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My Favorite Books of 2015

With 2015 behind us, here’s just a quick peek at the books I gave 5 stars to throughout the year. Keep in mind these aren’t necessarily books that came out in 2015, but rather books I read in 2015. I hope you found some of these just as enjoyable as I did!

BOOK REVIEW: Dr. Mutter’s Marvels by Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz examines the life and influence of Thomas Dent Mutter, a nineteenth century surgeon in Philadelphia that is best known today for his collection of medical oddities that can be found in Philly’s Mutter Museum. This is a quick and heavily illustrated read that will have you cringing when you read about what patients had to endure to have surgery 150 years ago. (Hint: “anesthesia”=sip of booze.) After reading this book you’ll find yourself thanking Dr. Mutter the next time you get knocked out for a procedure, or when your doctor has exceedingly good bedside manners. Five Stars.

BOOK REVIEW: World Gone By is the third book in a trilogy by Dennis Lehane that began with The Given Day and continued with Live By Night. It’s the slimmest of the three books and doesn’t require that you read the first two. This is also the best book Lehane has written sinceMystic River and the Kenzie and Gennaro books. The plot momentum is fairly non-stop from start to finish…and what a finish. You won’t see it coming…and you’ll be enthralled and heartbroken. One of my favorite books so far this year. Five Stars.

BOOK REVIEW: I’ve heard nothing but good things about David McCullough, but The Wright Brothers was my first experience reading his books. I can see why he’s so popular: he doesn’t waste any time getting to the meat of his biographies, and the writing reads like a novel. The challenge here is that the climax of the book–the first flight at Kitty Hawk–comes only 70 pages into the book. I thought I’d be bored with the rest of it, but found it just as compelling as the parts leading up to that historic day. A wonderful and informative read. Five Stars.

BOOK REVIEW: Roger Hobbs is the real deal. The best new thriller writer since Joseph Finder burst onto the scene with The Moscow Club. Vanishing Games is Hobbs’s second book, and there’s no sophomore slump here. In fact, he builds on the promise of his first book, Ghostman, and delivers a thriller that catapults you through from start to finish. Modern day pirates seize a cache of sapphires–and something else I won’t spoil–off the coast of Macau. When things go horribly wrong, the ghostman–whose name changes along with his appearance–is called in to clean up the mess and help a friend. There is brutal violence in this book, and it’s not for the faint of heart, but it’s one of the best thrillers I’ve read in a long, long time. Five Stars.

Book Review: Asylum is the first book in Madeleine Roux’s Asylum series, which is–to date–up to three books deep. Let’s just get this out of the way: This is the best young adult book I’ve read in a long, long, time. Forget the popularity of The Hunger Games for a moment,  and you can certainly skip over Ransom Riggs’ Peculiar Children series, another illustrated series which this clearly aims to capitalize on. This series is so much better. Sure, it’s young adult, which means that the writing isn’t anything award-winning (after all, the writing in some of those other books borders on pretentious, which is just another way of saying boring). This follows a group of teenagers that attend a summer program at a college that was converted from an abandoned lunatic asylum. What they find there is thrilling, scary, and vastly entertaining all at once. Any time you can work family history, serial killers, and a cast of characters (none of whom can be trusted)…well…you’ve got yourself a recipe for a winner. I’m already reading the second book, Sanctum. Five Stars.

Book Review: There’s already been some criticism about The Marvels, Brian Selznick’s latest book (he’s the one that gave us The Invention of Hugo Cabret, his most popular book). People are upset about the alternative lifestyle portrayed in the book. I say that kids probably won’t care or even notice for that matter. Instead, enjoy the lush pencil drawings that tell one part of the story for the first 400 pages, then the wonderful prose that tells the second part of the book, followed by another short drawn section that ties everything together into one of the most masterful children’s books I’ve ever read. This book was a true masterpiece of storytelling and a pleasure to spend a few hours with. You know…if you can forget about the other stuff that seems to offend people for some reason. A wonderful book nonetheless (but pricey!). Five Stars.

