Mumble Herder

Books 1-10.
Books 11-20.
Books 21-30.
Books 31-40.
Books 41-50.
Books 51-60.
Books 61-70.
Books 71-80.
Books 81-90.
91. The Non-Adventures of Wonderella: Everybody Ever Forever by Justin Pierce.
92. Hide and Seek by Ian Rankin.
93. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach.
94. Strip Jack by Ian Rankin.
95. Wizard of the Crow by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o.
96. Gingerbread by Rachel Cohn.

97. Seize the Time: The Story of the Black Panther Party and Huey P. Newton by Bobby Seale. As some of you have likely realized by now, the political far left of the late 1960s and early 1970s is sort of an obsession of mine. (The reason for this is not something I can pinpoint easily. If anyone cares enough to ask about it I'll try to articulate it in another post.) In most of my reading about the period to date, though, the Black Panthers have been peripheral--they seem to have been figures of awe to members of other movements like the Weather Underground, and figures of terror to law enforcement and mainstream politics. This inside account is best and most detailed when talking about the genesis of the party, though filtered through Seale's obvious hero-worship of Huey Newton. (The two later had a falling out.) As the life-cycle of the party accelerates Seale tends to leave out some details of their activities, but manages to give vivid accounts of certain episodes. For example, he barely mentions the many speaking engagements he had in 1967-9, and omits almost entirely any account of the events surrounding the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago; and yet his account of his arrest and extradition for the trial of the Chicago 8, and his subsequent mistreatment at the behest of Judge Julius Hoffman, are vivid enough that I was moved to tears of rage. I was also struck by the Panthers' stand against what they perceived as the black racism of other groups, and how much of their early activities were centered around their insistence upon their right to peaceably bear arms, and how skillfully they were able to, for a time, stave off police harassment by adhering to the letter of the law. (Also apparently the universe is trying to tell me to read Frantz Fanon, whom I don't think I'd even heard of before I read Wizard of the Crow.)

Books 1-10.
Books 11-20.
Books 21-30.
Books 31-40.
Books 41-50.
Books 51-60.
Books 61-70.
Books 71-80.
Books 81-90.
91. The Non-Adventures of Wonderella: Everybody Ever Forever by Justin Pierce.
92. Hide and Seek by Ian Rankin.
93. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach.
94. Strip Jack by Ian Rankin.

95. Wizard of the Crow by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o. Over-the-top (in the best way) allegorical epic about an African dictatorship based on Daniel arap Moi's presidency in Kenya--Ngũgĩ was imprisoned by Moi and then forced into exile for his political writings. You might expect a man who went through that (and more) to write a bleak and angry book, but that's not what Wizard of the Crow turns out to be. It follows the fortunes of the Ruler of the Free Republic of Abruria and his ministers, as well as the much less influential (at first) man and woman who share the identity of the Wizard himself/herself/itself. There is magic, or at least the unexplained, at work throughout this book; this is reflected in the magical thinking engaged in by Abruria's leaders, whose intrigues are driven in equal parts by paranoia and superstition. Ngũgĩ handles a large cast skillfully, often building suspense by starting after things have changed and only explaining how after moving the narrative forward for some distance. Darkly funny, on the edge of satirical, but with a surprisingly hopeful feel.

Books 1-10.
Books 11-20.
Books 21-30.
Books 31-40.
Books 41-50.
Books 51-60.
Books 61-70.
Books 71-80.
Books 81-90.
91. The Non-Adventures of Wonderella: Everybody Ever Forever by Justin Pierce.
92. Hide and Seek by Ian Rankin.

93. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach. Highly hyped popular science book which is neither as interesting or as amusing as it thinks it is. Maybe I'm cranky, but I can't help feeling that if Roach had spent more time researching and less time trying to come up with quips, this might have been a better book. It's interesting at times--almost despite itself--and certainly there's a gross-out factor. Also, reading this book has made me uncomfortably aware of the fragility of my aorta, which I'm so grateful for. But while Roach's humor might play well at cocktail parties, on the page it's pretty weak.

Books 1-10.
Books 11-20.
Books 21-30.
Books 31-40.
Books 41-50.
Books 51-60.
Books 61-70.
Books 71-80.
Books 81-90.

91. The Non-Adventures of Wonderella: Everybody Ever Forever by Justin Pierce. Justin did not put his name on the cover of this book, which I guess means I could just say I wrote it and hope nobody looked at the spine. Where's my black Sharpie? Anyway, if you're a comics fan, Wonderella is sublime; it's like Curb Your Enthusiasm meets The Tick. Or something. Superheroines Behaving Badly, with swears. Go read some if you don't believe me.

