What I'm Reading: A Journey to Self-Publishing

A Journey to Self-Publishing is another one by a member of the Writers of Chantilly.  The author here is Kalyani Kurup, who gives us a brief (five chapters) but charming memoir of her experiences as a writer and her misadventures in the publishing world in India and the United States.

I can definitely recommend this book to other authors, especially those considering the alternative world of self-publishing.  Writers will find a lot of useful lessons on dealing with publishers and free-lance employers, as well as the occasional pointer on improving one's writing style. Some non-writers may find it to be a lot of shoptalk, but I think others will appreciate how well she laces her story with self-deprecating humor and careful observations of the people she meets.  I especially love her story of a lengthy search for a certain address in Bangalore, accompanied by the world's worst-oriented auto-rickshaw driver.

I might also add that despite her frequent protestations in the text to the contrary, Ms. Kurup's English is impeccable! Her prose style is elegant and tasteful, a little like one of those Bangalore gardens she must have seen that day--perhaps more flowers and ornamentation than are strictly necessary, but all directed towards the end of creating a beautiful, well-tended place for relaxation and edification.

What I'm Reading: Red Flag Warning

A couple years ago somebody got me the book The Big Burn by Timothy Egan, because the person knew "I like history books."  At first this seemed like a terrible choice.  Sure, I like history, but a book about a forest fire in Idaho a century ago, in the early days of the Forest Service and the National Parks System?  Sounded like a snoozer.  But how wrong I was!  The Big Burn was so well-written, so tense and dramatic, that I easily count it among one of the best history books I've ever read.

It was with that in mind that I turned to fellow Writer of Chantilly Melanie Florence.  One of my writing/reading goals for this year is to read something by all the WoC writers with books out, and her recently self-published book, Red Flag Warning, claims on its cover to "showcase the realities of wildfires in our western forests today."  This seemed like it might be a good fictional companion to the Big Burn.  And it is!

There are really three layers of story interest: First, a murder mystery.  Our heroine, Sophia, works on a Forest Service field crew as a botanist.  One of the other women on the field crew, a soil expert named Jackie, is resented among other crew members for her laziness and drinking on the job.  But when she turns up dead from poisoning on one of their work sites, suspicion centers on the crew members--especially Sophia, with whom she had recently clashed.

Two, the story takes place against the backdrop of a series of wide-ranging forest fires in eastern Oregon.  It's mid-summer, and this area of Oregon has suffered seven years of drought.  Huge, acreage-destroying fires flare up with the flick of a cigarette butt or a spark from a metal tool.  Sophia's husband, Gerald, works on a fire crew and puts his life in danger with every new conflagration.  Not surprisingly, as she works in the woods, the threat of fire is ever-present for Sophia herself, as well. The plot points and descriptions here are comparable to the Big Burn.

Finally, the book gives us fascinating descriptions of Sophia's life as a botanist on a field crew for the Forest Service. I had never previously known or really thought about a job like this, but the book gives us a realistic portrayal of what such a position entails, working the details in organically with the rest of the plot.  This actually turned out to be probably my favorite part, as it's always fun to see other people's jobs.

The book could be classified as a "cozy mystery" but it ratchets up the tension and drama effectively by the end.  Melanie knows what she's doing and after a somewhat slow start, Red Flag Warning becomes a page-turner by about halfway through.  If I have one complaint, it's that there were two many characters.  I believe for verisimilitude's sake, she made Sophia's field crew the size of a real field crew.  However, many of these characters blended into one another, especially the guys: Randy, Butch, and Aaron.  I think it would have been more effective if these three had been condensed to one or two more sharply-drawn characters.

All in all, an entertaining book that I think cozy mystery fans would enjoy, and would also interest anyone who likes the Big Burn and wants to learn more about the phenomenon of Western wildfires.

My 2014 Writing Resolutions

Okay, obviously I'm a little bit behind.  Well, I did actually write these on 1 January, I just haven't gotten around to posting them until now.

1) Maintain blog.  Hmm, I seem to have fallen a little bit behind on this.  This post is a good start, though!