Book Review: The Poisoned Crown is the third book in Maurice Druon’s Accursed King series, which George R.R. Martin has said is the basis for his Game of Thrones series. (And don’t think they don’t let you know it on the cover of every book!) What makes this series great historical fiction is the fact that while every book is short, they’re all jam-packed with intrigue and double-crossing at every turn. Like Game of Thrones, you never know who will survive to see the end of any particular book in the series (unless you’re a scholar of Medieval history). It’s a book and series that constantly keeps you guessing, while delighting the reader and making the pages–and hours–fly by. Five Stars.

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3 Book Reviews

BOOK REVIEW: Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Old School is the latest installment of books in the Wimpy Kid series by Jeff Kinney. Anybody who follows my reviews (and why would you do that?) would know that I considered the last book in the series to be his masterpiece. It follows, then, that this book couldn’t possibly live up to that standard. And it doesn’t. The book sees Our Hero, Greg Heffley, going on an overnight environmental school trip. Of course, not much goes right, and hilarity ensues…whether you’re a child or adult. But the threads of the story never quite gel as well as they have in the past. Still a great addition to the series, though. Four Stars.

BOOK REVIEW: Have you ever watched a friend play a video game? Have you ever watched a friend play a really bad sequel to a previously enjoyed video game? That’s what reading Armada by Ernest Cline feels like. It seems like the author is having way more fun that we are slogging through a plot that feels like it was conceived through an act of desperation. His first book, Ready Player One, was a wonderful book that took place in the world of video games. But this one, about alien invasion from visitors that were previously in a video game–but turn out to be very real–is drawn out and uninteresting. Read the first chapter; it’s the best part. Then put the book down, or risk wishing that everybody would just die already–no extra lives, please!–so the book could be over. Two Stars.

BOOK REVIEW: If you’re in the mood for a slow, comfy historical murder mystery that takes 600 pages to unfold and seems to meander its way through the daily life of London in the 1500s, then Lamentation by C.J. Sansom is for you. It’s the latest mystery in the Matthew Shardlake series, and I started reading it when it first came out in the UK in 2014. Here we are at the end of 2015, and I just finished it. Yes, it took me that long. And no, it’s not because it’s a bad book. It’s just a slow paced book, and I’m not a slow paced guy. A manuscript written by Henry VIII’s last queen, which may be viewed as heretical, has gone missing. And as the body count piles up, it’s up to Matthew Shardlake to find out where it’s gone. You’ll never see the end coming…even if you take over a year to read it. A great book in a great series, but just a tad slow for me. Four Stars.

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4 Book Reviews

Book Review: Make Me by Lee Child finds Jack Reacher back in the good old USA, beating up the bad guys in the midwest. Oklahoma, if I remember correctly, in a place called Mother’s Rest. Jack gets off the train and steps into a world of underground internet sites and nefarious dealings going on in the town. Why is the town called Mother’s Rest? Jack asks the question frequently but gets no answers until the end. Working with a new female sidekick, he works his way around the country, collecting clues as to what’s going on in Mother’s Rest, and smacking a few heads along the way. Another great entry into the Reacher series. But did you expect any less? Four Stars.

Book Review: Sanctum by Madeleine Roux is the second book in the Asylum series, and I knew about a hundred pages into this book that it wouldn’t quite live up to the first book. (That’s a pattern that continues–see my review of Catacomb.) Sure, this one has a creepy carnival, flashbacks to a previous life lived by a distant relative, and mysterious people on motorcycles that chase the main characters around, spying and taking pictures all the while. But while the first book seemed fresh, this one seems too formulaic, as if it was simply modeled on the first and only a few things were changed to make a new book. Still vastly entertaining, though, but worth only Four Stars this time.

Book Review: Catacomb by Madeleine Roux is the third book in the Asylum series and proves that some series can operate on a law of diminishing returns. I gave the first book five stars, the second one four, and this one gets Three Stars, simply because it’s starting to get a little tedious. Even the accompanying pictures, so creepy in the first book, seem like the author just grabbed them out of her wallet for this one. They don’t really lend anything to the atmosphere of the book, and that whole American Horror Story feeling is lost. It doesn’t even matter that this book takes place in the creepy parts of New Orleans, the most haunted city in America. The book still falls a little flat.

