BOOK REPORT: The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

Title: The Name of the Wind 
           (Kingkiller Chronicles: Day 1)
Author: Patrick Rothfuss
Copyright Date: 2007

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars 
                    ( Entertaining )

Back-Cover Description

I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to Gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep.

You may have heard of me.

So begins the tale of Kvothe-from his childhood in a troupe of traveling players, to years spent as a near-feral orphan in a crime-riddled city, to his daringly brazen yet successful bid to enter a difficult and dangerous school of magic. In these pages you will come to know Kvothe as a notorious magician, an accomplished thief, a masterful musician, and an infamous assassin. But The Name Of The Wind is so much more-for the story it tells reveals the truth behind Kvothe's legend.

My Thoughts
The Name of the Wind was a very entertaining read; it is very well written and action packed. At first glance however, it blatantly follows the same hero's journey template that Star Wars and Harry Potter use.  Let's see if this sounds familiar: a young boy, Kvothe, who is very gifted in seemingly every way, encounters a life altering tragedy and is forced upon a path of justice.  But as the story evolves, the journey starts to veer off the beaten path.

What sets The Name of the Wind apart is that the Kvothe isn't necessarily a hero; or to be more precise, we don't know whether he is a hero or not. He could be one. This is a personal  vengeance and in this context, we don't know his quest is for the betterment of everyone or just himself.  His ire is directed against at an unknown enemy, but the spotty evidence points to a strange group who only exist in folk tales as the foe of a mighty kingdom long gone.   

His quest is quite a ride to go along with and takes some unexpected turns which is nice.  My only issue with it comes from Kvothe's knack at being great at EVERYTHING.  It can get a bit tiresome when it only takes him a few tries to master a new skill;  the movie version of the book will have quite a few montage scenes.   

I really liked this book and will definitely read the next in the series once it comes down to paperback prices.  I would recommend this book to anyone who wants a page-turning adventure that mixes the epic medieval scenery of Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth with the classic magical hero's journey we all know and love. 

BOOK REPORT: Neuromancer by William Gibson

Title: Neuromancer
Author:  William Gibson
Copyright Date:  1986

My Rating: 3 out of 5 stars ( ok )

Back-Cover Description
The edition I have doesn't have a back-cover description so I borrowed on from Amazon:

Here is the novel that started it all, launching the cyberpunk generation, and the first novel to win the holy trinity of science fiction: the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award and the Philip K. Dick Award. With Neuromancer, William Gibson introduced the world to cyberspace--and science fiction has never been the same. 

Case was the hottest computer cowboy cruising the information superhighway--jacking his consciousness into cyberspace, soaring through tactile lattices of data and logic, rustling encoded secrets for anyone with the money to buy his skills. Then he double-crossed the wrong people, who caught up with him in a big way--and burned the talent out of his brain, micron by micron. Banished from cyberspace, trapped in the meat of his physical body, Case courted death in the high-tech underworld. Until a shadowy conspiracy offered him a second chance--and a cure--for a price.... 

My Thoughts
When Neuromancer was released, it was something unique and different.  At least that's what I've been told.  Unfortunately, it is twenty-five years later and the genre has grown and matured since then.  

It was difficult for me to get engaged in Neuromancer.  I simply couldn't get my reading momentum going, and as a result, it took me a long time to finish.  I can trace this back to one simple reason.  I found William Gibson's writing style very difficult to deal with.  There wasn't a rhythm to the prose at all.  There were rambling sentences describing an action scene loaded with ambiguous pronouns. Cryptic incomplete sentences littered the pages.  I often found myself confused with what was going on in a scene and constantly having to go back to reread a few pages in an attempt to make some sense of what was going on. Most of the time I just gave up and pushed ahead hoping the loose strings would miraculously join together.  More often than not, the strings would finally come together later in the chapter, but I was usually annoyed by that point.

Once I got a bit more than halfway, I wised up to the fact that there was a comprehension phase-shift and I resigned myself to just be confused most of the time.  I just read the words as they were printed and gave up on trying to comprehend the story as it went and my reading pace and enjoyment picked up.

Looking back on Neuromancer, the basic story line wasn't bad at all, I just wish it was written better. Maybe if I read it when it was released, I would have received it with an open-mind and been wowed by cyberspace enough to ignore the writing. Or maybe it's just hard to go back to a classic in this genre, especially if you didn't catch it the first time around; I was ten so I missed that spaceship.  

BOOK REPORT: God Bless You, Dr Kavorkian by Kurt Vonnegut

Title: God Bless You, Dr Kavorkian 
Author:  Kurt Vonnegut
Copyright Date:  2011

My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars ( short )


Back-Cover Description
In twenty-one trips down the "the blue tunnel to the pearly gates" strapped to a gurney, Vonnegut interviews Sir Isaac Newton, Clarence Darrow, James Earl Ray, Eugene Debs, John Brown, Adolf Hitler, William Shakespeare, and Kilgore Trout, among others. What began as a series of ninety-second interludes for WNYC public radio evolved into this provocative collection of questions and answers about who and what we live for, and how much it all matters in the end.

