Book review: Choice of Evil by Andrew Vachss

Choice of Evil by Andrew Vachss

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
When con-man and unlicensed private investigator Burke's girlfriend is killed at a gay-rights rally, Burke seeks vengeance, only to find out that the killers have already been dispatched by a serial killer who is murdering anti-gay activists. Employed by a gay-rights group who wants to help this vigilante get away, Burke is drawn into a very complex web of crime and murder that could possibly involve the only man he has ever feared, the ice-man assassin Wesley. Vachss turns the conventions of tough-guy noir on it's head with strong women and gay characters that defy the stereotypes of the genre. He is a master of the form, and this is one of the most memorable of the Burke stories.


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Library Event Review: The Wag Band Concert

Reader number 51 wrote: What an enjoyable Saturday afternoon listening to the acoustic sounds of the Wag Band. I immensely enjoyed their mix of songs which included Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel as well as the Boss, "Bruce". I highly recommend seeing this band performed locally in our area as evident by the fact I signed up for their email listings of performances.
Rating: A.

Book review: Ghosts of the Garden State by Lynda Lee Lacken

Reader #110 wrote: This was a very interesting book. Grade: B.

Book Review: The Second Home Book by Marylouise Oates

Reader # 110 wrote: This had lots of helpful tips. Grade: A.

Book Review: The Science of Fear by Dan Gardner

Librarian Tim wrote:

The Science of Fear: Why We Fear the Things We Shouldn't--and Put Ourselves in Greater Danger by Daniel Gardner

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars
As someone who suffers from anxiety and fear problems that can be pretty debilitating at times, it was looking forward to reading this book to see if there were any ideas that could help me recognize and alleviate my fears. Gardner focuses on the psychological aspects of fear, quoting at lengths from researchers and their experiments. While he does bury the reader at times in numbers and studies, he narrows his thesis down to humans having split personalities: the head, thoughtful and rational, and the gut, impulsive and reckless. In this sense, it is the flipside to Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink. In that book, the gut was responsible for good decisions, in this book the gut the gut takes all information at face value and ratchets up the fear. Gardner is successful with presenting his ideas, but the scope is somewhat narrow, as he focuses on the psychological and it would have been interesting if he could have included some neurological research about how gut and head co-exist and conflict within the brain.


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Book review: True Believer by Nicholas Sparks

Reader #529 wrote: Good summer read - romance and supernatural mystery. Grade: B.

Book review: Scarlet Feather by Maeve Binchy

Reader #529 wrote: An okay read, a little predictable. Grade: B.

Book review: The Joys of Reading by Burton Rascoe

Reading old books about books is enlightening. One discovers that authors were considered great and lasting in 1937 are completely forgotten now, and one is perhaps reminded that many authors currently in favor may fade from view in another few decades. THE JOYS OF READING: LIFE'S GREATEST PLEASURE by Burton Rascoe (copyright 1937, and of course there is no ISBN) has hapters on "The Joys of Reading" and "How to Judge Literary Values," but it also has lists. The list of twenty-five favorite authors from 1900 to 1925 includes many that have withstood the
test of time: H. G. Wells, G. K. Chesterton, Rudyard Kipling, Henry James, and Jack London. But it also includes Joseph Hergesheimer, Gamaliel Bradford, May Sinclair, and W. J. Locke, and omits (for example) Arthur Conan Doyle. A list of the twenty-five favorite books lists two by Wells: THE OUTLINE OF HISTORY and MR. BRITLING SEES IT THROUGH. Admittedly, his classic science fiction novels were written before 1900, but this century still saw THE FIRST MEN IN THE MOON, THE FOOD OF THE GODS, and IN THE DAYS OF THE COMET. Grade: B-.

Book review: Spellbound by James Essinger

Reader #83 wrote: SPELLBOUND: THE SURPRISING ORIGINS AND ASTONISHING SECRETS OF ENGLISH SPELLING by James Essinger (ISBN-13 978-0-385-34084-7,
ISBN-10 0-385-34084-2) is more a history of the English language
and less an explanation about spelling. Essinger also makes some
mistakes, or rather, has some misunderstandings. He refers to "a
holy book, such as the Christian Bible, the Muslim Koran, or the
Jewish Talmud" (page xxviii). The Talmud is not really a holy
book; it is more a set of annotations to the Torah, which *is* a
holy book. He says of "kosher" that it "has come to mean in
modern English not just food that is prepared according to Jewish
but also, more broadly, anything that is correct, genuine, and
legitimate" (page 26). The only problem is that that is what it
means in Hebrew; one speaks of a "kosher scroll" in a mezuzah,
for example.

And in writing about languages which do not use the Roman
alphabet, Essinger says, "where there is an accepted romanization
system, the writing of a foreign nonalphabetic name is fairly
straighforward. But a strange-looking name in a foreign language
that is written using Roman letters will not have any
standardized way of being written" (page 52). If it is already
in Roman letters, why change it at all?

On page 77 he gives a sample of text written in the International
Phoentic Alphabet (IPA). I found myself thinking how interesting
it looked. Then on page 78 he says, "purely phonetic writing
looks absolutely horrendous, as the physical appearance of
Hamlet's speech in the IPA shows all too well." Well, that
wasn't my reaction at all!

Essinger talks about how the English language became basically a
completely different language by 1500 from what it was in 1400,
and the "Great Vowel Shift", which made what had been pronounced
"Saw it is team to say the shows on the sarm fate noo," to our
present "So it is time to see the shoes on the same feet now."
Again, though, a lot of this is only marginally related to
spelling. Grade: B.