Book Review: I hate to sound like every other review of this book that’s been written, but Thirteen Ways of Looking by Colum McCann is worth getting just for the title novella. It follows an old judge on his last day of life, flashing forward to the detectives that are investigating his murder after he’s killed in front of a restaurant. You’ll never figure out who did it, so don’t even try. You don’t read McCann for the mystery; you read him for the gorgeous writing. Five stars for the novella, minus one star for the weaker three stories which follow, which gives this book Four Stars.

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For Me, Every Day Is Halloween

I should probably start by saying that if you’re a skeptic when it comes to ghosts, you’re not going to like this post. And I respect your opinion. Really, I do. I don’t think I’d believe in them if they hadn’t seemingly followed me around for most of my life. There’s a saying that skeptics like to employ around believers: There are no haunted houses, only haunted people. The thing is, I think there are both.

It was the dreams that started everything for me. When my grandfather died, he appeared to me in a dream looking younger than I ever knew him and asked me to remind everybody not to forget him. I had completely forgotten about it until my grandmother died and appeared to me looking 40 years younger than I ever knew her. I asked her how she was, and she told me, “I’m wonderful! I’m bathed in light!” I woke up crying. Bathed in light? What the heck was that??? I couldn’t have come up with that phrase if I tried.

My father appeared to me after he died, looking younger and asking how my trip to Budapest had gone when I dropped his ashes in Lake Balaton. He was young and thin, and the dream didn’t last beyond that one question. I awoke crying again.

You can say that he was in the back of my mind, that my subconscious had taken over. But that’s not it. This dream occurred long after my trip to Hungary, and I was at peace with his passing, already moving on with my life. But as he lay dying, I had asked him to visit me. And he has. Three times, I’m sure that he’s stopped by to say hello. The third time was on Thanksgiving a few years ago. I was turning off the lights in my music room, and the entire room was filled with an instantly recognizable smell. It was the smell of the room my father died in. You never forget something like that. Thinking I was going nuts, I called my wife down and asked her what she smelled, and she confirmed it for me. It’s all the more significant to know that the only time my father came over to my house was on Thanksgiving, and he spent some time playing my piano in the music room. It’s still one of my fondest, last memories of him. It’s also the room that contains his childhood violin and some dirt from the bottom of the lake where he chose his final resting place.

Which brings me to my house, which was built in 1751. We’ve got two ghosts. One, we believe to be a woman, simply because of her small size. She’s a residual haunt, which just means it’s like a tape playing over and over. She appears as a shadow that moves along one wall of our living room, passing into a set of stairs that didn’t used to be there until 2005. (Obviously, she still doesn’t know the stairs are there!) The thing is, you can only see the shadow if you’re looking at a reflection in the window opposite. Turn and look directly at the wall, and the shadow is gone. My wife’s children have confirmed that they saw the same thing growing up. For me, I was completely freaked out the one time it happened to me.

The second ghost is most definitely a man, and it’s an intelligent haunt. Which is to say he interacts with us and likes to mess with our heads. We have sounds of slamming doors (when every door remains open), footsteps on hardwood upstairs (when everything is carpeted), the smells of cologne and (more alarmingly) feces, which seem to move from one spot to another–and only in one specific spot (which is physically impossible), and the sound of muted and unintelligible conversation when nobody is around (even though it sounds like it’s right next to you).

We’ve had two experiences that my wife and I count as the most unnerving. She talked to a dark shadow in a dark upstairs hallway that she heard and saw walk toward her and stop. She addressed it, thinking it was me, and it turned and walked away, disappearing into our daughter’s bedroom. She hadn’t realized it wasn’t me until she came back into our room and saw me lying in bed.