My Thoughts
God Bless You was a very short read.  Each account of a "visit" with a deceased person at the pearly gates was approximately three pages. Some were amusing, others were inspiring, others left me wanting.   

I found the interviews with people I was not familiar more enjoyable that the ones from people I knew about.  I think this is partly due to my expectations going into the story.  It was easy for me to simply read the interview and enjoy Vonnegut's unique take on this individual's contribution to mankind if I didn't have an preconcieved notions going into the story.  For the interviews for people I knew about, I had questions I wanted for Vonnegut to ask and discuss and he rarely came close to those topics.

Overall this was an entertaining read.  At times it was a bit predicable in its themes, but Vonnegut's witty writing makes up for any lack of depth in several of the interviews.

The Big Finale: The year of the book...

My thirty-fifth year has come and gone. I've surpassed my goal of twenty-five books in a year and I am very pleased with how the the Olio Scholar project went. I read a variety of material and in the process changed my lifestyle, hopefully for the better. Reading is now an important part of my routine and looks to continue that way after this project fades away.

So what does my thirty-sixth year of life hold for the Olio Scholar project?

• I plan to keep reading, although I don't have a set goal for the number of books I want to read this year. However, if don't reach at least twenty I will probably be disappointed. And please, visit the recommendations page and tell me what I should read next!
• I plan on continuing the book reports. This blog shall continue to be my reading home; these reports are a good way to keep me motivated. However, If I do miss a book report every so often, don't criticize me too much.
• I also plan to write some short stories this year to see how that works out. I have bits and pieces of inspiration laying around; a character here, a theme there, but no concrete story lines yet. I am a bit nervous about this goal actually. Considering how much work I put into these reports, constantly editing new drafts until it is satisfactory, I can only imagine how many iterations the stories will go through. And who knows if I will let anyone actually read them.

But enough about next year, it's the time we've all been waiting for: The first annual Olio Scholar Awards!

Best Novel

• Winner: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
• Other Nominees:Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Huckleberry Finn is a classic in every sense of the word, Good Omens was one of the most clever and funny books I've recently read and Jane Eyre exceeded my expectations enough to be considered as a nominee. But when it comes down to it, this wasn't much of a competition. The Book Thief was an amazing book. There wasn't a day that went by for months after reading it in which I didn't think about this book.

Best Non-Fiction

• Winner: The Forgotten 500 by Gregory A. Freeman
• Other Nominees: The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester

I didn't read many non-fiction books during this year, but of the two that I did read, I enjoyed the The Forgotten 500 a bit more. I guess war stories are more engaging than stories about linguists.

Best Novella

• Winner: Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
• Other Nominees: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

In a surprising upset, Picture of Dorian Gray won out over A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. I rated the former four stars while the latter got a full five. However, in the voting, I found that A Christmas Carol has its appeal around Christmas. Reading it in July doesn't carry the same weight whereas Picture of Dorian Gray can be read all throughout the year and therefore got the nod.

Best New (to me) Author

• Winner: Neil Gaiman
• Other Nominees: Kazuo Ishiguro, M.T. Anderson, Markus Zusak, Pramoedya Ananta Toer

I thought Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett was a great book. Although the writing style is obviously Terry Pratchett, there is an edge to the story that his other stories didn't have. I was interested in seeing what Neil Gaiman's own books were like. I started to research which books I should read and found out three things: one, that his Sandman comic series got critical accolades from both the comic and non-comic critics, two, his books were wildly imaginative, with memorable characters and well written, and three, he has a very large cult following.  Well, after reading the entire Sandman series and The Graveyard book, I find myself part of the cult.  I will definitely be reading more of his books.  I also have him to thank for opening my eyes to the world of graphic novels.  I realize now that the comic book world is made up of more than just super heroes and damsels in distress.

Best Short Story

• Winner: "The Suicide Club" by Robert Louis Stevenson
• Other Nominees: "Markheim" by Robert Louis Stevenson, "Thrawn Janet" by Robert Louis Stevenson

All of the short stories I read this year were packaged as part of the Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde book. The Suicide Club was by far my favorite story line. It is actually three stories following a Prince visiting a suicide club for an adrenaline rush. All of the other stories just didn't have the entertainment value of that series and it made for an easy win in this category.  Please note, several of the individual Sandman comics could have been nominees in this category but I decided to keep each volume as an entity and not split them out.

