The Bullet That Missed

 

The Bullet That Missed – Richard Osman

A recommendation from Soledad O’Brien, one of my favorite journalists who I follow on Twitter.  Apparently author Richard Osman has about four or so books out that are quite popular. When I checked out his offerings at my local public library and noticed that the majority of his books were not available due to being checked out by others, I decided to try to sample what I have been missing.  I have to say that although I enjoyed this offering, it wasn’t particularly overwhelming.  It was quick read, but had I paid full price for it, I would have enjoyed it substantially less. Still, it had its charms.

This is a “light” comedy book. If focuses on several (mostly elderly) people living somewhere in England who are part of something called the “Thursday Murder Club”.  This group of friends / acquaintances meet fairly regularly (Thursdays, I guess) and work on trying to solve unsolved murders.  Now, before I go any further, let me again emphasize that this book is more of a comedy. If you have no sense of humor, don’t even bother picking this up. This is a book where you have to throw out every ounce of reality and believability to even remotely enjoy your reading journey. As long as you know where to set your expectations, you just might enjoy this book. Judging from a huge number of customer reviews on Amazon, it seems like there are masses of people that do. 

Reading this book reminded me a bit (but only a bit) of the works of Kate Atkinson. Like Atkinson, these are “English” books, and they tend to focus more on character interaction than they do actual plot. The main difference for me is that Atkinson’s books tend to focus on the sewer of life and have a very crass approach to humanity as a whole (even though they can be quite humorous). This book, however, was much more positive and upbeat. People in this book generally seem to be happy, and characters do things like fall in love and the relationships seem to last. You’ll never find that in a Kate Atkinson book.

There are a lot of people within the pages, but the author does a good job with fleshing out his characters, so it’s pretty easy to keep the different individuals straight in one’s head. You laugh a lot at these people, and it’s nice when things are kept light. There’s one particular scene where one of the guys (somewhat old and grouchy) gets dragged by his girlfriend to get one of those “couples massages”. Sounds like a good thing, right?  Well….maybe not “good” but at least it was “funny”.

There were other instances though that seemed a tad too ridiculous and unbelievable, even though this is supposed to be a comedy.  We have one plot line where a septuagenarian couple gets kidnapped by a rather brutal captor. His demands are quite harsh, as one might expect.  The story unfolds rather well and clever at first, but at some point it took a rather preposterous turn.  You have to ask yourself, “Wait….what???” So even though we’re really not supposed to take this story too seriously, there is a limit as to how far the imagination is allowed to be stretched.

A book like this would make an excellent movie as long as it were cast properly and put in the hands of a strong director.  A good director probably has a better imagination than I do, and I’m sure that he or she could take a lot of these silly scenes and make them much more easy to believe or at least digest.  This was my biggest problem. Even though I consider myself to have a sense of humor, there were too many times where I don’t think I was tickled quite the way the author would have wished.

Still, it was overall very fun and a very quick read. Most of the chapters (91, I think) were only a couple of pages long, and when one doesn’t try to focus too much on details necessary for a “real” murder investigation, it moves at a satisfying pace.  Having said that, I would recommend this book, but I can’t honestly say that I’m necessarily in a hurry to read any more of these “Thursday Murder Club” books.

 

 

 

Shrines of Gaiety

 

Shrines of Gaiety – Kate Atkinson

For a book lover such as myself, there’s no greater joy that when you discover that your favorite author has a new book that has just been released. Opening up the front cover of such a book sitting in a comfy chair with a fresh cup of coffee is the equivalent of an excited 6-year-old getting ready to open his presents on Christmas morning.  For my tastes, Atkinson rarely disappoints. I say “my tastes” because I’ve learned that her writing style isn’t for everyone.  Yes, there are masses who love her, but there’s also a substantial portion of the book community who never seem to understand exactly what the fuss is about.

Bob Dylan once said that trying to “write about music” is similar to trying to “dance about architecture”. I guess the same can be said about any form of art.  You either get it and enjoy it, or you don’t.  I’ve always loved Kate Atkinson because her books seem to make me chuckle, smile, and guffaw out loud at times, yet her books tend to focus on depressing, down on their luck, individuals.  To paraphrase Stephen King, “It is not the tale, it is he who tells it”.