But the most impressive experience was when we were both watching a movie and my eye was drawn to the decorative window in our front door. I watched a shorter man in a golf cap walk up to the door, lean forward, and knock on the glass of the door twice, then turn to his right and walk along the porch…except he never passed in front of the living room window. My wife heard the knock and jumped up and opened the door. There was nobody there. It was only then that I realized I hadn’t heard any footsteps on the wooden porch, and seeing the man at the door was like looking at somebody in black and white. It was only when we tried to recreate what had happened that all of this occurred to me. My wife was in color (of course) and made noise walking, and none of that applied to our visitor.

And I won’t even tell you how we’ve had ADT come out to look at a door alarm that goes off every night at 12:15. Imagine the conversation I had with that guy. He gave me a look like the look you’re probably giving me right now. And that’s okay. I know it’s all true, and you don’t have to believe it if you don’t want to.

I thought I’d share it in the “spirit” of the season. Living in our house is a constant adventure. We can go six months with nothing, and then suddenly everything will begin going haywire–like it did this month. Feel free to stop by. We’ve got plenty of empty rooms…or perhaps not so empty.

Happy Halloween.

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Five (yes…FIVE!) Book Reviews

Book Review: It’s no secret that I’m one of Mark Helprin’s biggest fans. So when In Sunlight and in Shadow came out in 2012, I was really excited to read it. And then I read some of the reviews for the book, which made me set it aside for three years. I finally got around to it, and if it weren’t for the previous reviews I’d read, I would think I’m just a crotchety guy now and can’t appreciate great fiction anymore. But this book just drags. It’s the love story of Harry and Catherine, about how they defy odds to get married and support each other through their individual ordeals (one of which makes for a not-so-happy ending). But entire chapters had me skimming the book wishing for it to end. Every movement of Catherine’s as she rehearses for a musical is described in excruciating detail, and there are two or three chapters that flash back to Harry’s exploits in WWII…but they come at the end of the book and aren’t necessary at all, either for character or plot development. This is Mark Helprin, though, so the writing is exquisite. There’s just too damn much of it. Three Stars.

Book Review: The Poisoned Crown is the third book in Maurice Druon’s Accursed King series, which George R.R. Martin has said is the basis for his Game of Thrones series. (And don’t think they don’t let you know it on the cover of every book!) What makes this series great historical fiction is the fact that while every book is short, they’re all jam-packed with intrigue and double-crossing at every turn. Like Game of Thrones, you never know who will survive to see the end of any particular book in the series (unless you’re a scholar of Medieval history). It’s a book and series that constantly keeps you guessing, while delighting the reader and making the pages–and hours–fly by. Five Stars.

Book Review: Rubbernecker is a mystery by Belinda Bauer, an author I’d never heard of before, but one whose work I’d be more than happy to read again in the future. This book has the unique plot of a lead character with Asperger’s Syndrome who is accepted into a medical school. Once there, in the dissection lab, he comes across some evidence left behind in a corpse that would point to murder. The point of view shifts brilliantly from the main character to the corpse before he was murdered, and it all comes together in a conclusion that is sure to satisfy. I would say I’d love to see a sequel, but that doesn’t seem like something this author does. And more power to her…her wonderful plot ideas shouldn’t be diluted by any type of series format. Four Stars.

Book Review: Asylum is the first book in Madeleine Roux’s Asylum series, which is–to date–up to three books deep. Let’s just get this out of the way: This is the best young adult book I’ve read in a long, long, time. Forget the popularity of The Hunger Games for a moment,  and you can certainly skip over Ransom Riggs’ Peculiar Children series, another illustrated series which this clearly aims to capitalize on. This series is so much better. Sure, it’s young adult, which means that the writing isn’t anything award-winning (after all, the writing in some of those other books borders on pretentious, which is just another way of saying boring). This follows a group of teenagers that attend a summer program at a college that was converted from an abandoned lunatic asylum. What they find there is thrilling, scary, and vastly entertaining all at once. Any time you can work family history, serial killers, and a cast of characters (none of whom can be trusted)…well…you’ve got yourself a recipe for a winner. I’m already reading the second book, Sanctum. Five Stars.