Best Play

• Winner: "Waiting for Godot" by Samuel Beckett
• Other Nominees: None

I only read one play this year, so by default it is the winner.  Maybe next year there will be more potential nominees.

Best Graphic Novel 

• Winner: "The Sandman Vol 8: World's End" by Neil Gaiman
• Other Nominees: The Sandman Vol 3: Dream Country,The Sandman Vol 9: The Kindly Ones by Neil Gaiman

While I enjoyed most of the Sandman volumes, I really enjoyed the volumes which were collections of one-off stories.  Neil Gaiman's imagination really shined through in those particular comics. My favorite volume was World's End which was a collection inspired by Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. The World's End is a Tavern/Inn where travelers from all over, including Fairies, Pixies, Humans, Immortals, et al. have to wait for a reality storm caused by Dream's depression to clear. To pass the time, they tell absolutely fabulous stories; many of which have other stories nested within them. The whole World's End volume was a treat to read.

To wrap things up, here is a list of everything I've read for fun this year. I've ordered them by my rating and within each rating category, I've tried to sort them again.  However, it was very difficult to sort the remaining books as the criteria depends on what you are looking for in a book at any one time. For example, I have Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov rated as a four-star book, but also The Hot Rock by Donald Westlake. Would anyone say that The Hot Rock is at the same "level" as Lolita? No. But I was entertained by David Westlake's crime caper and thought that, for its genre, it deserved four stars.

Novels

1. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (5 stars)
2. Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (5 stars)
3. Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett (5 stars)
4. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (4.5 stars)
5. One Hundred Years of Solidtude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (4.5 stars)
6. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (4.5 stars)
7. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov (4 stars)
8. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (4 stars)
9. A Long Long Way By Sebastian Barry (4 stars)
10. Feed by M.T. Anderson (4 stars)
11. The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell (4 stars)
12. This Earth of Mankind by Pramoedya Ananta Toer (4 stars)
13. The Hot Rock by Donald E. Westlake (4 stars)
14. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (3.5 stars)
15. Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut (3.5 stars)
16. Life of Pi by Yann Martel (3.5 stars)
17. The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien (3.5 stars)
18. Animal Farm by George Orwell (3 stars)
19. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz By L Frank Baum (3 stars)
20. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo By Stieg Larsson (2 stars)
21. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain(2 stars)
22. At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien (2 stars)

Novellas

1. A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (5 stars)
2. The Cricket on the Hearth by Charles Dickens (4.5 stars)
3. Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (4 stars)
4. The Battle of Life by Charles Dickens (4 stars)
5. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson (3.5 stars)
6. The Haunted Man and the Ghost's Bargain by Charles Dickens (3.5 stars)
7. The Chimes by Charles Dickens (2 stars)

Short Stories

1. Lodging for the Night by Robert Louis Stevenson
2. The Suicide Club by Robert Louis Stevenson
3. Thrawn Janet by Robert Louis Stevenson
4. The Body Snatcher by Robert Louis Stevenson
5. Markheim by Robert Louis Stevenson

Non Fiction

1. The Forgotton 500 by Gregory A. Freeman (4 stars)
2. The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester (3 stars)

Graphic Novels

1. The Sandman Vol 1: Preludes and Nocturnes by Neil Gaiman
2. The Sandman Vol 2: The Doll's House by Neil Gaiman
3. The Sandman Vol 3: Dream Country by Neil Gaiman
4. The Sandman Vol 4: The Season of Mists by Neil Gaiman
5. The Sandman Vol 5: A Game of You by Neil Gaiman
6. The Sandman Vol 6: Fables and Reflections by Neil Gaiman
7. The Sandman Vol 7: Brief Lives by Neil Gaiman
8. The Sandman Vol 8: Worlds End by Neil Gaiman
9. The Sandman Vol 9: The Kindly Ones by Neil Gaiman
10. The Sandman Vol 10: The Wake by Neil Gaiman
11. The Sandman Vol 11: Endless Nights by Neil Gaiman

Plays

1. Waiting for Godot by Samual Beckett (3.5 stars)

BOOK REPORT: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Title: One Hundred Years of Solitude 
Author:  Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Copyright Date:  1967

My Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars ( epic )

Probably Garcia Marquez's finest and most famous work, One Hundred Years of Solitude tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendia family.  Inventive, amusing, magnetic, sad, alive with unforgettable men and women, and with a truth and understanding that strike the soul.  One Hundred Years of Solitude is a masterpiece of the art of fiction.

My Thoughts
I started to read One Hundred Years of Solitude on a whim. I picked it up while I was waiting for an evening meeting to start and I was engaged in the Buendia family immediately.  It wasn't until about a week later that I could start reading it however and during this hiatus, I found myself thinking about the book and where it might take me.

