The Prosecution Rests

"The Prosecution Rests" is a collection of courtroom related short stories edited by Linda Fairstein. I love her Alex Cooper novels, but like most collections of short stories, this one had a few good ones, a few bad ones, but most were utterly forgettable. None really even stick out in my mind as brilliant. Why I keep reading short story collections is beyond me, other than maybe I'm a glutton for punishment :-) Even Fairstein's contribution was pretty lame. It also put me in the mood for some more Perry Mason, which could end up being very dangerous if I start rereading all of those again.

Paul Newman: A Life

"Paul Newman: a Life" by Shawn Levy was one of the best biographies I've read in a long time. I read another book by Levy a few years ago called "Rat Pack Confidential" about another one of my favorite guys, Frank Sinatra. I love how Levy doesn't make excuses: he mixes the good with the bad and tells it like it is, making his subjects seem less perfect and more real. And although the books are very well researched, they aren't dry--they read like really good fiction.

Battle Royale

One of the librarians I work with recommended this one to me. I saw the movie based on the book by Koushun Takami and loved it, so I had to read the book. "Battle Royale" takes place in an alternate world where Japan is under a restrictive government that has a program in which teenagers are forced to participate. A class is basically kidnapped and shipped off to a deserted island where they are issued weapons and given a certain amount of time to kill each other off. There is seemingly no way to escape, and all the kids are outfitted with collars that monitor them so if no one dies in a certain amount of time the collars blow up. It was wonderful how quickly the kids turned on each other and how some of them threw themselves enthusiastically into the idea of killing off their friends.

Hunting with Barracudas

Chris Snyder was Iris Burton's assistant for twenty years at the Iris Burton Talent Agency, which represented some of the brightest young stars in Hollywood: River and Joaquin Phoenix, Kirsten Dunst, Josh Hartnett, and many others. In "Hunting with Barracudas", Snyder basically complains about how awful life was with Burton all those years while never fully explaining why he kept working for her. He said a few times that she was "delightful" and had lots of great Hollywood stories, but all he relates is the bad stuff. I was left wondering why he didn't kill her in her sleep. I would have.

The Stupidest Angel

"The Stupidest Angel" by Christopher Moore is a Christmas tale featuring zombies. A rather stupid angel comes down to earth to perform a Christmas miracle: he must grant the wish of a child that could only come true with divine intervention. He finds a young boy who just witnessed the murder of a man dressed in a Santa Claus suit and tells the angel he wants Santa brought back to life. The angel accidentally sets loose a whole graveyard of the undead, zombies with a taste for brains, on the town's Christmas Eve party. There are some rather hilarious moments, but for the most part the characters are entirely too ridiculous for ever me to suspend disbelief, and I read Larry McMurtry! In the end it was funny but not something I'd add to my favorites list.

Where Did You Sleep Last Night?

"Where Did You Sleep Last Night?" by Danzy Senna was a very short (less than 200 pages) work about her very racially diverse family. Her father was black and Mexican (maybe, there remains doubts as to who his biological father was) and her mother was Boston royalty and could trace her ancestors all the way back to the Mayflower. I'm not 100% sure what this book was supposed to be about: if I knew any of these people, I suppose it would have been interesting, but since I don't it was kind of boring. She didn't go in depth at all into racial tensions in America in the 1960s, when her parents married, she didn't really explore what it was like for her, growing up biracial. I guess I was kind of hoping for something more like Bliss Broyard's "One Drop". At least it was a quick read.

Boy Alone

I was excited to read Karl Greenfeld's book on his autistic brother Noah, "Boy Alone". In my quest to read everything about autism, I still haven't found much on kids who were diagnosed before the current raging epidemic. Noah was diagnosed back in the early 1970s. It was well told, interesting, and full of the frustration Karl and his parents felt with the inadequate treatments, funding, and schooling that were available for Noah back then. I was really enjoying it, until about fifty pages to the end. Karl told how Noah started progressing: learning to finally speak, getting a real job, meeting a woman and falling in love, traveling on his own. It was so touching...and then Karl admits he made it all up. Noah never did really learn to speak, nor could he really live on his own. He never got a job, never fell in love. I was so angry, I felt cheated. Either write nonfiction or write fiction, whatever, I don't care, but don't toy with your readers like that. It was just wrong. I understood his point: that he and his family and his brother have all been cheated, gotten their hopes up only to have them dashed, etc. I still didn't like it, and had a really hard time finishing the book. I wanted to throw it out the window, but it belongs to the library :-)

Handle With Care

I've always wanted to read a book by Jodi Picoult, since I've heard such good things about her. I bought "My Sister's Keeper" years ago and still haven't gotten around to reading it. I'd like to try to before I see the movie. Anyway, I did read "Handle with Care", her latest, involving a young girl born with brittle bone disease, or osteogenisis imperfecta. Her parents decide to sue her mother's obstetrician (who also happens to be her best friend) for medical malpractice since she didn't diagnose the disease earlier while Willow was in utero so Charlotte could have terminated the pregnancy. This book had a lot going on in it, and it was very good, but the ending left me feeling cold, I don't know. I'm not 100% sure how I feel about this book, which I guess is a hallmark of good writing, if it makes you ponder it after you've finished it.

A Daughter's Love

"A Daughter's Love" by John Guy was a touching account of King Henry VIII's most beloved and trusted adviser, Sir Thomas More, and his daughter, Margaret, known as Meg. More was in Henry's inner circle and led a charmed life until he refused to acknowledge Anne Boleyn as Queen over Katharine of Aragon. Poor Thomas was sent to the Tower and executed. Meg spent the rest of her life committed to preserving her father's memory and succeeded well. It's largely because of her efforts that Henry wasn't able to wipe away all memory of More (well, that and his great work "Utopia"). It gave a very accurate and interesting portrayal of what life was like in the 1500s in England under the reign of Henry.

Driving Like Crazy

Humorist P.J. O'Rourke compiles a list of articles he's written over the years on driving and his love of cars in "Driving Like Crazy". It was funny and timely, and I enjoyed it. Real men who jury-rig cars and race in Baja, drive beaters that are held together with duct tape...ah! I wish there were more men like him in the world.

Bad Cop

"Bad Cop" by Paul Bacon was pretty funny, if not a bit scary to think that there are other cops out there with the same attitude as him toward police work. A Manhattan resident, after 9/11 the liberal Bacon feels a need to help serve his fellow New Yorkers and with no other viable job prospects, joins the NYPD. He served for three years as a patrol cop, learning ways around the quota system (which technically doesn't exist), writing tickets and making arrests he didn't feel were warranted. He finally quit when he realized the female officer he lusted after had no interest in ever going out with him, and now teaches scuba diving in Hawaii. A much safer place for him to be than trying control crime on the streets of New York.