Speaking of depressing individuals, such is the case here. This book takes place in 1926 (the “roaring 20s”) in London, England.  Yet we encounter few people who seem to be “roaring” in a state of bliss.  Even the rich ones we meet tend to have more problems than they can handle, so Atkinson doesn’t paint a very pretty picture.  Again, though, she never does.

Our protagonist is Nellie Coker. Nellie is an older lady who is just being released from prison. Her crime? Well, I’m not sure we’re ever told.  She’s the owner and proprietor of about a half-dozen high-end speakeasies in London, so I’m sure her conviction had something to do with her lifestyle and her questionable business decisions in terms of legality.  Not the Nellie cares. She’s a tough, smart old bird. Nellie has six adult kids. We meet them all, yet fortunately some stand out more than others. I say “fortunately” because Atkinson does tend to get a tad heavy when it comes to placing actors on her stage.  It’s hard to keep everyone straight in your head.

We must also notate that our story isn’t just about Nellie and her brood. Like many works of Atkinson, there are a few plot lines going on that don’t seem to relate, but eventually the dots do get connected.  We have a couple of young runaway girls who end up in London and they do end up crossing paths with the Corker clan.  One of the girls goes missing.  Then we hear of random homeless girls being found dead around town. So we then get a few police-like characters that become involved trying to solve the mystery. The fact that police types don’t mingle well with owners of speakeasies makes things interesting as well.

So all of these people come together in what makes up our story. Like many of Atkinson’s books, though, the “story” isn’t really the main draw of what makes her story so special. The specialness focuses rather on her style of writing and how the characters are described and interact with each other. Again, I’m trying to describe “art” and I simply can’t do it that well. You simply have to read an Atkinson book for yourself. (On that note, in addition to this one, some of her other strong pieces include “Big Sky”, “Life After Life”, “Human Croquet”, and her fabulous debut “Scenes From a Night in a Museum”.)

You might imagine that a book littered with the seedy underworld of fancy nightclubs, murdered teenagers, and runaway girls has enough to keep the plot a tad dark and dreary, you’d be correct. It’s also worth noting that even though we’re in the “roaring 20s”, the nightmare of the first world war wasn’t too distant in the past, and a lot of our characters have memories from the event that they would rather forget. Still, though, a high point of these books is that you do end up chuckling your way through so much of it.

So if you’re a fan of Atkinson, I would highly recommend this book. For the rest of you, you owe it to yourself to give her a chance, and this work by her is as good as any.

From Colony to Superpower

 

From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations since 1776 - by George C. Herring

What a great find this was!  I came across this thing completely by accident; at a “library rummage sale” for $1.00.  My initial thought was that even if I didn’t enjoy this book, it would look mightily impressive on my bookshelf. You see, this thing is BIG and THICK. In other words, impressive.  Despite how much a person loves books, you can’t totally believe them if they tell you that they’ve read absolutely everything that they have displayed in their personal library.  Well, I did tepidly pick this up and began reading, and fortunately I was immediately hooked.

The problem now was that this thing was so huge and cumbersome, that it was a hefty chore to pick up and, say, read by the pool or something. So I decided to splurge and buy an e-copy for the Kindle at $9.99.  Definitely worth the investment. Not only is a book like this easier to read in electronic format, but it’s also a lot less likely intimidate the reader. No matter how much I enjoy a book, if I’m only on page 50 of a 1,000-page volume with very small print, it’s very easy for me to become psychologically overwhelmed.  So staring at a screen with “normal” sized print allows one not to worry too much about whether or not they’ll be able to finish such a monster during their lifetime.

Anyway, on to reviewing the book.  This thing was phenomenal.  I would argue that it’s essentially a textbook.  But if you love history as much as I do, such a description shouldn’t deter one from enjoyment. In fact, it’s more of a “plus” than a “minus”.  This book is essentially a history book of the United States with the focus, however, being only on foreign relations.

If I were to be completely honest, this is my favorite part of history.  I don’t really care as much about the domestic affairs of a country. Many presidents, such as Lyndon Johnson, felt the opposite, whereas his successor, Richard Nixon, would agree with me.  Different strokes for different folks. Still, though, 230 years of foreign affairs is an awful lot to digest (the book was written in 2007), and even though this book is 1,000 pages long, you can almost argue that it’s more of a “Cliff’s Notes” account as opposed to an exhaustive history. That’s fine, though, as one can easily find extensive volumes that focus on all of the key events that this book covers.