2A) Finish reading current novel at the bi-weekly Writers of Chantilly meetings.  I'm on my way, I read a chapter per session and I have four left, I think.  So about two months.

2B) Find a beta reader for current novel.  Not sure if I really need to do this or not, but I do have someone in mind.

2C) Finish all edits on current novel.  This will come a little later in the process

2D) Send to agents, possibly by April 2014.  That's an ambitious target, we'll see.

3) Finish short story for Writers of Chantilly "Unfinished Business" anthology.  COMPLETE!

4) Read (and blog on, and comment on Amazon) a recent book by all other Writers of Chantilly members who have recently published.  I'm reading one now, Red Flag Warning, by Melanie Florence.  Of course I'll review it here when I'm done.  Not sure if I actually can get to everybody this year, but I intend to hit as many as I can.

5) Decide on next long project.  A sequel to my current novel, or something else?

What I've Been Reading: The Wonder of Girls

The Wonder of Girls, by Michael Gurian, is a companion book to one I read a couple years ago, The Wonder of Boys.  The two books attempt to fill a gap in how our society understands the minds and behavior of girls and boys, which Gurian sees as overly informed by psychology and sociology.  Not that he discounts those fields, but he feels not enough attention is paid to the roles of biology, hormones, and the natural progression of children through the lifecycle.  One interesting feature is that he uses fairy tales and traditional stories to illustrate his points, based on the belief that these stories tell essential, age-old truths about raising children that modern methods overlook.

I could be remembering wrong, but I believe there were more stories in the WoB.  The WoG uses two stories--Cinderella, and a fairy tale from aboriginal Australia--but the focus here seems to be more on hormones, and how a lot of natural hormone-influenced behavior in girls is misunderstood.  In particular, Gurian thinks we pay too much attention to girls' self-esteem.  His point is that teen-agers, and girls especially, naturally have low self-esteem as they make mistakes that are an inevitable part of growing up, and as they are exposed for the first time to the monthly hormonal cycle of a grown woman.  Only by learning from their mistakes, and experiencing the the normal ebb and flow of monthly hormonal and emotional cycles over time, can girls gain true self-respect.  Efforts to raise self-esteem through empty praise or mindless recognition ceremonies do little to improve a girl's genuine opinion of herself.

He also describes his and his wife's disillusionment with the feminist views they had when they were younger now that they are dealing with their own daughters.  He finds that the view of feminists from the sixties to eighties that differences in girls and boys are nearly all socially-created, and that the solution is for women to empower themselves in the workplace and on campus, to be...not wrong, but incomplete.  Rather, in his own daughters and the girls in his practice, he sees a biological need to connect with others and nurture that boys don't have to the same extent, but that girls must have to feel emotionally complete.  For raising children, he proposes an alternative to feminism he calls womanism, that holds women should have the same opportunities as men in work and education, while acknowledging that many women will find more fulfillment in raising children, caring for those in the community, and maintaining family and friendship bonds than in careerism.

I was surprised at how much practical advice he offers for a book that in some ways takes a fairly high-level view of child-raising.  He offers firm guidance on such issues as exposure to television and the media, spanking, offering affection, helping children manage peer relationships, and other topics.  A lot of it is more teen-focused than on younger children like my daughter, but I found it helpful.

I also found him highly credible, both because he offers so many examples from his own family counseling practice, but also because he so often takes a well-reasoned, middle-of-the-road approach.  The ideas of his on feminism that I mentioned above are a good example--he finds much to recommend feminist approaches to child-rearing, but wants to make them part of a more inclusive method that incorporates knowledge from many fields.  The use of age-old stories illustrates and deepens his insights, and also make some fairly dry material more fun to read.  I can definitely recommend this book to those parents looking for a general, non-ideological parenting book, though those with children having specific special needs will need to look elsewhere.

What I've Been Eating: Sisters Thai

Alas, I have not been a good blogger this month!  And I have stuff to post, too--reading and writing goals for the New Year, book reviews, etc.  I'll get to them another day.  For tonight, I'd like to extol my favorite restaurant: Sisters Thai, on University Avenue in Fairfax, VA.

