. Unlike many Dahl books, there isn't any actual magic involved. But the tone of the book is completely fantastical, because the marvelous father-son relationship that Danny has with his father is its own sort of magic.

For some reason Danny isn't as well-known as other Dahl books, but I recommend it to anyone.

Accelerando

by Charles Stross

I have a hard time describing Accelerando. It is sort of a cyberpunk extension of Web 2.0 principles to a vision of the future, and it is mostly confusing. That isn't to say that the book is bad, but it sprawls across four generations of characters and gets too drawn out for my taste. Charles Stross imagines that humanity is on the verge of "singularity," where computers and technology take on a life of their own and render humanity largely obsolete. Stross isn't the first one to imagine this concept, but he takes it one step further by juxtaposing the singularity concept with the Fermi Paradox. Enrico Fermi famously asked his colleagues that if there were multiple intelligent species in the galaxy, why couldn't we see any sign of them. In Stross's Accelerando world, the vast network of intelligences mostly stay at home because they are all intelligent programs living in vast computers powered by Dyson spheres, communicating through wormhole networks. The story haltingly follows several brilliant people who figure out how to contact alien species and escape irrelevance within our own solar system.

Accelerando is full of tech jargon -- Stross is a computer programmer -- and it is broken up into roughly nine different stories with the background of the technology singularity. It is fascinating at times, but I ultimately didn't enjoy it much. I actually started reading it back in 2005 and when I picked it up again last year I had to slog through the middle sections through sheer force of will.

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

by Doris Kearns Goodwin
I love history books that let the reader get to know some of the most fascinating characters in history. For that reason, I really enjoyed Team of Rivals. Not only does it explore the character and strategies of President Lincoln, it also explores the personalities and traits of some of the other great men of that generation.

When Lincoln was running for the presidency, he was the long-shot, darkhorse candidate. Most people thought William Henry Seward would easily get the nomination of the new Republican Party, and if not him, then Salmon Chase or Edward Bates. But Lincoln cleverly positioned himself, from the frontier of America, to swoop in and clinch the nomination when Seward faltered in the end. But that wouldn't be very remarkable, if he didn't immediately thereafter bring all of his former rivals into his cabinet. Some of them came kicking and screaming; others came out of a sense of duty; still others came because they saw a chance to grab the next presidential nomination. But in the end, they call came to respect and admire the man whom they initially thought was a simple, unrefined country lawyer.

Throughout the course of the book I came to appreciate the roles these men played during the crucial period of the American Civil War. I admired Secretary of State William Seward's selfless willingness to support the man who had the position Seward should have won. I appreciated the dogmatic hard work and gruff exterior of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton. I was impressed by Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles' transformation of the American Navy from a few dozen dilapidated ships to a modern superpower. I was somewhat disgusted by Secretary of the Treasury Salmon Chase's perpetual back-stabbing and self-righteousness as he tried (unsuccessfully) to outmaneuver Lincoln politically. And I was touched by the sacrifice of Attorney General Edward Bates as he was separated from his family and worked hard until he was over 70.

However, even though there are many great men and women with important roles in this period of American history, the book's view of the other men merely serves to reinforce the monolithic character of Lincoln himself. We usually think of him as Honest Abe, but that doesn't mean he was simple. He managed to cobble together an enormously talented cabinet during a time when traitors and Southern sympathizers literally threatened to tear the government and military apart. He played his rivals off each other and held together the newly formed Republican Party, which threatened to split at any moment. His unshakable faith in the Union and his own abilities was contagious, bolstering his cabinet members and the soldiers he repeatedly visited in the field. And his refusal to hold grudges diffused many situations and allowed him to win over many of his most bitter critics. As his formal rivals, who quickly became his colleagues and supporters, came to know Abraham Lincoln, they reached the same conclusion that I reached: that Lincoln was the best (and perhaps only) man to bring the country safely through that crisis. Doris Kearns Goodwin is a fine historical writer. She is obviously a Lincoln fan, and after reading Team of Rivals, I have to agree.

Midshipman's Hope

by David Feintuch
Midshipman's Hope is a military/sci-fi novel that does a good job creating a universe in which humans travel to and colonize other planets using spaceships the same way our ancestors used sailing vessels. Those ships carry cargo and passengers through the depths of space for months on end, and are manned by a crew of sailors and officers similar to the naval tradition. Feintuch tells the story of Nicholas Seafort, a young midshipman who becomes the senior officer on the ship after disasters and illness kill the captain and his lieutenants. He is forced to continue the voyage to the planet Hope as his duty as an officer, even though he feels he is unqualified to command.

Midshipman's Hope succeeds mainly through its frank portrayal of the self-doubts of its main character and narrator, as well as the interpersonal dynamics of a small ship alone in space. Even though the setting is in the future, the book gave me a hint as to what sailing the seas would have been like five hundred years ago. Like most science fiction books, the author engages in some amateur sociological predictions when he describes the government and the hierarchy of the military, but it generally contributes to the story rather than distract from it. By the end of the book it is clear that there is more to come (it is the first in a series), but there is still a fairly satisfying ending in which Seafort comes to grips with his own decisions and vanquishes a few personal demons. Midshipman's Hope is a very good science-fiction/military novel in the tradition, and an enjoyable read.