Books 1-10.
Books 11-20.
Books 21-30.
Books 31-40.
Books 41-50.
Books 51-60.
Books 61-70.
Books 71-80.
81. Elektra: Assassin by Frank Miller and Bill Sienkiewicz.
82. Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes From the American Indie Underground 1981-1991 by Michael Azerrad.
83. The Dakota or Sioux in Minnesota As They Were in 1834 by Samuel W. Pond.
84. The Last American Man by Elizabeth Gilbert.
85. The Flight of Red Bird: The Life of Zitkala-Sa by Doreen Rappaport.
86. Count Geiger's Blues by Michael Bishop.
87. The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness.
88. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.

89. Heart of Veridon by Tim Akers. So I know Tim; we were in the same crit group back in Chicago. This is his first novel (released today!), though you may have read some of his Veridon stories in Interzone or The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction. What stands out about Heart of Veridon is the world-building. Some have referred to it as steampunk, but it might more correctly be called clockpunk or gearpunk (assuming that the endless iteration of -punk subgenres doesn't make you crazy). What's great about what Tim's set up is that it's not just the city that runs on torque, but also some of the people; it's not just tech, it's biotech. (Well, OK, it's basically magic, but I'm not going to get hung up on that.) Jacob Burn, born to one of the ruling families of Veridon, is a Pilot, implanted with foetal metal which forms according to a template--except that there's something non-standard about Jacob's mechanical heart, and his first flight was a disaster. Since then he's become a low-level criminal, exploiting his contacts among the city's upper classes on behalf of Valentine, a more-metal-than-flesh crimelord. The book favors a hard-boiled tone; Jacob is tough, sometimes cruel, and seemingly indestructible. When a weird artifact falls into his hands, he finds himself on the run from pretty much everyone, including an apparently unkillable clockwork angel. There are some pacing issues, and there were times I wished Jacob was a little smarter, but the avalanche of revelations about Veridon and Jacob and the motivations of the various players really worked for me. Think Marlowe goes to clock city, with dueling theocracies. This is supposed to be the first of three books; I'm looking forward to the next.

Books 1-10.
Books 11-20.
Books 21-30.
Books 31-40.
Books 41-50.
Books 51-60.
Books 61-70.
Books 71-80.
81. Elektra: Assassin by Frank Miller and Bill Sienkiewicz.
82. Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes From the American Indie Underground 1981-1991 by Michael Azerrad.
83. The Dakota or Sioux in Minnesota As They Were in 1834 by Samuel W. Pond.
84. The Last American Man by Elizabeth Gilbert.
85. The Flight of Red Bird: The Life of Zitkala-Sa by Doreen Rappaport.
86. Count Geiger's Blues by Michael Bishop.

87. The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness. Occasionally I have the experience of reading something and wavering about how I feel about it all the way through, until I finish it and realize I hated it. That was basically my experience of this book. What it is: the story of Todd, a boy on a sparsely colonized planet of religious pilgrims. What's odd about the planet is that men and animals broadcast their thoughts more-or-less uncontrollably, the result--or so Todd is told--of a biological weapon employed by the indigenous alien population, a plague which also killed all the women on the planet. But there is a lot going on that Todd isn't being told, as he learns when he and his dog Manchee (who also "talks") discover something in the swamp that shouldn't be there and are forced to flee into the wider world. There are things to like here. The relationship between Manchee and Todd is great, and is a large part of what gives the book a killer opening. And there is a nicely done unfolding of the truth of what's going on that forces Todd's coming-of-age. But there's a lot of dithering, pace-wise, particularly in the beginning, and an anti-violence message which is clouded by not just the violent acts but the stiflingly violent atmosphere of the book; in many scenes it reads more like an action movie than the story about maturation and rapprochement it's reaching for. Ness offers hope only to continually stamp it out, and--particularly in the book's cliffhanger, just-in-case-you-didn't-realize-it-was-a-trilogy ending--ultimately the book feels almost nihilistic. Yuck.

Books 1-10.
Books 11-20.
Books 21-30.
Books 31-40.
Books 41-50.
Books 51-60.
Books 61-70.
Books 71-80.
81. Elektra: Assassin by Frank Miller and Bill Sienkiewicz.
82. Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes From the American Indie Underground 1981-1991 by Michael Azerrad.
83. The Dakota or Sioux in Minnesota As They Were in 1834 by Samuel W. Pond.
84. The Last American Man by Elizabeth Gilbert.