Sisters Thai is an easy three-block walk from our house.  It opened last spring, and we've eaten there probably half a dozen times since then.  I've had places before where I've liked eating, but this is the first time I've ever absolutely fallen in love with a restaurant.  The best word to describe it is cozy.  Delicious works too, unpretentious might not be out of line, but cozy is the most apropos.  I'm not sure if it's the way they knew us by our second visit; or because I've never had a bad meal there; or because the sauvignon blanc is just perfectly sweet and tangy to match with spicy food; or the way people draw little pictures and write quotes in the blank spaces on the menu; or the way each table gives you a different view of the full bookshelves, Thai artwork, toys, and photos decorating the place; or the way the staff is extremely friendly but just a little bit inattentive--not so much as to annoy, but enough to allow for conversation; or just the whole laid back vibe of the place.

So tonight when we arrived (just Lee and me, the kids are at a Tae Kwon Do parents-night-out party), it was Friday night and we hadn't made reservations so we sat at the bar for a while.  The owner of the place, a charming and disarmingly cheerful lady, came over and chatted us up for a few minutes (!), remembered that we have two kids (!!), and brought us our wine and frozen green tea slush herself (!!!).  We had also realized since our last visit that the Thai menus decorating the wall are actual menus, different than the normal menus they bring you, with a list of Thai street food options.  So as many times as we've been here, and there are still options we don't even know about!  I had roasted duck on rice, and Lee chicken soup with rice noodles.  Nothing fancy, but everything is so good!  A perfect balance of food, atmosphere, and service, and all done so joyously you don't realize until afterwards how much work must have gone into it.  Quite reasonably priced, too--not cheap, but the bill always seems to be a little under what I expected.  If you find yourself in Fairfax at some point, I highly recommend a visit to Sisters Thai.

What I'm Reading: Roundup

Another round-up, this one covering my family's recent car trip from Virginia to Oklahoma, and back.  As you might imagine, we listened to a lot of audiobooks, and I got in some reading too.

Sandman, Vol. 6: Fables and Reflections: Now this is more like it.  In my review a couple weeks ago, I found Volume 5 of this graphic novel series to be my least favorite of Sandman.  Volume 6 collects several one-issue tales, reading like a collection of short stories, and I found this volume to be much more entertaining.  As always, the tales involve the Sandman, also known as Morpheus, or Dream. This is the guy who visits you at night and gives you all those stories in your head. He is the king of the Dreaming, a land made up of all the various nighttime places we go to and people and creatures we see there.

Most of the stories here have a mythological bent, placing Morpheus into familiar stories but giving them a twist.  We read the tale of Orpheus visiting the underworld, Baghdad during the time of the Arabian Nights, Revolutionary France, and Imperial Russia, among others.  I think my favorite story was August, about the Roman emperor Augustus in his final days.  He decides for one day to disguise himself as a beggar and sit in the streets of Rome with a companion, a dwarf and actor named Lycius.  Lycius wonders why Augustus would debase himself so, and the reader learns at the end what has driven Augustus to this.  Not surprisingly, Morpheus had something to do with it, although I won't give away what.

Ruins of Gorlan: This is the first novel in the Ranger's Apprentice YA fantasy series.  This is one of my eight-year old son's favorite books, so I was interested to hear the audio version on our trip.  Alas, I wasn't so impressed as my son.

The series follows Will, an orphaned teenager who has been taken on as an apprentice by the ranger Halt.  Halt teaches his young charge the ways of the Ranger order: tracking, knife-throwing, moving silently, etc.  I think my son enjoys the high adventure of the series, and the clear and detailed battle scenes.  I was more intrigued by the setting of the book, which seems to be a lightly fictionalized northern England during the Middle Ages, with references to a people like the Scottish to the north, and something very like Viking raids on the coastline.

However, I found the thing pretty dull, overall.  The plot was generic, the dialogue strictly what was necessary to advance the action, and the writing style, while clear, had no special tone or wit.  It lacked the drama of better-written fantasy, say The Hobbit or any of a hundred others.  This series is one I don't especially care to re-visit.