Book Review: There’s already been some criticism about The Marvels, Brian Selznick’s latest book (he’s the one that gave us The Invention of Hugo Cabret, his most popular book). People are upset about the alternative lifestyle portrayed in the book. I say that kids probably won’t care or even notice for that matter. Instead, enjoy the lush pencil drawings that tell one part of the story for the first 400 pages, then the wonderful prose that tells the second part of the book, followed by another short drawn section that ties everything together into one of the most masterful children’s books I’ve ever read. This book was a true masterpiece of storytelling and a pleasure to spend a few hours with. You know…if you can forget about the other stuff that seems to offend people for some reason. A wonderful book nonetheless (but pricey!). Five Stars.

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3 Book Reviews

Book Review: The Book of Speculation is a first novel by Erika Swyler, and a great way to start a writing career. A man descended from a family of circus performers gets a mysterious old book in the mail and needs to find out what curse has plagued the women in his family, who all drown on the same day in July at some point in their lives. The book bounces back and forth between the present and past, relying on illustrations by the author of tarot cards and other items to keep the story moving forward. The plot wasn’t as quickly moving as I would have hoped, but it’s a strong start for a first novel. I would give it three and a half stars, but the ending was so poignant and well done, I’m rounding up to Four Stars.

Book Review: Publishers are funny. They won’t publish books from talented authors they don’t know (yet), but once that author becomes famous and they can make a boatload of cash, they’ll publish everything by that person. Such is the case with the recent Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee, and such is the case with Wind/Pinball by Haruki Murakami. In the preface to the two short novels (novellas, really) Murakami sounds almost embarrassed to be releasing these, having written them at his kitchen table in the 1970s. And I can see why he’s embarrassed: Although there are hints of the brilliance to come, neither of the stories are engaging … nor can there be anything that could remotely be described as a plot. These meandering but mercifully short tales can be tackled in one sitting. But they were probably best left in the slush pile. One star for each novella, so Two Stars.

Book Review: When I began reading The Fall of Princes by Robert Goolrick, I was really excited. The writing is absolutely gorgeous, and I had forgotten what a talent he was. I loved his first novel, A Reliable Wife, as well as his follow-up Heading Out to Wonderful. Before I got to page 50, I went online and ordered his first book, the memoir The End of the World As We Know It. But somewhere shortly after that, I realized the huge problem with this book. At least for me, in order to like a book, I have to be emotionally vested in the main character … and I wanted the main character in this book to die a slow painful death. He works in a Barnes & Noble now, and flashes back to his days of excess as a stock trader in the 80s. Chapter after chapter of cocaine use, whoring, and friends contracting AIDS made me just wish the whole thing would end much quicker than it did. I returned the book, but look forward to reading his memoir–which I’m sure will have a much more sympathetic main character. Two Stars for the wonderful writing.

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Writing: It’s Not Easy

At the start of the summer, I’m invariably asked each year what I’m doing for the summer. The biggest item on my list of things to do is to either rewrite a book, work on a new one, or both. And when I respond to somebody that that’s what I intend to do, they nearly always reply, “Well, that sounds like fun!”

At which point, it’s always obvious to me that they’ve never written a book…or at least one that others would pay to read.

There’s nothing fun about writing. The brainstorming, which should be every writer’s first step in devising a story, always seems to lead to gaping plot holes. Explaining those plot holes or making them work is the real challenge in brainstorming a plot. You also have to know your characters and create people that you know as well as you know yourself–and care about them just as much. Nobody can lose themself in a story when they don’t care about the characters.

Then there’s the writing of the actual rough draft. There’s just no way around it: I don’t care how fast you type, this is a really time-consuming part of the writing process. I can hammer out about four pages per hour and have been known to finish between twenty and thirty pages in a day when I’m on a tear. But it’s exhausting, both mentally and–yes–even physically.

The next part is the part that separates the men from the boys. In my writing workshop at NYU, Ann Hood once said that anybody can write a book; few people can actually rewrite. And that’s the most important step in the process. Taking criticism from beta readers (sometimes harsh criticism), not letting it bother you too much, and using it in a productive fashion to make your manuscript better.

