Happy New Year! and first book review, plus Book of the Year

Happy 2010 to you all! I hope you had a very good holiday period, I certainly did. I am still recovering, in fact! I also lost a post I did two days ago, which got me mad at Blogger. So I am back today, and I know I have 2009 encapsulations to do, but I thought I would surprise everyone by starting off with my first book review of the year!!
The Tin Roof Blowdown by James Lee Burke is the 16th Dave Robicheaux mystery set in Louisiana. It is one of his best. There is a mix of characters from the sleazy, to the mobster, to a chilling serial killer, to an ordinary guy caught up in what seems to be the the maelstorm of Katrina, but what is really the aftermath of his daughter's rape and the uncaught rapists. All these stories become linked, drawing in characters from all over Louisiana. I enjoyed the mystery, and while we know quickly who did it, it's because Burke is more interested in showing the variations of the criminal character, and how Katrina affected their lives. There are many characters that have a scene or two, but instead of detracting from the mystery, I found it added to the full effect of being in Louisiana. I always come away from a Dave Robicheaux mystery feeling like I have just been to the bayou, and this mystery is no exception. This is a solid mystery. What lifts it up to a very good book, is how the aftermath of Katrina is woven into the story also. One of the characters comes from the 9th Ward, which if you remember, Gentle Reader, was the ward that was completely flooded and destroyed when the levees broke. Burke has always written about Southern corruption, and now he has been able to add a sense of real anger and reality to it. He shows, with the destruction of New Orleans, that corruption has a real face. This is not a mystery about who done it to New Orleans; it's not exploring who in the different levels of government are responsible for deciding to cut the funding to New Orleans, to weaken the levees, to cripple the welfare situation of recipients who made up a large portion of the 9th Ward. This is a mystery about a detective outside the city, who is called in because the damage is so overwhelming that the New Orleans Police Department can't cover everything, and the crime he investigates during his work. It's a book about the soul of New Orleans and especially of Louisiana itself, reeling from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and how some of the people took advantage of the destruction, and how others tried to survive it, but mostly this is a lament for the parts of the city underwater, for the wards and the thousands of people who needlessly drowned and died in their homes in the attics while the world watched helplessly. Robicheaux is doubtful if the city can recover its joie de vivre even in the face of death, and only time will tell. So much was destroyed, and the different characters in this book certainly convey so much of what went on then. Especially as the aftermath continued, with New Orleans unable to deal with the clean-up, and the lingering stories of what happened as it becomes a new mythology of the city and state. I highly reccommend this book. This is one of many sentences that linger in my mind:
"I have long subscribed to the belief that the dead lay strong claim on the quick, that indeed their spirits wander and manifest themself in the middle of our waking day and whisper to us when we least expect it."
It's not a perfect mystery, and indeed here is review of the book that almost trashes it, from two years ago. Unlike this reviewer, I found there was an extraordinary range of emotions in the principal characters, that none of them are cardboard figures - they are all three-dimensional, good and bad, with differing levels of self-awareness. There is a hilarious view of one character revealed in a letter sent to Dave, and the main criminal, who stumbles around after the hurricane as what he did during the storm begins to torment him. There are some fine characterizations, and descriptions of the sun and the storms and the setting that are so vivid that I really do feel as if I just came back from there myself. Molly, and Alafair, Dave's wife and daughter, play a role in this story also, and Dave as well as the other characters like Otis the insurance salesman whose daughter was raped, and Sidney the mobster whose son was run over, also discover what they will do to protect those they love from evil. This is a mystery about retribution, justice, crime, and redemption, and also about guilt and remorse, and being trapped, and about love. I highly reccommend this book.