The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place:  Another audiobook, and a complete and refreshing contrast to the Ranger's Apprentice.  It follows Miss Penelope Lumley, a graduate of the Swanburne Academy for Poor, Bright Females, whose first job after graduation is as a governess at Ashton Place, a huge manor house.  When she arrives, she discovers the three children mentioned in the job description were actually raised by wolves, and only recently caught by Lord Ashton, an avid hunter.  It is Miss Lumley's job to use her superior Swanburne education, especially the extensive collection of useful aphorisms coined by founder Amanda Swanburne herself, to teach her charges to behave as proper English children and to ready them, if possible, for a civilized appearance at the Christmas Ball, which the Ashtons host every year.

As you can probably tell from my summary, the tone of this book could best be described as arch.  The writing is an exquisite send-up of 19th century English novels, the various situations Miss Lumley finds herself in are hilarious, and the entire book is a delight.  Best of all are the wolf-raised children themselves--ten-year old boy Alexander, eight-year old boy Beowulf, and four-year old girl Cassiopeia--who despite their wolfish habits are really quite charming.  Their pure, good-hearted natures contrast with the polished but spoiled Lord Ashton and Lady Constance, and their rich friends.  I highly recommend this to anyone with a love of English literature.  I'm not even sure I can say it is written for children; although superficially at their level--and my children did enjoy it--the various jokes and asides can only be fully appreciated by adults.

What I'm Reading: Song of the Vikings

Song of the Vikings, by Nancy Marie Brown, gives us the story of Snorri Sturluson, a wealthy and powerful Icelandic landowner of the early 1200s who at one point was as close as Iceland ever got to a native king.  He lived a full and dramatic life, but most importantly for us today, he was also a poet and a collector of the old Viking stories.  In his three main works he preserved the majority of what we now know of Norse mythology.

Snorri wished at one point to become skald, or court poet, to Norway's new sixteen-year-old King Hakon, who had come to the throne in 1220.  Up to that time, Scandinavian kings had always had skalds to entertain the court with tales of heroes past and to create the stories that would spread their fame and preserve their names for posterity.  To Snorri's dismay, however, young Hakon had no interest in the musty old Viking tales, preferring instead Latin stories about Christian heroes, like King Arthur.  On the theory that Hakon simply didn't understand them, Snorri decided to write a handbook to explain the forms and meaning of the traditional poetry and stories.

Hakon never did see Snorri's work, known as the Edda, but copies survived.  Without it, we would today remember only a handful of the Norse myths and our understanding of them would be fragmentary.  The Edda provides us with a framework, a complete explanation of the old Norse pagan view of the world and its gods, the world's creation and eventual death, the heroes and dwarves and elves that populated it.  It also teaches us how to read the elaborate, metaphor-laden skaldic-style of poetry that preserved the myths and histories.

Song of the Vikings is really three works in one: a biography of Snorri, as well as such a thing can be put together from our limited sources; a re-telling of many of the key myths he so loved; and a social and political history of Snorri's time, giving us the context we need to appreciate his life.  The final chapter is a commentary on how Snorri's work has shaped our modern artistic world, especially his profound influence on Richard Wagner and J.R.R. Tolkien, on Johann Herder, the "father of German nationalism," and on the nineteenth-century Gothic novel and the modern fantasy genre.

Before reading this book, I had a vague idea of Snorri as an old Norse storyteller, but I didn't realize just how critical he was in literary history.  I doubt most people have any clearer idea of him than I did, if they've heard of him at all.  This book is a corrective, and I highly recommend it to anybody interested in Norse mythology and its huge impact on the Western tradition.  I hope that doesn't make it sound like an academic tome, though, because this is also one of the most entertaining non-fiction books I've read in the past year.  Brown skillfully untangles the threads of Snorri's complicated life and has a nice way of illuminating its various milestones with the myths he wrote down.

Let me put it this way: Do you like The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings?  Well, this book explains where Tolkien got his ideas from, and in a style that Tolkien lovers will enjoy.  But this is perhaps even better, for it's real history, straight out of that age just after the Vikings when forceful, charismatic men furthered their ambitions for honor and wealth with swords and poetry.