What I quickly found out was that Marquez was placing me in an epic tale that doesn't leave Macondo.  But it's the small details in this large story that make it so rich.  It is also the small details which make this an unexpectedly odd story. One Hundred Years of Solitude doesn't start out odd; the oddness evolves and grows throughout the book along with the town.  Just little things in the beginning really, a girl eating dirt here, a ghost there, maybe some blood flowing up hills on occasion. By the time I met the third generation of Beundias, nothing surprised me.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention the title. I usually associate solitude with loneliness and depression, but Marquez portrays solitude as a driving force in life. It is woven it into every character's life, whether they were happy, sad, popular or a wall-flower. Many seek solitude as a way to escape the hustle and bustle of everyday life, while others do anything they can to avoid it.

One Hundred Years of Solitude is a deep and complex story. I enjoyed it on my first read, but I rated it four and a half stars because I know there are elements that I missed. It is very possible that I will be able to up the rating to five-stars on my next read. 

GRAPHIC NOVEL REPORT: The Sandman by Neil Gaiman

I have a secret.

The twenty-eight books that I've read  this year are not the only things I've read.  I was sneaking in some other material.   "GASP!", you say.  "What could you be reading to keep it secret from the six people who follow your blog?"

I was cheating on my "word-books" with some comic books.  That's right, I read graphic novels.    I read the entire Sandman Series by Neil Gaiman.  You might remember Neil from such book reports as The Graveyard Book and Good Omens with Terry Pratchett. He is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors.

Neil's written hundreds of comics throughout the years, but his most famous comic series was The Sandman. It was a serial comic which ran monthly from 1988 to 1996 totaling seventy-five issues.

The Sandman series revolves around Morpheus, the King of Dreams.  Morpheus rules over everyone's dreams and is one of the seven 'Endless'.  They are not gods, they are older than them. The Endless are Destiny, Death, Dream, Destruction, Despair, Desire, and Delirium (who used to be Delight) 

Morpheus the Dream Lord

The series is broken up into ten graphic novels (over 2000 total pages!).    A couple of the graphic novels are a collection of one-off stories, but most of them are dedicated to one story-arc in the series.

• Preludes and Nocturnes 
• The Doll's House 
• Dream Country 
• Season of Mists 
• A Game of You 
• Fables and Reflections 
• Brief Lives 
• Worlds' End   <my personal favorite >
• The Kindly Ones 
• The Wake 

There is also bonus novel which came out in 2003 which dedicates one story to each of the Endless.

• Endless Nights

The series starts off when a rich eccentric recluse who doesn't want to die finds a way to summon the Endless and capture them.  Trying to live forever he summons Death, but gets Dream instead.  After eighty years, Dream finally escapes to find that he is weakened and his kingdom is crumbling.

After Dream gets his kingdom back in working order, the story line evolves away from Morpheus as the main character.  Instead, he takes a back seat to other characters and stories.  These comics show how much influence Dream has in our waking world.  Dream has been around from the beginning, behind only Destiny and Death and he has seen it all.  Love, hate, power and greed all start with a Dream.

I really enjoyed these comics.  There is an element of horror in the series (especially in the beginning), but each comic was infused with mythology and folklore. Some story lines were better than others obviously; there will be natural up's and down's to a series this long, but  Neil Gaiman is such a great story teller that the realm of Dreams really comes alive.  

The Sandman is proof that comics have evolved away from the standard super-hero/villain template from our childhood. These are deep stories with real character development.  After I finished this series, I started researching the genre a bit more.  There is a whole world out there of  well regarded, non-superman/batman comics out there that piqued my interest and I will definitely be adding them into my rotation.

BOOK REPORT: Waiting For Godot by Samuel Beckett

Title:            Waiting for Godot 
Author:        Samuel Beckett
Copyright Date:  1953

My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars ( ok )

Back-Cover Description
A seminal work of twentieth-century drama, Waiting for Godot was Samuel Beckett's first professionally produced play. It opened in Paris in 1953 at the tiny Left Back Theatre de Babylone, and has since become a cornerstone of twentieth-century theater.

The story line evolves around two seemingly homeless men waiting for someone --or something-- named Godot. Vladimir and Estragon wait near a tree on a barren stretch of road, inhabiting a drama spun from their own consciousness.  The result is a comical wordplay of poetry, dreamscapes, and nonsense, which has been interpreted as a somber summation of mankind's inexhaustible search for meaning. Beckett's language pioneered an expressionistic minimalism that captured the existentialism of post-World War II Europe. His play remains one of the most magical and beautiful allegories of out time. 

