Things I've Read, Nov 2014: Cuts, Girls in Roads, Arguments between Detectives
Dear Reader,
This month, I started reading Smartcuts by Shane Snow, and then ... stopped. I don't know if that counts as something that I'm supposed to tell you about, but it was interesting because of this: it promises the 'secrets' of accelerating success without graft, as part of the entrepenurial self-help movement of books in the era that can only be described as post-Gladwell.
Unfortunately, as with all imitations, the effect is easier to copy than the substance. So, while Snow begins each chapter with arresting stories, as Malcolm Gladwell does, he doesn't have the same talent for digging down into robust research. As such, the stories that Snow tells are haphazardly assembled to suit his conclusions: you come away feeling like they're best guesses or dinner part aphorisms, rather than the genuinely thought-stoking ideas that result from hard work.
In better news, I read The Girl in the Road which is near-future speculative fiction (and, by the way, can we all just assume that I'll never recommend sf or fantasy that wouldn't appeal to a mainstream reader in some way? I just get real tired of having the conversation with people who think of genre-as-boundary which you never stray into or out of, and far prefer genre-as-platform to climb atop and dance across and sit back and sip a cocktail and watch as interesting people do interesting things, you know, like that science fiction author Margaret Atwood who has done okay for herself) with an entrancing dance of themes like feminism, the future of the East, class divides and race. And, honestly, it's just refreshing to read a book in this category where people of colour are the assumed default, rather than tokenized.
I also went on a detective novel kick, partly as research for my own YA detective novel in progress. I read The Beekeeper's Apprentice (via Kathleen, who is never not right about these things), a book about a young, feisty, female teen who meets an elderly Sherlock Holmes and becomes his apprentice. It that treats its source material with grace, but then builds on it to become utterly its own. Mary Russell, the heroine, is a keeper, with a magnificent narrative voice. Highly recommended.
So is Fer-De-Lance, the first in the Nero Wolfe detective series by Rex Stout, a series set in New York in the 1930s, with Nero as the obese, cantankerous, orchid-obsessed, housebound and genius detective, while his assistant (and narrator) Archie Goodwin does the legwork. I love how much narrative drive and interest is created simply from these two well-rounded main characters causing friction with each other: a reminder that just because two characters are on the same side doesn't mean they have to agree with each other, indeed, it's more interesting when they don't—when they act like well, real people:
"What are you doing now, changing the subject?" I stuck to the chair near his desk, though I saw that I was being regarded as a mild nuisance, for I had some questions to ask. "It was clouding up as I came in. Is it going to rain all over your clues?"
He was placid, still bent over the magnifying glass. "Some day, Archie, when I decide you are no longer worth tolerating, you will have to marry a woman of very modest mental capacity to get an appropriate audience for your wretched sarcasms."
Also, two published reviews up on Bible Society: an evangelistic book that's actually realistic and practical—Evangelism, and a Choose Your Own Adventure book called What's Your Worldview?
As always, this newsletter is not a one-way missive, but a gift and the start of a conversation - I'd love you to continue it with me.
Next month: a special newsletter on best books for writers for Christmas!
Happy Reading (and happy writing, if you're doing Nanowrimo!),
Guan