A NEW CHALLENGE

Well, it's not a new challenge, I'm joining it again this year!! J. Kaye's 100 + Reading Challenge:
I know I failed it last year - I only got to78 books read, but for me this was also an unqualified success. It is more books in one year than possibly one other year, that I have read each year in the past 15 years, since I have been keeping rough stats. I read more in every single category of book. So, this is an achievement for me, even though it's not quite what I wanted! so you know me, even if I give up I also usually just try again, so I am signing up again for this year. Unfortunately Tin Roof Blowdown doesn't count since I began it last year! You can sign up here. I do have to add though, that if I manage to complete The Shorter Samuel Pepys this year, it's going on the list! I don't care!! at over 1,000 pages, I will deserve it no matter when I finish it....

2009
I am having difficulty coming up with one standout! I enjoyed so many. I gave three copies of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society to three people for Christmas, leant several books that I have reviewed here in my blog to my sister who came from New Brunswick for a week (hurray! she has finally accepted my passion and letting me lend her things to read!! - but I want them back, sis!), and am beginning to wonder how I can find - or where - time in my life for more reading.

Book Totals:
mystery: 25
fantasy 17
YA - 17 *overlap with fantasy and horror)
horror - 10 *overlap with graphic novels and YA
graphic novels - 8 ***SURPRISE OF THE YEAR (post to come)
non-fiction - 6
science fiction - 5 (Thank you, Becky's 42 SF things challenge!)
fiction - 4
classics - 3
poetry - 2
children's - 2

There is of course room for improvement in all areas!

All right, the list:
Susan's Favourite Books of the Year:
Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - Mary Ann Schaffer and Annie Burrows
Selected Poems , Vol 2 - Mary Oliver ****edited to correct title: New and Selected Poems, Vol 2
The Plain Janes - Cecil Castellucci
Dreams Underfoot - Charles de Lint
The Name of the Wind - Patrick Rothfuss
Middlemarch - George Eliot
Turnstone - Graham Hurley
Winter Studies and Summer Rambles - Anna Brownell Jameson
Moon Called - Patricia Briggs
Mistress of the Art of Death - Ariana Franklin
Watchmen - Alan Moore
The Dark is Rising - Susan Cooper
***edited to add: The Various Haunts of Men - Susan Hill

and, Susan's Book of the Year for 2009 is:
The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale
Here is my original review of the book, almost a year ago to the day.

Now, one of my resolutions is to keep up with you on your blogs, my dear Gentle Readers. So now I'm off to see if you have listed your favourite books from last year. If you haven't listed it, let me know if you have a book of the year! I love discovering what people love to read - that's why we have these blogs, isn't it? At least, that's partly why I have mine. Happy reading, every one!!

If I could Save Five Things......

At the Hallowe'en party at Patricia and Victor's on Oct 27, all the dinner guests were asked a question: what would you save if a fire was approaching your house, and you had two hours to pack your car and could take five things? Spouses and children were automatically understood to be included. I came up with:
1 - my Goddess statue (and other items on my altar)
2 - my cat Bandit
3 - my tarot cards
4 - my photo albums (most are still in a box since coming from England 6 years ago)
5 - fill a box with books