I recently had a discussion with a fellow author about my book, The Dewey Deception. I had mentioned to her that the book had been rewritten about fifteen times before being shopped to the publishers. Her eyes actually opened wider; she couldn’t believe I had done that many revisions. But that seems to be the magic number with me: no manuscript leaves my house until it’s gone through approximately fifteen changes. And as soon as I think it’s done, it’s not. An agent or editor needs to add their two cents, and the revision process begins anew.

Of course, every time a book actually goes into print, I want to stop the presses because I can think of something I could have done better. But that’s the curse of any writer that cares about his work!

Which brings me back to the start of this summer, which is fitting because we’re near the end of the summer. When I was asked what I would be doing this summer, I had every intention of finishing up the rewrites on one book and completing the rough draft of another. I really did. But you know what? I didn’t do either.

Oh, I restored a pinball machine to its former glory. Finished up a lot of work around the house that went uncompleted during the previous ten months. Even managed to squeeze in a short vacation or two. But I never quite got around to polishing up those two manuscripts. Do you know why?

Because it was summer. And summer is lazy season. And writing is hard.

But the new school year’s starting, and I’m going to be writing with a vengeance now, I promise.

Maybe.

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3 Book Reviews

Book Review: Oblivion by Arnaldur Indridason is the latest offering by the Icelandic author in his Reyjavik mystery series. With his last book, Reykjavik Nights, Indridason went back to the beginning of Inspector Erlendur’s career. This book picks up where the last one left off (and it was a little confusing because I didn’t realize we were in the 1970s until he mentioned the Carter administration.) Erlendur is investigating a body that winds up near the US air force base in a lagoon (which would later become the famous Blue Lagoon in Iceland). He’s also looking into a cold case of a missing girl from the 1950s. Both investigations come to a satisfying conclusion and this book solidifies Indridason as one of the premier authors of mysteries in any country. This book is only available outside the US (I got mine on Amazon UK), but will be released in February 2016 as Into Oblivion. Four Stars.

Book Review: Operation Napoleon is a standalone thriller by Arnaldur Indridason and isn’t connected to his Reykjavik mysteries in any way. (Although a cameo by two detectives in this book might be some people we recognize from those mysteries!). A German plane that was lost on a glacier in Iceland is exposed, and the Americans are in a race to get it out of the country without raising any red flags. Why they’re doing this, and what’s on the plane, is the crux of the book’s plot. If you’re an American, it’s a bit of a difficult read because we’re the bad guys in this book. There were clearly some bitter feelings towards the US when they had an air force base stationed at Keflavik, and it comes through in this book. A good read, though, but not one of his best. If you like Clive Cussler, you’ll like this book as well. Three Stars.

Book Review: Roger Hobbs is the real deal. The best new thriller writer since Joseph Finder burst onto the scene with The Moscow Club. Vanishing Games is Hobbs’s second book, and there’s no sophomore slump here. In fact, he builds on the promise of his first book, Ghostman, and delivers a thriller that catapults you through from start to finish. Modern day pirates seize a cache of sapphires–and something else I won’t spoil–off the coast of Macau. When things go horribly wrong, the ghostman–whose name changes along with his appearance–is called in to clean up the mess and help a friend. There is brutal violence in this book, and it’s not for the faint of heart, but it’s one of the best thrillers I’ve read in a long, long time. Five Stars.

 

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Goodbye, E.L. Doctorow…

I have an image permanently seared in my mind. It’s of a young boy running through the streets of New York City in 1939. He’s looking up at the sky, into the empty space formed by the tall buildings that line every street, and he’s trying to keep the ill-fated Hindenburg in his sight as it flies south to Lakehurst, NJ.

It’s a scene from E.L. Doctorow’s 1985 book, World’s Fair, and it has resonated with me for thirty years because it was written so vividly, it was as if I was there with a boy, chasing a dirigible.

