On the Road by Jack Kerouac

On the Road - 4 stars

Let's first be very clear and state that I am a huge fan of the late great Jack Kerouac, prince of the Beat Generation. His words linger with me long after the story is through and the novel placed upon the shelf once more.This is the most famous and first published book in his Dulouz Legend, a fictionalize biography. Kerouac would change the places and names of people to serve his story. While the events are true, they may or may not have taken place when and exactly where he said they did.

On the Road is the tale of Sal Paradise (Jack Kerouac) as he traverses this country twice and then heads off to Mexico with his pal, Dean Moriarty (Neal Cassady). Dean is a crazed man, high on the fact that he is alive and able to experience the world. He takes things as they are and "digs" the music, the women, the drugs, the real of the late fifties and early sixties. When the world was close to tearing itself apart from war, Dean and Sal see the beauty in the most mundane of life. Picking strawberries in California, hitching in Iowa, digging the jazz in New Orleans. Every experience was new and exciting and they were determined to live their lives to the full. Even if it killed them.

Kerouac and Cassady were pals from the moment they met, there was a fondness that was closer than brothers and certainly more long suffering. Though their friendship was short lived, Cassady dying young, the memory of their shared experiences are forever locked in the page by Kerouac. Poetry and prose bring the world as they saw it into our lives and let us glimpse a world that we will never see again. The innocence of travel will never be as simple as hitching from New York to San Fransisco ever again. Kerouac, in a feverish spree of writing, left us the quintessential book of youth and adventure, of young love and hard life lessons.

Never does Kerouac disappoint me, never do I regret allowing his words and thoughts, his jazz to fill my mind with a world of music and travel, of feverish frenzied conversations and wild parties. I leave my novel a little worn and much appreciated. 

Beat The Reaper by Josh Bazell

Beat the Reaper --3 Stars

This was an average novel because I got rather annoyed rather quickly with the constant f*** this or f*** that. Tedious and distracting from the better parts of the novel.

We meet Dr Peter Brown on his rounds at a hospital that every one hates severely, but he doesn't mind because no one has heard of Bearclaw Brnwa either. In another life, he was a hitman with a heart of gold for the mafia. He had rules, only taking out the kind of guys that no one would miss, that would actually make the world better for their not breathing the same air as decent people.

One day he has to run for it and right into the Witness Protection Programme. All is well, for a while. He's become a doctor, of all things, and is doing his best to set the scales straight. Its all find and dandy until some one recognizes him and then its all bets off.

Now I like a good redemption tale, a guy who wants to pay back his due of good to the world before the Reaper catches up to him. Who doesn't? There is a fair amount of gallows humour in this novel, something I'm also a sucker for. However the shear amount of poor language takes away from the greatness of this book.

I don't regret reading it, I just regret the fact that writers feel the need to add such vernacular to the lexicon. 

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

The Help 2Stars

I really wanted to like this book. I wanted to enjoy it as much as I had To Kill a Mockingbird because they have similar themes. Being black in the south was (and still is in some places) almost a death sentence, your life is crammed into a box of prejudice and there isn't a way out. I was hoping for a book that would show how a group of women made there way to a brighter future, instead I was handed the one thing I fear about books with female leads... I was given boredom. I rarely have good fortune with woman as protagonists. They always do the insipid pitty party and it annoys me.

Female leads always lean toward depressive episodes, emotional fits of tears, gossip mongering, and salacious deeds of misconduct. As a woman, it ticks me off! In The Help, we have two black women who work for white women, they do everything except wipe their pearly back-sides. The women do what they can to not try and rise above their "station" as servants. Enter the white girl outside town. She wants to make her way out of her role as a female, she doesn't want to marry and have kids. She wants to write, which endeared her to me, but only slightly. I felt she used these women to excel herself, pushing them into saying and doing things they normally wouldn't have.