Movie review: The Incredible Hulk

Reader #83 wrote: The Army created but cannot control Bruce Banner, the Hulk. Banner's anger has the power to turn him into a bouncing ten-foot monster as hard as rock. Edward Norton (who plays Banner) is one of the finest actors of his generation. This may not be the best film for him, but he is an asset to the film. THE INCREDIBLE HULK is a darker and grimmer superhero film with a more tragic hero than we have seen of late from the Marvel films.

[Following the main text there is a minor spoiler on some points that did
not work for me.]

Within weeks of each other we have seen at theaters two Marvel Comics
superhero films. While they also stand alone, they are really chapters in
a longer story whose arc has yet to be revealed. IRON MAN and THE
INCREDIBLE HULK are both good as superhero films go. The public seems to
prefer IRON MAN, which I reviewed previously and gave a high +1 on the -4
to +4 bell-curve scale. THE INCREDIBLE HULK gets the same rating, but of
the two I give the edge to THE INCREDIBLE HULK. Why do I prefer this
film? First, I am never likely to meet a playboy arms dealer like Tony
Stark. Do I doubt that such a person drives around war zones drinking
cocktails? Let us say I am unconvinced. Perhaps characters like this
exist in the real world, perhaps not. On the other hand I can well
believe that there are people living in the slums of Brazil coming to
terms with personal problems like anger. Do I believe that when they
become enraged they grow to twice their scale, turn the color of avocados,
and adopt a doors- optional policy for getting around? Perhaps they do in
their imaginations. For me that is not a big stretch. And do these
people become so possessed by their rage that they become supremely
violent? You bet they do. For me Bruce Banner (The Hulk) is a much more
believable main character than is Tony Stark. He is a man of very common
emotions, simply exaggerated. Needing the violent outlet while detesting
it is very real. Iron Man being kidnapped and forced to develop missiles
is not quite as real and certainly less primal.

The plot of THE INCREDIBLE HULK can be summed up in two or three
sentences. In the Ang Lee THE HULK the military used super- science to
turn Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) into an awesome fighting man. When he
gets mad enough to fight he becomes a ten- foot-tall monster. After the
early transformations he did some really bad things (only hinted at for
those who have not read the comic or seen THE HULK). Banner ran away and
is now hiding out in the crowded slums of Brazil trying to learn to manage
the world's deadliest rage. To keep busy he corresponds electronically
with an enigmatic friend whom he knows only by the code name Mr. Blue.
The army, personified by General Ross (William Hurt), has tracked him down
and sends a special commando, Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth), to capture him.
Well, we know how well that will work. And admittedly here and elsewhere
there are few real surprises in the film. Banner evades capture and works
his way back north to an East Coast school, Culver University. At this
school is his girlfriend Betty Ross (Liv Tyler) and the scientist Mr.
Blue (Tim Blake Nelson). (There are also quaint bicycle-stands labeled
"City of Toronto".) There he will find the ultimate confrontation--or at
least the biggest in the film.

Marvel films seem to be developing their own style that continues from
film to film. We have the cameo for Stan Lee. This time he is not at the
end of a garden hose as he was in the last X-Men movie, and he is not at
the end of a conversation as he was in IRON MAN. This time he is the
end. More specifically he is a very much a loose end in the plot. I
waited in vain for the plot to explain what happened to his character, but
if it was there I missed it. Also there is a certain inexorable
predictability in the plotting. There is segregation of each to his own
type. What does a man in a power-suit fight in the climactic battle? He
is matched against a man in a bigger and more mighty power- suit. What
does a hulk fight in the climactic scene? It has to be a bigger meaner
hulk. Another element of the Marvel style in recent films to have a final
scene at the end of the credits. It has some unexpected twist to reward
those audience members who stay through the credits. X-MEN 2 had such a
scene, as did IRON MAN. Here the scene is moved to the beginning rather
than the end of the credits. It looks like someone in production decided
that too many people were missing what could be a pivotal teaser scene.
Stan Lee is not the only in-joke casting. We get to see/hear Lou Ferrigno
as both the voice of the Hulk and as a minor character. There are cute
allusions to Godzilla movies, to King Kong, and even to Tiananmen Square.

Edward Norton acts with a low-key style. I am not sure he conveys the
angst as much as was needed, but his persona is a nice counterpoint to the
thrashing monster he becomes. The most memorable acting in the film is
from Tim Blake Nelson, whose boyish glee for studying the Hulk makes him
one of the most likeable mad scientists in recent film history. Nelson,
some of the realistic settings, the tragedy of the main character, and the
dark style make this a better than average Marvel superhero film. For my
money it is also better than the very recent IRON MAN. Grade B

Film Credits: http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0800080/

Minor spoiler warning:

I did have a few problems with the script. At one point after a blackout
spell Banner asks a stranger, "where am I?" The stranger responds, "In
Guatemala." If a stranger asked you where he was, would you say "the
United States"? My wife wanted to know how Banner had managed to cross
the Panama Canal without anyone noticing how really big and green he was.
Perhaps he had switched back to Banner. After all, the rules of this
particular mutation are unclear. There is a nice tender King-Kong-Anne-
Darrow sort of scene in which he is Hulked, but does not seem to have been
angry for hours. Why is he still engorged?

If someone about 160 pounds actually threw a helicopter, it is the human
who would do most of the flying according to the laws of physics. You
learn to ignore the fact that he would have to be a lot more massive as
the Hulk than he is as Banner. It is therefore probably bad form to show
an examination table that held Banner perfectly well moments before but
crushes under the massive weight of Hulk. It rubs our noses in the fact
that Banner's mutation circumvents conservation of mass.