E.L. Doctorow passed away yesterday at the age of 84, and I’m deeply saddened for a couple of reasons–not the least of which is the fact that the literary world has lost a genius and a giant.

I grew up with Doctorow’s books. They’ve spanned my life. Indeed, his first book was written in 1960, before I was born. But the first book to gain my attention was his most famous one, Ragtime, released in 1975. I was ten years old then, and although I didn’t read it until a few years later, it captured my imagination in such a way that it inspired me to listen to Scott Joplin’s piano rags for some time afterward. Simply a title, coupled with such elegant prose, had such a hypnotic power over me.

My favorite book was World’s Fair, but there were so many other great books, like Billy Bathgate and The March. Sure, there were some questionable books, like Loon Lake–a truly difficult read–and the recent Andrew’s Brain, which showed far too much of Doctorow’s political views for my taste. (Note to authors: Nobody cares about your politics–right- or left-leaning. Just shut up and tell me a story.) But in the end, there are few authors that have had such a profound effect on my reading life as E.L. Doctorow has had.

In the 1990s, when I was attending New York University to get my master’s degree in music technology, I found out that he was teaching a writing class at the school of Arts & Sciences. I had already enrolled in Ann Hood’s writing workshop as a way to fulfill credit requirements–and had learned a lot from her in our short time together. (If you haven’t had your writing ripped apart by a class full of students who think they can do it better, you haven’t really lived!) But the master was teaching a class, and I was determined to get in.

I found out his office hours and waited patiently in a long line of students waiting to speak with him about their assignments. When I entered his office, he was seated at his desk and looked up at me over his right shoulder with a look that could only mean, “Who the hell are you and what the hell do you want?” He knew all of his other visitors; I can only imagine he figured me for a fan desperate for some signed books. If that was the case, he wasn’t far off.

I pleaded my case, telling him how hard I would work if he would accept me into his class. He listened patiently, then gave me the bad news: His class was in high demand and was only open to students enrolled in the master’s writing program. It was an NYU rule and there was nothing he could do about it. I thanked him for his time and left, half disappointed, but half elated at having met one of my literary heroes. Looking back on it, I would have liked to have had him sign a couple of my favorite books, but that was neither the time nor forum for such a thing–and I’m pretty sure he would have declined.

But that’s okay. I had my brush with greatness. I’ll never forget the kindly old man at his office desk, and I’ll never forget the boy chasing the Hindenburg down the street.

Thanks for all the great books, Professor Doctorow. And rest in peace.

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3 Book Reviews

BOOK REVIEW: I’ve heard nothing but good things about David McCullough, but The Wright Brothers was my first experience reading his books. I can see why he’s so popular: he doesn’t waste any time getting to the meat of his biographies, and the writing reads like a novel. The challenge here is that the climax of the book–the first flight at Kitty Hawk–comes only 70 pages into the book. I thought I’d be bored with the rest of it, but found it just as compelling as the parts leading up to that historic day. A wonderful and informative read. Five Stars.

BOOK REVIEW: House of Echoes is a first novel by Brendan Duffy, and the plot sounds promising. A man and his family inherit an old house with a sordid past in the woods of upstate New York. Things quickly begin to get weird. His son has conversations with some guy in the woods, mutilated corpses of animals begin piling up at an alarming rate, and before long, the whole book devolves into something akin to The Village of the Damned. The challenge with any psychological thriller or horror novel is not to have the book become too ridiculous. This one pushed the limits of my patience just a little too far, I’m afraid. But a promising first book nonetheless. Three Stars.

BOOK REVIEW: Thank God for Joseph Finder. Whenever I think I’ll have to survive another summer without a decent thriller, he’s usually there to help me out. His latest novel, The Fixer, finds a man who discovers piles of cash hidden in his lawyer-father’s old house. Where that money came from is the question that propels the plot like a rocket and nearly gets Our Hero killed any number of times. Finder has moved from international espionage plots to stories involving the guy next door–and the really bad  things that can happen to him. This book isn’t up to Paranoia standards–that book is still my favorite–but this is one of his best efforts nonetheless. Four Stars.

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