Maybe its just that I was insanely bored by this little novel, but I didn't care to read it when it came out, fearing the massive amount of estrogen contained therein. I really did want to enjoy this book, but alas, it was literary algae. It looked great, but had no substance.

The Muse Asylum by David Czuchlewski

The Muse Asylum --5 stars

I managed to receive this novel for free, hence why I read it. Who can pass up a free book? I wasn't disappointed and am eagerly awaiting the author's new novel.

We start with the lead character, Jake Burnett, a jaded reporter living in New York City. He gets this idea to hunt down his favourite author, Horace Jacob Little, who has never given an interview and is famous for being a recluse. No one have ever seen him, no one has ever taken his photograph. He has no identification of any kind, no DMV record, not even a traffic ticket. By all accounts, Horace Jacob Little does not exist. Yet his writing proves otherwise.

Jake is curious, as many scholars are, why in the middle of his career, Horace Jacob Little takes his writing onto a completely different plane. Our reporter wants to find out what happened and who his author really is. Enter an old class mate from college. Andrew Wallace had a break down trying to find that same answer by analyzing the story that marked the change in Little's work. Is the story just that, a story? Or maybe it is the truth behind everything...

For a first time author, David Czuchlewski has created a set of circumstances that pulls the reader into his world and isn't about to let them go. His narrative is haunting and amazing. A splendid mix of sanity and schizophrenia, we are pulled into a world where nothing is what it seems and everything is a dream. I'm sure that this story will be carried with me for some time. And I'm glad of it. Everyone needs a story that makes them question reality, makes them question everything simply because the book forces you to look at things in a way that you never thought possible.

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Hobbit-- 5 Stars

I tried reading The Hobbit once many years ago, but I think I was too young when I made the first attempt. At the time I thought that Tolkien took too long and was far too descriptive with the places he was writing about. Never a great of fan of what I call "straight fantasy", books that are in places completely of the author's imagination, I tend to stay away from them in favour of things more palatable. So here I am, a twenty-eight year old self professed geek, finally completing The Hobbit. "Why?" you may well ask... That's easy, because I want to see the movie and I always read the book first.

Honestly, I was shocked by how much I enjoyed it. It was a fantastic read, full of adventure and strange new places. My edition has a wonderful map on both the front and back in-covers which makes it much easier to see where Bilbo and the dwarfs are in their adventure.

Bilbo is a simple creature, satisfied with simple tastes of good food and good cheer. When he is hired to act as the burglar for Thorin and Company, he's more then a little apprehensive. He'd rather sit in his arm chair in front of the hearth and blow smoke rings then sleep on the cold ground with goblins and trolls about. Sure, there is a vast hoard of treasure to be had, but at what cost? It takes nearly a year for the small hobbit to return home again. By that time, he has changed from a simple creature of simple tastes to one who has seen great things and appreciates the smallest and most simple of all experiences. Good food and good company.

I must admit some regret in having waited so long to read such a novel, though now my interest has been piqued and I must read more, know more. I do believe that the Lord Of The Rings will be among the next books on my reading list.

Holy Warrior by Angus Donald

Holy Warrior --4 Stars

This is the second book in the series and yes, you do have to read them in order. I picked up the first book a few years ago and loved it, this was no different. We continue following Alan Dale and his master, Robin Odo (Robin Hood) as they keep a promise that Robin made to go to the Holy Land and recapture Jerusalem from Saladin. There are plots to assassinate Robin, kill Alan, and destroy the King's position, although he can do that all on his own anyway.

While not for the faint of heart, this is a novel that is historically accurate to certain degrees. King Richard the Lionheart did indeed go to the "Holy Land" and fought Saladin, though never face to face. He also burned through massive amounts of gold to accomplish this pilgrimage. While Alan Dale didn't truly exist, there were many like him. Many who fought through Sarasen  hordes did so because they believed it to be a noble quest that would secure their place in heaven, no matter how often they had to deny Christ's law to love your neighbour as yourself.