Afterwards, I was very surprised that I didn't say my writing, or my computer, or my jewellry, but on the whole, the items are picked are irreplaceable. And books, well, I've learned that whatever I give away or lend, unless I hated the book, I usually end up wanting it again sometime later. Almost everything else in the house can be replaced, except for my collection of teapots, of which one is very old and already survived coming from England. But again, while I love them, I can live without them. I can't live without the things on my list. So there you have it, Patricia said it was a quick way to get to know someone - now what would you save, Gentle Reader? And does your answer surprise you?
Oh, and I never said how BIG the box was I was going to fill!!!! VERY large!!!
i finished Have Mercy on Us All last week by Fred Vargas, and I very much enjoyed it. I like the characters, I like how the detective is set up - Detective Commissaire Adamsberg is intuitive, which annoys his immediate underling Danglard who is often frustrated by this kind of thinking, but has been with his boss long enough to give him space (if he can), trusting by now his boss's gaps in thinking that produce miracle connections - but Adamsberg can't remember names and faces of his new staff, 25 officers, so he has a memory book! The crimes are chilling, and the mystery is a mystery - not easily solved - all in all, very entertaining and a good read.
I am currently reading James Lee Burke's Cadillac Jukebox, which was one of the three books Burke names as his favourites with Dave Robicheaux. I had read quite a few of the early books in the series, and then stopped reading him in the last decade. I thought I'd try this one, and I'm finding it slow going. I can't figure out why - I like the character, I love the southern setting, I think i find the evil people - and there are truly evil people in this book - too nasty - there are good people to balance them out, but I think I am annoyed that Robicheaux is taking on a case that isn't a case, for a man who may not have done a crime but no one wants solved by him. I will stick with it for another 100 pages or so, as I still hate to give up on a book, so we'll see. I hope it improves as I just picked up one of his latest, Pegases Descending, for Christmas.....
For my American readers, in the book business up here there has been quite a controversy since our dollar is worth more than your dollar (temporary, I'm sure!). We still pay the Canadian price, which is more than the American price, even though we should be paying what you pay! Now I've worked in bookstores in the past, and I know our price difference is not just because of the dollar - in fact, that has little to do with it. It has much more to do with shipping costs, publishing costs, market size, etc. One of my favourite independent bookstores, Collected Works, is offering books at par with US prices. I am proud to say that I continue to pay the Canadian price. The owner still has to make up the difference on his bills, and I'd rather support my independent book seller any day, than get a book cheaper(unless our Canadian dollar stays high and the publisher's prices become equal......hmmm, I can dream!) For all their size, our Chapters and Indigo stores do not carry the amount of midlist and backlist stock that they should. If you want book 2 in a series, or often book 1, you still have to order it! I go in to scout what books are new (because they can carry a bigger quantity of new releases), and then go to Collected Works and order the books if they don't have them in. Normally they do, and for a small store, Collected Works packs more than enough selection and variety that they often carry books Chapters doesn't! I love the idea of having a bookstore be the size of a library - but if Borders (US and UK) and Chapters can't carry a multitude of titles to match their space size, then it's not likely to happen soon. Which is a shame, and I've always thought that Chapters/Indigo (now owned by Heather Reisman so same company really) missed the chance to be one of the most amazing book companies in the world. But, that lets Collected Works exist, and Prime Crime, and Folio's in England, and all the independent bookstores that you and I treasure, Gentle Reader. Anyway, this was meant to be about the dollar difference and how it is affecting books in Ottawa (and most likely the rest of Canada), and supporting my local bookstore! My friend Patricia (same one who gave the very fun Hallowe'en party mentioned above) works at Coles, which is part of the same chain as Chapters- owned by Heather Reisman - and she has been regalling us with horror stories the past month, of customers coming in and throwing books at her and the other staff because they can't get it for the US amount. It's been really awful, and it's not Patricia's or any other bookstores' staff's fault. Chapters and Coles have begun offering bigger discounts - 30% off the top twenty bestseller list, etc - which takes the price below the American price -but that is not on all the books in the store, though. I suppose the key thing is the range of mark-ups in books is very low - the price is on the book when it's sent by the publisher, so it's not like in other retail stores where the price is inflated for a profit (clothing retail stores are among the worst for this) far beyond what it takes to produce the clothing. Head office can set the price to whatever they like. In books, the price is right there; there is some margin for profit or there would be no bookstores! But the profitability has never been great enough to make a fortune at it. Almost everyone who works in books does it out of love. And though I no longer work in books (the aforementioned low wages!), I can certainly support my local bookstore by buying there and paying the Canadian price!
Ok, my LSS is waiting to start watching Frost on TV......someday I have to read the books I have, that the series are based on.......RD Wingfield is the author.....but now it's relaxing time on this Sunday evening. It's Remembrance Day, and as Patricia said to me earlier today, let's pray for peace today, even as we remember and honour the heroes and the wars and the dead. As always, come home, our soldiers, safe and sound.