My Thoughts
If you want an example of a play in the 'Theater of the Absurd' style, look no further than Waiting for Godot.  It is a very simple play; just two guys hanging around a tree waiting for Godot to arrive.  Their conversations are playful, light, sometimes funny. But within the playfulness you can see the social commentary in between the lines.  The biggest problem I had with this play is that the characters were SO absurd that I couldn't care for them.  These men had absolutely no short term memory and their dialog was based on this instantaneous ignorance. They just kept going around in circles.  Every now and then, a few other characters would enter the scene to break the circle in their own weird way but even they don't remember events that occurred the previous day.  I couldn't take the absurdity and apply it to humanity and therefore the social commentary was lost on me.  

This isn't to say I wasn't entertained by the dialog, I just couldn't get everything Samuel Beckett wanted me to get out of it.  I saw it more as a literary Abbott and Costello routine.

It is obviously better to see a play acted out on stage with good actors; but if the play is good, reading it can be a somewhat adequate substitute. Shakespeare comes to mind.  I think Waiting for Godot needs to be seen to be truly appreciated.

BOOK REPORT: The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

Title:            The Things They Carried 
Author:         Tim O'Brien
Copyright Date:  1990

My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars ( good read)

Back-Cover Description
They carried malaria tablets, love letters, 28-pound mine detectors, dope, illustrated Bibles, each other. And, if they made it home alive, they carried unrelenting images of a nightmarish war that history is only beginning to absorb. Since its first publication, The Things They Carried has become an unparalleled Vietnam testament, a classic work of American literature, and a profound study of men at war that illuminates the capacity, and the limits, of the human heart and soul.

My Thoughts
The Things They Carried is a collection of short stories that tell of the author's time in Vietnam.  The odd thing about them is that they are fictional, but told as a direct memoir. Throughout the book, Tim O'Brien addresses the reader directly to talk about why he writes fictional stories about his experience during the war. He says that sometimes fiction is more truthful than the real thing. 

While this was a good book, The Things They Carried lacked the cohesion of the other war books I've read.  As I mentioned above, the author jumps back and forth between addressing the reader directly and addressing his memories.  Jumping back and forth between the two breaks up the flow of the book at times and seems redundant in certain occasions.  While most of the stories have a common thread that follows the natural passage of time in the war, you can tell that some of the stories were composed as separate entities, probably for different periodicals where one can't assume that the other ones have already been read. 

Like all good war stories, the reader is closely tied to the horrors, tension, boredom, solitude and camaraderie of war.  The stories revolve around the friendships formed and lost, and the soul searching which takes place everyday in a war zone.  The stories also touch on how a soldiers life is affected when returning from active combat; how you are never the same when you experience those horrors first hand. 

One of the more powerful stories for me actually takes place before Vietnam. It is about the author as a young man in a small Wisconsin town when he gets the dreaded draft letter.  He is forced to choose between possibly dying in a war that he didn't believe in and disappointing his family and community by running away across the Canadian border.  I honestly don't know what I would have done in his situation and I am glad I didn't have to make that choice. I also hope that Sims doesn't have to make it either when he gets to be draft age.

 I think I would have enjoyed it more not reading it cover to cover but by treating The Things They Carried as a magazine and spaced the readings out over a few months.  Each story is well written and deserves to be read in its own time.

BOOK REPORT: At Swim-Two-Birds by Flann O'Brien

Title:                     At Swim-Two-Birds
Author:                 Flann O'Brien
                              (aka Brian O'Nolan)
Copyright Date: 1939

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars (over my head)

Backcover Description
Along with one or two books by James Joyce, Flann O'Brien's At Swim-Two-Birds is the most famous (and infamous) of Irish novels published in the twentieth century.

A wildly comic send-up of Irish literature and culture, At Swim-Two-Birds is the story of a young, lazy and frequently drunk Irish college student who lives with his curmudgeonly uncle in Dublin. When not in bed (where he seems to spend most of his time) or reading, he is composing a mischief-filled novel about Dermont Trellis, a second-rate author whose characters ultimately rebel against him and seek vengeance.  From drugging him as he sleeps to dropping the ceiling on his head, these figures of Irish myth make Trellis pay dearly for his bad writing.

Hilariously funny and inventive, At Swim-Two-Birds has influenced generations of writers, opening up new possibilities for what can be done in fiction.  It is a true masterpiece of Irish literature

My Thoughts

I was really excited about reading this book.  It had all of the elements that, when used properly, can make for a really interesting read.  It had a very compelling structure (it is a great example of  meta-fiction); it was portrayed as wildly comic, and it was on several lists of recommended books.  Unfortunately, most of the humor was above my head, buried deep inside stories pulled from Irish folklore of which I was totally ignorant.