I love that this is a fast pasted novel of battles, loyalty and betrayal. A story a young boy forced to become a man with a sword and shield. A telling of Robin of the Hood like we've never seen before from an author who knows how to mix fiction and fact in a beautiful way in which you are no longer sure where one starts and the other ends.

The Associate by John Grisham

The Associate-- 3 stars

I am convinced that every author writes a dud novel, one that doesn't live up to the standards said author usually accomplishes. This happens on average once every ten years, could be more often if the author is rather prolific. In this case, Grisham has disappointed me. I read the novel hoping for the thrilling twists and turns that usually accompany his novels. I was sadly disappointed this time.

The novel starts off with a decent enough twist, a man from some agency blackmails Kyle McAvoy, law school graduate, by using something from his past. His job is to infiltrate a law firm, the largest in the world, and steal documents. But that is where the adventure and twists end, really. Boring and straight forward. Sure we see what happens to every law student after they pass the bar exam. They are over worked, but they get paid well, so there's reason to complain. Unless of course, you have some guy telling to betray everything you've ever known.

Not one of my favourite books by Grisham. I haven't read one of his books in some time and was depressed by how predictable the entire thing was. Most of the time, I have to run to catch up with him, but not this time.

The Thirteenth Tale by Dianne Setterfield

The Thirteenth Tale-- 5 Stars

How could this book have been sitting, languishing on my shelves for so many years? How had I managed to deprive myself of such a story for so long? Its inexcusable, simple as that.

Upon suggestion from a fellow book-aholic on GoodReads, I picked up The Thirteenth Tale. I was not disappointed. We follow a young woman by the name of Margaret Lea, who is contacted by the author Vida Winter to write her biography. Margaret doesn't read books written by authors still among the living when there are so many others to read by authors who will never write again. However, she is intrigued by Ms. Winter and accepts the commission to "tell the truth".

The story unfolds of strange relationships, feral twins, a governess, a ghost, a garden and fire that destroyed it all. All too often, I found myself, or rather lost myself, in this telling of gothic strangeness and I loved it. I would come up from this story only to eat or drink and that begrudgingly. I stayed up late last night reading, it was well after two in the morning before I turned the last page and shut out the light. I've not done that in some time and it was a joy. Our protagonist, Margaret, left no stone unturned and even told us what happened to all the side characters in this tale, something that most authors don't bother to do. I had to find out what happened to everyone.

The Thirteenth Tale pulls you with a strange magnetic force into the pages of the story and doesn't let you go. You find yourself thinking about the characters long after you've had to set the book down and go back to work. You find yourself wondering what is going to happen next. Will Margaret finish the commission before time runs out? Will we ever know what really happened in that house so long ago? Will Margaret find the peace she is looking for? Questions such as these haunt you until you reach the last page and smile at the complete story, happy that everything worked out in the end even if it wasn't how you thought. In a rare fashion, I actually cried when this novel reached its conclusion. I was sad that the story was over.

There are books that we find a few times in our lives, if we are very fortunate, that have a power over us, that mystical power of a story. It fills us, guides us down it's own path and when we reach the end of that journey, we are left feeling a sense of both joy at completion and sadness that these characters we have met will go on without us. You see, their story is over for now and ours must continue. We have to say good-bye and good-byes are rarely kind and happy affairs in their entirety, but a cloud of sadness always lingers. Always, and I wouldn't change it for anything.

House On The Corner Of Bitter And Sweet by Jamie Ford

House on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet-- 4 Stars

I picked this book up a few years ago and read so far into it then became distracted and left the book on the shelf for some time. I'm glad that it was recommended that I pick it up again. Such a lovely story, so many emotions in one book! Love, joy, anger, confusion, pain and back to joy again.