85. The Flight of Red Bird: The Life of Zitkala-Sa by Doreen Rappaport. Biography--much of it reconstructed through the subject's own writings--of the Native American writer and political activist who lived from 1876-1938. Born on the Yankton Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, Zitkala-Sa (born Gertrude Simmons) was taken from her mother at the age of eight to be educated at a Quaker Mission School in Indiana. This was part of efforts to forcibly integrate the Native American population by removing children from their cultural and familial context, taking away their culture and replacing it with something like the mainstream. Much of the treatment that Rappaport and Zitkala-Sa describe is horrific and/or abusive. In later years Sa became a political activist, fighting for the rights of Native Americans through the National Council of American Indians (which she founded) and through her writing.

Books 1-10.
Books 11-20.
Books 21-30.
Books 31-40.
Books 41-50.
Books 51-60.
Books 61-70.
Books 71-80.
81. Elektra: Assassin by Frank Miller and Bill Sienkiewicz.
82. Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes From the American Indie Underground 1981-1991 by Michael Azerrad.

83. The Dakota or Sioux in Minnesota As They Were in 1834 (also published as Dakota Life in the Upper Midwest) by Samuel W. Pond. Is what it claims to be: an account of the society and lifestyle of the Mdewakanton Sioux in Minnesota before their world was irrevocably changed. Pond was a missionary, and his account is colored by that, but not as much as I expected. Pond states his goal as that of preserving an account of a people whose way of life is being lost, but oddly, there are times when he dismisses certain details as unworthy of inclusion because they are so widely known; this weird combination of foresight and thoughtlessness is puzzling. Still, given the dearth of material on the Mdewakanton around this period, this is one of the better references I've come across so far.

Books 1-10.
Books 11-20.
Books 21-30.
Books 31-40.
Books 41-50.
Books 51-60.
Books 61-70.
Books 71-80.

81. Elektra: Assassin by Frank Miller and Bill Sienkiewicz (Re-read). It occurred to me as I was re-reading this (a process that was much interrupted) that, while I don't re-read novels much, I re-read comics often. Usually they're by Alan Moore and Grant Morrison and such, though, so I'm not sure they qualify as comfort reading--anyway. I don't re-read Miller all that much, particularly since his recent flowering into full-blown crazy. But Elektra will always have the added resonance of Sienkiewicz's art, and Sienkiewicz is like unto a god as far as I'm concerned. I confess that sometimes when I read comics I barely look at the art--it registers peripherally, enough that I see what's going on, but I focus on words. In part this is a comment on the unremarkable nature of most comic art, in part (I fear) a deficiency in me as a reader. With Sienkiewicz I have never had this problem, and Elektra is one of his finest achievements. Storywise, it succeeds mostly by virtue of going as far over the top as possible, piling on the paranoia and the ultraviolence until it becomes sublimely ridiculous. Lucky it has that going for it, because thematically it's an early echo (not to say retread) of many of Miller's pet obsessions: power as corrupter (particularly of apparently well-meaning liberal politicians), woman as manipulator, evil as disease. It's largely due to the art that Elektra manages to transcend all that and attain classic status.

Books 1-10.
Books 11-20.
Books 21-30.
Books 31-40.
Books 41-50.
Books 51-60.
Books 61-70.
71. The Elephant's Secret Sense by Caitlin O'Connell.
72. Bloom County Babylon: Five Years of Basic Naughtiness by Berke Breathed.
73. Moon Called by Patricia Briggs.
74. The End of the Story: The Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith, Volume 1 by Clark Ashton Smith.
75. Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fannie Flagg.
76. Hmong Means Free: Life in Laos and America by Sucheng Chan.
77. Dungeon: Zenith Volume 3: Back In Style by Joann Sfar, Lewis Trondheim, and Boulet.
78. Watchmen: Absolute Edition by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.

79. Assata: An Autobiography by Assata Shakur. Shakur's own account of her life, from growing up in New York City to her politicization and involvement with sixties radicalism, to life underground and her incarceration after being charged with multiple crimes--for most of which she was never convicted. A member of the Black Panter Party and the Black Liberation Army, Shakur talks passionately about the class and race oppression she witnessed and experiences, but she does omit certain incidents and details; her marriage is covered in a single paragraph, and the 1973 shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike where she was captured is never covered in any detail. Similarly, her life underground and her escape are little discussed. These lacunae are understandable, at least in part, as an effort to avoid incriminating others who may have been aiding her; at a couple of points, though, I wished for her to address the charges against her, at least, with a bit more directness. Still, this is a well-written memoir, chronicling some truly appalling treatment by the justice system. Currently Shakur is classified as a domestic terrorist, with a $1 million reward for her capture. Given the evidence (Assata sustained a gunshot wound during the Turnpike shootout--the medical evidence is such that she could only have been sitting, with her hands raised, when that happened), that's simply ridiculous. To learn more about Assata check out her Wikipedia entry or her website.