The structure of the book is great in theory.  Our unnamed narrator is a lazy college student who is writing a novel when not at a pub with his friends or sleeping.  His novel is about a lazy man, Dermont Trellis, who sits in bed all day writing bad novels. The characters he creates are just like real actors in that they play the role outlined in the script and when not a scene, they hang out like normal people do.  There are some American cowboys, there are several female leads, a few  villains, an Irish version of Puck from a Midsummer Night's Dream, and Finn McCool (Finn is a warrior of Ireland from long ago which folklore has turned into more hyperbole than human.), among others.  Some of characters fall in love, they play cards together, and otherwise sit around lamenting the work they must perform at the behest of Dermont. These characters get so fed up with the bad writing that they start to find ways to keep him asleep so they don't have worry about him writing.  Of course everything escalates to the point of the cast writing their own book making Dermont the actor in a play in which his character is dragged through a gauntlet of painful tortures.   It sounds pretty neat, huh?  Flann O'Brien does an excellent job making it easy to keep track of all of the nested layers, but as you will see below the content portrayed within these layers was just too foreign to me. 

Every time I told someone about this book, the first question was, "What does the title mean?"  Swim-Two-Birds is a ford on the River Shannon in Ireland where one of the mythical characters, King Sweeney, visits briefly.  This is the same ford that St. Patrick used to cross the river Shannon.  I don't know why it was important for St. Patrick to cross at this ford, but it is one of its claims to fame.

For those with intimate knowledge of Irish folklore, you know that King Sweeney, also known as "Mad Sweeney" is a Irish king of yore that was cursed by a bishop after Sweeney tried to kill him when the church bells woke him up one morning.   This curse turned Sweeney into an insane man-bird flying around all of Ireland for years until he was finally forgiven. Then he was killed by a spear.  Please, go ahead and read those sentences again.  This is just the beginning of how over-my-head this novel was.  I looked up Mad King Sweeney on Wikipedia just to get a context of the story being told but never really understood *why* it was being told.  

After a while I stopped trying to dig up every reference to Irish folklore and just pushed through it. Most of the humor was lost on me and I found myself unable to read the book for longer than twenty or thirty minutes before I would compulsively (sometimes mid-sentence) play a game on my phone, or just go to sleep.

At Swim-Two-Birds also changes style throughout the book. I counted at least seven distinct writing styles and there were probably more that I just didn't notice.  These styles are meant to parody other famous Irish novels and folktales. Unfortunately for me, I haven't read any of the source materials and this layer was lost on me.  I read several reviews of the book and the consensus was that if you are intimately familiar with these stories you can really see Flann's genius come through.  Oh, well.  I guess I need to take their word for it.

I was really hoping that I would like this book.  But, my ignorance of the minutiae of Irish folklore and literature kept me from completely immersing myself in the story.  I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone unless they could prove to me that they are very familiar with Irish literature. 

BOOK REPORT: Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Title:                            Jane Eyre
Author:                        Charlotte Bronte
Original Copyright :  1847

My Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars ( classic )


My Thoughts
A few years ago, I started reading Jane Eyre but didn't finish it. I got about twenty percent through before I had to put it down to focus on other things.  Up to that point, Jane Eyre didn't engage me; I found it verbose and dry.  Once I was finally able to make enough time to pick up the book again, I didn't have the motivation to re-familiarize myself with the characters and story line   As a result, the book sat on the shelf in my bedside table for a long time.

Now, fast-forward to last September when I started up the Olio Scholar project.  Jane Eyre was still sitting on the shelf haunting me. I knew that I wanted to finish it.  It was too high on most reading lists to be ignored.  Too many people I knew listed it as an all-time favorite.  I vowed that I would try to read it again as part of the project.  However, I saved Jane Eyre until I got close to my goal of 25 books in a year before I picked it up.  I figured it would take me a while to push through the approximate five-hundred pages my edition contained and I didn't want to have success hinging on it.

Jane Eyre definitely exceeded my expectations.  I was expecting a dry story about a strong woman in a man's world finding love similar to Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.  I expected it to be written in a dry, grammatically correct manner, providing insight into the human psyche with stuffy Victorian wit amid an oppressive social structure.  The language was definitely formal  but this wasn't the typical uptight British love story.  It is about a pious woman who desires a full life, with love simply being one piece.  This is one of the reasons that, in 1847, the book was controversial.  It was not a woman's place to be unsatisfied with her lot in life.  Her role was to marry as well as possible and then do everything she could to ensure the husband was well tended to.  

One thing I didn't expect the was the dark, Edgar-Allen Poe like undertones foreshadowed by the rookery looming over Thornfield Hall. I didn't expect the mysterious noises in the attic and unexplained fires.   I didn't expect the secrecy of Mr Rochester's staff.  I welcomed this dark layer as it added a depth to the story that kept me engaged.