We meet Henry, a Chinese boy in Seattle. He falls in love with a girl, Keiko. This is out of the question for several reasons not the least of which her being Japanese and Pearl Harbour is not a distant memory. Henry and Keiko are friends, no matter what his family and the government say. So when the government takes the Japanese people and ships them inland to "interment camps", they continue their friendship, for a time anyway.

Fast forward forty years, Henry is now a widower and his son is at university. Life has been kind to him for the most part, but its also given him pain. His wife has died of cancer and the past has come back to haunt him. An old hotel is being refurbished, the contractors have found a stash of items dating back to those terrible days of 1944 when America was at war with Japan, a time when innocent families put their precious belongings in the basement to save them from looters. Henry recognizes a parasol from his long lost Keiko.

And thus the story begins. Mr Ford writes a wonderful story in which he goes between Henry's past in 1944 and his present in 1986. A part of American history that most people either don't know or don't mention, the interment camps. People, second generation American citizens, were packed up and shipped off to camps around the country, treated as little more then cattle. There were some at the time that viewed them as mistreated human beings, convicted without a court hearing, without justice. Some went home again, most relocated to other areas, never returning to their homes again and starting over.

I couldn't put my book down and had to finish last night, in spite of the raging head ache. I was left with a feeling of having completed a wonderful tale of more then joy and pain, bit one of hope... always hope.

The 39 Steps By John Buchan

1 Star--
Oh my.. this marks a first on Quill and Ink, I didn't bother to find a cover and I will not be posting a link for purchase. I cannot tell you how disappointed I was in this novel. First, we find our protagonist, a bored London socialite, bemoaning his life. He is quickly met up with murder and mayhem, outrunning Germans who want to kill him before he tells the authorities of their plans, which will ultimately bring about World War II. The fact this man manages to out run and out smart the German secret service in the moors of Scotland is not even remotely believable. The author realizes that he is pushing the limits of the imagination and cuts out ten days, since the man has to run for three weeks, to speed up the story.

Really, this is one of the worst novels I have ever read and so far the worst of 2012. I am glad that the author didn't write too many books. His lack of talent saddens me.

Shoeless Joe by W. P. Kinsella

Shoeless Joe -5 Stars

"If you build it, he will come." One of the most famous lines in both film and literature. We, as readers, are dropped square in the middle of Iowa with Ray and his family on his small farm. The place is mortgaged to the hilt and he starts to hear an announcer and see visions. He knows what he has to do without being given any specific instructions. Build a ball field, ease an author's pain, going the distance... all in hopes that he can see one person again.

Throughout the story, we are regaled with purity of baseball. I don't care how many players are using steroids, the game always has a purity to it. A stadium always smells like hotdogs, beer, dirt and fresh grass. Baseball is the smell of summer, the feeling of joy that brings even the biggest men back to a small boy if only for a few hours. Dreams are baseball.

Now I am lover of the game. I can't give you statistics or tell who won what series on what year. I always love to watch the game though. Even minor leagues, there's a local minor team in my home town and I can never get enough of there games. Shoeless Joe reminds all of what its like to dream again, even if it seems impossible, we are reminded of simple joys like the sound of ball hitting a bat with a whack and not a ping.

I wish I could put into words how wonderful this novel was. It may go off on a tangent here and there, but its always coming back to baseball. "The one constant in America has been baseball."

The Phantom Of The Opera by Gaston Leroux

The Phantom Of The Opera -- 1 Star

All right, I have seen the film starring Gerard Butler and listed to the same sound track a hundred times. I do enjoy the story... on stage! The novel, however, was a chore to get through. Christine is a tease, as we would say today. She strings poor Raoul along and leaves him hanging any number of times. The dialog is excrement! And I was left sorry I even started the book in the first place.

This book was on my reading list, and I've had it on my shelf for some time. I should have left it that way. I just could not believe such a renown novel could be so lousy! Honestly, it felt like a French version of Gone With The Wind. I had to speed read to get through this.