As we begin the history of the United States, “foreign affairs” IS basically synonymous with “history” as the young nation’s most visible and noteworthy events dealt in some way with other nations.  Whether its independence from England, buying the Louisiana Purchase from France, or the tenuous relations with Spain over Florida, foreign affairs is pretty much all there is when we say “history”.  In fact, what is a tad sad is that it was quite common for powerful nations to only grow and succeed by being overtly rapacious. So there’s a lot of “conquering” going on, mainly on the continent of North America.  It is sad to see so much greed and neglect towards non-White people, but history isn’t always pretty. We most also remember that such behavior was in the “European genes”.   It seemed that once the nation endures the Civil War, the government becomes much more altruistic and less avaricious, but the end goal for whatever relation is being pursued is always geared towards an advantage for the U.S.  Again, this is true with any nation, especially the superpowers.  How else is a “power” supposed to ever have “power”?  Especially the “super” kind?

Speaking of the U.S. Civil War, once we arrive at that event, we can see the shift in narrative towards where the author does intend to focus. In other words, we don’t read an awful lot of what we normally read when studying the years 1861-1865.  We rarely (if ever) come across names such as Gettysburg, Antietam, or Appomattox.  Here is where we remind ourselves that we’re NOT reading a strictly history book, but one that focuses on relationships with other countries.  Well, believe it or not, there’s actually quite a lot of history during this time that does, in fact, deal with other nations.  Example: We read about how there are strong sentiments across parts of Europe for the South to win the conflict.  Sure, slavery is evil and should be abolished, but the South is where cotton comes from, and without cotton, many of the factories across Europe will need to close causing massive unemployment.  So, yes, another reminder about how people mostly tend to think about how events will affect themselves personally rather than the greater good of mankind. 

Although the author never explicitly states so, we come to conclusion that part of the reason the U.S. became a “super” power is that, until the early 20^th century, the country was mostly isolated.  So it was allowed to flourish and prosper without interference from other strong neighboring countries in Europe and/or Asia. By the time the world became “smaller” due to advanced technology, the U.S. now had a substantial financial advantage.  We must also remember that as horrible as the two world wars were, the U.S. got off rather easy compared to those in Europe and Asia.  Other than Pearl Harbor, there was no fighting on our homeland.  So not having to deal with such travesties allowed faster growth and a stronger focus on the future without catastrophic distractions.

The book is broken up into chapters that each cover about a decade and each chapter is about 50-60 pages.  The major events covered are probably known by most, but the minor ones are covered here in detail as well.  Most modern readers know a bit about Vietnam, Iran, and Iraq, but it’s nice to also be reminded of such conflicts in places such as Lebanon, Argentina, and Bosnia.  In fact, I can’t help but wonder if the fact that I read so much history may have made some of these events easier to assimilate than it might be for those who haven’t studied as much history.  Much of what I read here, I already “knew”, so I’m not sure if a novice would enjoy such brief descriptions as much as I did. Of course, there’s tons of more detailed readings out there for those who want to learn more.

I also found the book very even-handed.  Most of the major recent U.S. Presidents get plenty of page space, and the author treats them all with both praise and criticism when warranted. This is important as someone who has hagiographic feelings towards a certain political party might feel that this author is demonizing their political gods. However, not to sound snooty, but I seriously doubt such an individual would bother to even pick up a book such as this. That’s a bit of a shame.  I feel that at this point and juncture in U.S. History, our biggest problem is that people simply don’t read enough. They blindly follow any politician that tells them what they want to hear.  Speaking of learned material, another advantage to reading this book in e-format is that the author uses an awful lot of big words, and it’s much easier to find the definition of such terms while using a Kindle (if you don’t know, you just press and hold the word with your finger and the definition pops up on your e-reader).

If you love history, this book is an incredibly valuable use of your time.  You’ll spend an awful lot of energy and effort with this thing, but it’s well worth it.  I would almost love to make this required reading for every high school senior.  I certainly see a lot more benefits in reading this than studying Geometry or even learning an obtuse skill such as cursive handwriting.  History really can teach us an awful lot about how we need to act in the future; especially where foreign countries are involved.