One other thing that I noticed reading Jane Eyre.  I now know where J.K. Rowling got her inspiration for Harry Potter's upbringing; the parallels are undeniable.  Does this sound familiar? Jane's parents die and as an infant she is left at the door step of her aunt who promises to raise the child as her own, but instead treats her like dirt.  The children already in the household are pompous, rude brats who get everything they want and forever torment the new addition to the family.  The protagonist orphan is rescued from this domestic hell by going off to boarding school where she make a few friends and excels in her studies.  I wonder if the Bronte estate gets any of the money from the Harry Potter series?

I am glad I finished Jane Eyre.  It was an excellent book and It is easy to see why it is such a lasting story.  It still had its dry parts, don't get me wrong;  I said, "Get on with it!" on several occasions but I would recommend this book to anyone who wants a layered, well-written story.

The World Book Night Reading List

Hi Everyone!

I found a new book list! You know how I love these things; they are a great inspiration for future reading. I stumbled upon this list when I followed a link in twitter posted by Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself on twitter).  He was asked to contribute a list of his top-ten books of all time for the 2012 World Book Night event.  What I found was a great ever-evolving list of books that readers of all walks of life love.

The list:  http://worldbooknight.org/your-books/the-wbn-top-100-books

As of this writing, I've read twenty-nine of the books on the list with ten of them being read during this project. I've read six of the top-ten, and eight of the top-twelve. However, this number might change as more people weigh in with their favorites. It is important to note that this list is again UK centric as that is where the organizer is based so there is a lot of overlap with the "BBC" list I posted earlier. 

The project associated with the list is interesting.  From the website:

The first World Book Night was held in the UK in the spring of 2011 and saw 20,000 people give away 1 million specially printed books - 40,000 copies of 25 brilliant titles.

This site exists in order to celebrate books and to connect readers with one another. You can learn more about World Book Night itself, the 2011 books and authors, and connect with other passionate readers.

And most importantly, you can help us shape World Book Night 2012 by telling us your ten favourite books - the books you most love to read, give and share - to give them a chance to be featured in next year's list. Simply sign up or login and tell us what books really matter to you.

Each copy of the book given out is a special edition.  The publishers ask that anyone who reads one of these special versions to send them a note so they can see how the books travel throughout their life.  It would be interesting to know if a project like this could take off in the US.

Anyway, take a gander and chime in if you feel like it.  I'm still compiling my top-ten books.  I will post in the comments when my list is complete.  If you have a list, please share it with me!

BOOK REPORT: Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

Title:                          Cat's Cradle

Author:                       Kurt Vonnegut

Original Copyright :  1963

My Rating:     3.5 out of 5 stars  ( clever )

Back-Cover Description

Cat's Cradle is Kurt Vonnegut's satirical commentary on modern man and his madness.  An apocolyptic tale of this planet's ultimate fate, it features a midget as the protagonist, a complete, original theology created by a calypso singer, and a vision of the future that is at once blackly fatalistic and hilariously funny.  A book that left an indelible mark on the entire generation of readers, Cat's Cradle is one of the twentieth century's most important works -- and Vonnegut at his very best.

My Thoughts

Cat's Cradle is a story about the interesting ways people may naively affect the viability of their species long term existence told with the comic absurdity for which Vonnegut is known.

The story revolves around a free-lance writer who is researching the life of a scientist involved with the Manhattan project for a book he was writing about nuclear war.   Unbeknownst to all but a few members of his family, the scientist, before he died worked on one last, seemingly innocuous invention.  It was never intended as a weapon; the military just wanted a way to keep the marines from getting muddy in the field.  The project was never formally pursued, but the scientist, in his curiosity, worked on it during his spare time. This small insignificant invention it turned out, if mishandled, has the ability to destroy the world.  

When Cat's Cradle was published in 1963, the cold war was on everyone's mind.  It was all but certain that humans would destroy themselves at the hand of a large weapon (read: the Atomic bomb) which was developed solely for the intent of intimidation and destruction.  But Cat's Cradle puts forward the idea that the end could be brought on, not by a large explosion, but by something as small as a grain of sand which was developed more out of curiosity than malicious intent.  Adding to this plot line, Vonnegut weaves in a new religion called Bokonism which openly states that its canon is based in lies and a small banana republic in the Caribbean which changes governments more often than most people change their socks.  All of these layers complement each other very well and they build upon themselves in more and more outlandish ways throughout the book.

Cat's Cradle is a quick read that was extremely clever and  funny.  I didn't give it 4 stars just because it was such a short read and there were just a few ideas he could have expanded upon. On the whole, my  expectations were met and I would recommend this book to most anyone.