Grotesque by Natsuo Kirino

Grotesque -- 3.5 Stars

This is the first novel by this author that I have read and I was left feeling unsure about the book as a whole. Written in Japanese surrealist style, the novel follows one woman through her life and how she reacts to a world where she is merely average yet her younger sister is a monstrous beauty. The focus is on the time spent in high school and then middle age.

When her sister and a school mate are both murdered, the unnamed protagonist goes back through her memory and explores the past they all shared. There are two journals and one confession that we are given to read to gain further insight into this world of prostitution, murder and money. Spanning well over thirty years, this book has a lot of detail but it doesn't really go anywhere.

I do enjoy Japanese surrealism, but not this book. It was average in almost every way. The way the story kept flipping from one view to the next was uninspired. The protagonist is a malicious whiner, not a character I attach to or care about.

This is book number one in my list of novels left on my shelf for longer then one year.

Lizard by Banana Yoshimoto

Lizard -- 4 Stars

This is a collection of short stories, though calling them novellas would be a better description. The stories are strange and surreal in a way that I have only seen from Japanese authors. Its hard to describe them in a way that anyone could understand, but I can try.

There are four stories and they vary on topics from love to dreams, the past and the present. I enjoyed the shorts and will indeed pick up more novels of this author. I wish I could write more by way of review but there is just no way to put into words how lovely these stories were!

Drood by Dan Simmons

Drood -- Four Stars

I picked this up at Borders when they were having their final farewell. I do enjoy reading Dickens' novels, like most literary people, so I was attracted to this book because of that aspect. I was not prepared for a book that was such an in depth telling.

The story starts with the Staplehurst accident on 9 of June 1865. Charles Dickens was a passenger along with his pretty, young mistress when the train derailed and fell into a ravine. When Dickens starts to help the wounded and dying, he sees a fantastic man in a theatre cape. His name is Drood and he haunts the rest of the story.

The book is written in a fashion of a memoir, the narrator being a friend and contemporary of Dickens, one Wilkie Collins. He starts as a side character to entire Drood affair, but all too soon finds himself wrapped in the centre of a world of mesmerism (hypnosis) and  opium. The novel covers several years, from 1865 to Dickens' death in 1870. While we watch Dickens' age we also watch the narrator, Mr Collins, fall into his own madness.

I have to give Dan Simmons applause. He wrote a novel in the modern age using language that was common to the Victorian English age. No mean feat, let me assure you. Drood is also the first Simmons novel I have ever read and was notably impressed. I was also pleased by the level of research that went into the novel. Wilkie Collins had his share of success in the 1800's, but I had never heard of him and thought the character pure fiction. Imagine my surprise when I happened upon his most famous novel, The Moonstone, in a book shop the other day.

While a mammoth novel of over nine-hundred pages, it was well worth the read. I am so glad I picked it up that day.

Someplace To Be Flying by Charles DeLint

Someplace To Be Flying
5 Stars-

All right, so I'm partial, but who can blame me? I love DeLint's work and must say that his mixture of urban fantasy and traditional folklore has burrowed its way into my heart with no intent of leaving anytime soon.

In this story, we don't really see any of the usual characters. They are mentioned, but never introduced. Instead there is a focus on a lesser known pair of characters, Lilly and Hank. When she goes in search of the animal people from Jack's stories, Lilly finds more then she bargained for. One of these people try to kill her, but Hank turns up just in time to lend a hand with some serious help from the Crow Girls. This first encounter with a world neither of them understand bring downtown Hank and uptown Lilly together, in ways that neither of them would have ever expected.

I think the great take away from this novel is family. Sometimes we make mistakes with our kin and we have to atone for them, sometimes our family resembles a pack of wolves out for blood and there is no atonement. Sometimes when we introduce a member of the family we add that they are the ones we chose, not the ones we born into. Hank had a rough life, his family is odd and a little damaged, but good.

I could  not put this story down, I am always ready to dive headlong into a DeLint novel and only coming up for coffee. 

