The Magician King (The Magicians #2)

#699
Title: The Magician King (The Magicians #2)
Author: Lev Grossman
Publisher: Viking
Year: 2011
400 pages
Audiobook

Highlight entry to see spoiler text.

It's better than The Magicians, but still disappointing. The high point is Julia's back story; the rest doesn't hang together very well. Grossman seems to have decided that he's writing amusing fantasy rather than a parody of fantasy, which at least clarifies his genre. There is nominally more sense of Quentin, though there is still much more telling than showing. I can live with this, but what I can't live with is the arbitrariness of the action. Characters appear and disappear with little coment. Perhaps some will return in a third book, but wouldn't their absence be commented on more by the main characters? Janet is nothing, absent from most of the narrative; I don't think it spoils the story overmuch to say that Jollyby is killed very early, but his death is never explained; Penny is now, for unknown reasons, sort of an okay guy. The action of the novel recalls Angelica Button and The Dragon King’s Trundle Bed from The Simpsons (season 18, episode 8), from magic of the quality of Headmaster Greystach's "Moustache powers! Activate!" and story progression startlingly similar to Angelica's exposition, "I somehow escaped from the hourglass!" And the climax: Really? All those Maxwell's demon-type gods are going to be thwarted by turning some keys in locks? How? And why do the keys also unlock keyholes in the air? And why is everyone hurtling around between worlds? And how are the two gods encountered (rapey fox and succor-mamma) related to the cosmic electron-plumbers looking for who tapped the cosmic magic sump? Oh--and ending courtesy of The Truman Show, more or less.

The Best of It: New and Selected Poems

#698
Title: The Best of It: New and Selected Poems
Author: Kay Ryan
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic
Year: 2011
288 pages

At their best, Ryan's poems are gem-like, with astounding observations that give a brilliant little flash as you examine them: Oh! At worst, they are doggerel, sing-songly little nothings with no point beyond description (in the manner of giraffe...carafe, though that isn't actually one of her rhymes). This collection includes both and allows a longitudinal look at how Ryan has streamlined and improved her work over time. Her rhymes are less clangy; her abstractions less pronouncements than observations; her descriptions more emblematic or symbolic. This is a very good volume for seeing both ends of her capacity as a poet.

The Son of Neptune (Heroes of Olympus #2)

#697
Title: The Son of Neptune (Heroes of Olympus #2)
Author: Rick Riordan
Publisher: Disney/Hyperion
Year: 2011
513 pages

Yes, it's a little repetitive in some ways, in part because of the previous Percy Jackson series, in part because it's the meanwhile, on the other coast at the other demigod camp story that parallels The Lost Hero. Like Jason of that narrative, Percy has had his memory erased in order that Juno may manipulate events to try to save the world from Gaea. This volume seemed more self-conscious to me, with joking cultural references (such as Amazons who work at Amazon) that were slightly entertaining. I acknowledge that if I were 12, I might have found them hilarious. This read like a bridging volume to get the heroes from point A to B, setting the scene for the third book.

Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland and The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides

#696
Title: Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland and The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides
Author: Samuel Johnson & James Boswell
Publisher: Audible
Year: 1775 (original)
~160 pages
Audiobook

Read as an audiobook. Audible (the edition I listened to) claims it's unabridged and it clearly is abridged. They've intercut Boswell and Johnson's narratives and included what I'd estimate from the length of the recording as perha;ps 160 pages. The 2-memoir set tends to run 300-something to 400-something in print editions.

I like Boswell less the more I read of his sycophantic fawning on Johnson. As to the journals themselves, I enjoyed both men's descriptions and explanations of daily live, scenery, and history. I'd have liked to hear more about whiskey, this being my greatest preoccupation with Scotland, but perhaps this topic is better represented in the version that's actually unabridged.

Rat Girl: a Memoir

#695
Title: Rat Girl: A Memoir
Author: Kristin Hersh
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 2010
336 pages

A smart, engaging memoir that includes bipolar disorder, music, and much more. Smart writing and choice of details make this a literary memoir of greater interest than many reports of mental illness. Plus it's by Kristin Hersh of Throwing Muses. Plus it's fun to revisit all those Rhode Island and Boston venues and think about what I was doing there while Kristin was doing what she was doing.

The Bagel: A Cultural History

#694
Title: The Bagel: A Cultural History
Author: Maria Balinska
Publisher: Yale University Press
Year: 2008
288 pages
Audiobook

Despite some mispronunciations by the reader, this is an engaging history of the bagel, though it's really a history of the bagel, Jews in Poland and elsewhere in Eastern Europe, and the Jews and labor unions in the US. Really, there isn't a lot to say about the bagel itself, but the bagel as an organizing strategy for a social history works well.

In Papua New Guinea

#693
Title: In Papua New Guinea
Author: Christina Dodwell
Publisher: Picador
Year: 1983/1985
Country: Papua New Guinea
256 pages

Like Rita Golden Gelman,  the author of Tales of a Female Nomad, Christina Dodwell is some combination of adventurous, naive, lucky, and skillful. This narrative of her two years in Papua New Guinea provide evidence for all of these interpretations. I enjoyed Dodwell's descriptions and musings and have a much better on-the-ground sense of the country than I often have after reading travel memoirs. On the other hand, I was more consistently alarmed than usual. It might have helped to have a better sense of Dodwell's thoughts and emotions, but this is the least revealed aspect of the book.