On a side note, I need to relay a story which happened whilst reading this book on a flight from Atlanta to San Francisco.  First, I read a chapter in Cat's Cradle  which chronicled the long twisting path a character follows to the small Caribbean island.  One step in his journey, during World War II, he was captured at sea by the Germans and forced to go fight the Partisans in Yugoslavia.  This was really weird in that I just finished reading  about the Partisan fighters in Yugoslavia in The Forgotten 500.  I wouldn't have known who the Partisans were unless I read that book.  I thought to myself, "This is neat, two books I've read are connected."  Then, about ten minutes later, I decided to take a break from reading and played the in-flight trivia game.  One of the questions was, "Which Author invented the religion 'Bokonism'."  Then I thought to myself, "Creepy..."

BOOK REPORT: The Forgotten 500 by Gregory A. Freeman

Title:                           The Forgotten 500

Author:                       Gregory A. Freeman

Original Copyright :  2007

My Rating:     4 out of 5 stars  ( fascinating )

Back-Cover Description

The Forgotten 500: The Untold Story of the Men Who Risked All For the Greatest Rescue Mission of World War II

Here is the astonishing never-before-told story of the greatest rescue mission of World War II -- When the OSS set out to recover more than five hundred airmen trapped behind enemy lines in Yugoslavia

During a bombing campaign over Romanian oil fields, hundreds of American airmen were shot down in Nazi-occupied Yugoslavia. Local Serbian farmers and peasants risked their own lives to give refuge to the soldiers while they waited for rescue, and in 1944, Operation Halyard was born. The risks were incredible. The starving Americans in Yugoslavia had to construct a landing strip large enough for C-47 cargo planes--without tools, without alerting the Germans, and without endangering the villagers.  And the cargo planes had to make it through enemy airspace and back without getting shot down themselves. 

Suppressed for more than half a century for political reasons, the full account of this unforgettable story of loyalty, self-sacrifice, and bravery is now being told for the first time ever.  The Forgotten 500 is the gripping behind-the-scenes look at the greatest escape of World War II.

My Thoughts

Shortly after the beginning of World War II, the royal family of Yugoslavia was forced to flee the country when the Nazi's took over in 1941.  The resistance movement which rallied together to fight this invasion fractured into two parties quickly afterwards.  The Pro-Royal Serbs under the guidance of General Milhailovich (the Chetnik's), and the Pro-Communist ( Partisans) under General Tito already looked past the German occupation to the new post-war government. By the middle of the war, the two sides took to fighting each other just as much as the Germans.  

The Forgotten 500 is a fascinating view into the logistical nightmare of a daring rescue mission to bring home hundreds of airmen in Nazi occupied mountainous terrain of politically unstable Yugoslavia.  

The book is roughly divided into four main parts. The beginning section gives the personal stories of several of the airmen who chose to fly a slow, behemoth of a plane across enemy territory.  It was interesting to learn what motivated and drove them to become pilots, tail gunners or the most dangerous of them all, the ball turret gunner. These brave men along with hundreds of others were tasked with bombing a major oil field in Romania and couldn't quite make it home. 

The second part tells the stories of the airmen post-bailout in the mountains of the what is now Serbia. The Chetniks saw the American soldiers as liberators and welcomed them with open arms.  They did everything they could to protect them, often at the risk of their own lives.  This section also outlines the back-story of the OSS, the predecessors to the CIA, and the people responsible for Operation Halyard.  One of the more interesting stories in this section is about the OSS officer who was the son of Yugoslavian immigrants; he was responsible for organizing the rescue mission.  For those who may decide to read this book, I won't spoil his interesting and serendipitous journey into the OSS, but I will tell you that someone who has that many close calls and chance meetings must be living right.

The third section goes into details about not only the Chetnik/Partisan conflict, but of the politics of allied British and American forces working "together" in the area fighting the Germans.  This was by far the most intriguing section of the book. The British were technically the lead force fighting the Germans in Yugoslavia.  The Americans were helping where they could but got their direction from good man Churchill.  The problem with this was that there was a communist double agent feeding the British misinformation.  The double-agent was saying that Milhailovich was secretly aiding the Germans and the Allies needed to support General Tito to make any progress in the area.  A rescue couldn't be attempted without British consent and they did everything they could to stall and hinder the mission as they saw it as aiding the enemy.

The final section is the aftermath of the rescue.  The troops were told to keep quiet about the rescue mission just in case any future rescues needed to be performed.  However, when the war did end,  the American soldiers were directed to not openly acknowledge the support given by Mihailovich for fear of upsetting the newly communist Yugoslavia, which was supported by the Russians. Shortly thereafter,  Mihailovich was executed for war crimes.  The role Mihailovich played in the resistance movement is still a contentious issue today and the many of the same dividing lines drawn in the sand during World War II were still fighting through the war in the Balkans during the 1990's which ended with the creation of Bosnia-Herzogovinia, Serbia, Croatia, and Montenegro.

The Forgotten 500 was very well written and thoroughly researched book which I would recommend to anyone who has an interest in non-fiction accounts of World-War II or military covert operations.