The Barcode Tattoo by Suzanne Weyn

The Bar Code Tattoo
*****- Five Stars

I happened upon this little gem whilst meandering though my local library. Oh the joys of books to read, free of charge! This book was just leaning ever so slightly off the shelf, so I adjusted it, then decided to take a closer look. "Closer", indeed! I read it in a few hours on the road this weekend.

We start in a world set in the future. Everything is smaller and faster then ever before. The latest "in" thing is to get this tattoo on your wrist of a bar code that is unique to you and only you. But see there's a problem in Utopia, isn't there always?

Kayla is one of the very few people who think there is something wrong morally about having your identity plastered on your arm for all the world to see. Medical records, criminal records, schooling records... every personal thing about you is right there for anyone with a scanner to see. Kayla refuses to get the tattoo, which starts to pose problems after the government makes it a law to be tattooed by seventeen.

What path will Kayla choose now? To follow the government and be a good little docile sheep, following the herd? Or will she take a stand for her morals? Are morals and self integrity really important anyway? Is "safety" the price for freedom?

A wonderful story, but then I'm a sucker for the "False Utopia" stories. 1984, Fahrenheit 451, The Giver... There are more I'm sure, but these are my favourites. Is safety the price of our personal freedom? Can we be free moral agents, allowed to make mistakes, yet maintain freedom? What is price we are individually willing to pay? Well... you answer......

Forests Of The Heart by Charles De Lint

Forests of the Heart

Rated-- *****
All right, so this was a "fluff" book, one that you read purely for the entertainment, for the joy of the story itself, not because you expect to receive anything of wisdom in the pages. De Lint is among my favourite authors and his Newford stories are always on my reading shelf. I truly never tire of reading his tales.

Charles De Lint manages to mix ancient folklore, spiritism, and Christianity in a way that never comes off as anything other then a beautiful story. In this one, De Lint doesn't follow the characters that his fans have grown to love so dearly, but introduces us to all new people! A singular treat.

The story opens in the deserts of the American Southwest with a young woman who has powerful medicine in her. She travels to Newford because she was called, by something or someone she isn't sure. She gets dragged into an ancient battle between the spirits, a place that no one wants to be. You never try to attract the attention of spirits as old as creation itself. The list of characters is numerous and wonderful. We are all taken on an adventure to find a way to lock an ancient spirit away before he can destroy anyone in his bloodlust. Where will you stand?

De Lint again gives us, not only a story of people and fantastic possibilities, but a story of loves won and lost. Of fear and hope, of dreams and nightmares. Truly, this is a wonderful novel of pain and beauty, one I am pleased to have spent the night reading.

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

Slaughterhouse Five

Rated- *****
I read this book earlier this year and I have to say it was rather incredible. Personally, I don't care for war, I think that murder in any way is morally reprehensible. That being said, Vonnegut has written a great fictionalized biography. It is both funny and painful, beautiful and sickening. I was not sure if such a thing can be accomplished, but Mr Vonnegut has proved me very wrong.

Written when the Cold War was in it's height, Vonnegut showed the world how he survived World War II, similar to the manner that the crew of M*A*S*H had in Korea. The brutal honesty of this novel makes you hate the idea of war being anything but a horrible idea. He shows us all that there is no glory in going to war, only nightmares and death.  We are taken for a short walk through his memories and are shown that there is no such thing as a fair war.

Slaughterhouse Five has been touted as the first of the anti-war novels. I'm not sure if this is true, but certainly was the first one I'd read. And I am glad of that. I don't think any other novel could have captured the true grit and horror that is war.

While at times, he seems to ramble on and digress, Vonnegut uses this as a way to compare "normal" to "horror". Sometimes they are starkly different, sometimes they are reflections of each other. There are moments in which we, as readers, are unsure where the story is going and why, but then no one really knows their path. I believe that Vonnegut was trying to show us that. To me, he succeeded with flying colours