David G. Cookson's Blog, page 3

The Fellowship of Puzzlemakers

The Fellowship of Puzzlemakers by Samuel Burr

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


As a baby, Clayton Stumper (a Dickensian sounding name if ever there was one) was found in a hatbox on the front porch of the Headquarters of the Fellowship of Puzzlemakers. He was left there to be cared for by an oddball group of cryptogrammers, quizzers, riddlers, gamemasters and others preoccupied with the making and pursuit of brain teasing activities.

He never knew who his mother was or where he came from. But he has been adopted by the group and raised to adulthood by the Puzzlemakers, led by Pippa, who does word puzzles. Pippa is the one who assembled the puzzlemaker group and settled them in the English Countryside.

The book opens with Pippa’s death…and in death she has left a puzzle for the now 21 year old Clayton. And this puzzle will lead him on a quest for his mother…
And in solving this puzzle, he is granted freedom to discover himself…to step out of his comfort zone…to see the world outside.

The text flips between past and present, it goes to the past when Pipa was alive and founding the Fellowship. And the present is where Clayton is trying to uncover his past…

This really is a delightful book. Charming and bright and loopy, like a Wes Anderson film.




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Hip Hop is History

Hip-Hop Is History by Questlove

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


1973 is arguably considered to be the year that hip hop was born. And Questlove (musician, filmmaker, fixture on the Tonight Show) is a terrific guide through a lot of it. He makes no bones about the fact that this is not comprehensive; It is history through his lens as a Black man and music fan. And this history is viewed through eras that come and go about every 5 years.

“Decades of innovation, achievement, energy, artistry, and history…History is never simple. it’s layers upon layers”.
That is the impact of hip hop.

For me personally…I am drawn to the idea that improvisation is the key. Making do with what you have around you to make music was always my bread and butter. You don’t have an instrument? Make one. You don’t have the space? Make one, find one…use what you got.
And in the age of streaming, it is easy to fill in the gaps in knowledge.

Terrific.




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Horror Movie

Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Immediately hook-y premise, very clever concept, well written and for the most part very enjoyable.

You are waiting for a “but…”

Ok. Confession time. I have never seen the Blair Witch Project. It came out in 1999; I think it actually had a local connection (lines around the block formed for an early premiere at my local theater). I resisted the initial push but then that grew into a resistance to the idea in general…I mean, who wants to watch two hours of a shaky camera and extreme close-ups of people who were cussing and telling us how scared they were? (I get nauseated by motion sickness pretty easily).

But I have to admit, it was a brilliant media campaign. People thought it was real, and the filmmakers reportedly fostered that deception, even to the point where the actors did not get much of a career bump from being in it…

Horror Movie (the novel) makes clever use of that found footage trope in a supposedly cursed movie made in 1993 called…well…Horror Movie. Horror Movie was a troubled production that was halted after an incident on set and then was followed by a series of unfortunate accidents and early deaths of people involved. The book flashes between then (1993) and now (2024-ish) with a stop or two in 2008, when footage of the “lost film” surfaced on YouTube, thereby feeding the fans who had built a legend around ‘the film that never was’. And in typical 2020’s fashion, a reboot is in the works…and the monster is hired to reprise his role.

So…it is a story told as an audio book as read by the monster of Horror Movie— “The Thin Kid”- and the only original cast member still living. It is so close to being perfect (I read it in about 2 days) but…

I would just have to say that a lot of this is written as the screenplay of the movie…and about 100 pages in, I started skipping over the screenplay bits. In part, it was because it seemed to be written to mimic a bad screenplay or at least that of an inexperienced screenwriter. And as such, the screenplay parts were the most difficult to read. And 100 pages in I just started skipping them altogether. Because the rest of it was really good, and I wanted to get back to the good parts. Maybe this is just a “me” problem. So…take what you want from this.

Otherwise…

For fans of horror and Svengoolie and all things 1990s, Horror Movie is very satisfying.




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The People We Keep

The People We Keep by Allison Larkin

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


One night 16 ½ year old April steals a neighbor’s car and performs a couple of songs that she wrote on her dad’s old guitar. It’s an open mic night…she feels the power and the joy of getting up in front of other people, allowing herself to express herself in song… and it changes her life.

April leaves her improvised motorhome (that kept her away from the main house) after a fight with her neglectful dad, whose new wife and new kid are far more important than the one in front of him… She has nothing but a stolen car and a guitar she kinda inherited. She drops out of school (she was failing anyway) leaves her on again/off again boyfriend, Matty and the whole small town behind.

She needs to go somewhere and she has no plan but she winds up in Ithaca at a place called Café Decadence. She takes her years of table waiting experience and becomes the trusted employee and friend to Carly…and before she can settle in, she leaves…

She will leave several times, break hearts, write songs and most importantly: she will find her people.

Loved this book, loved following April on the journey from a small town in Western New York to Florida to Ashville, New York, and other points on the way. Family is often the people you meet. Anyone who has ever left where they came from to start somewhere else can feel this.

So good.




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So We Meet Again

So We Meet Again by Suzanne Park

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


So We Meet Again

So We Meet Again begins when Korean American investment banker Jessie Kim is laid off from her high-profile New York investment firm and is forced to move back home to her parents’ house in Nashville, Tennessee. Her parents are lovely and supportive in that misdirected way but her mother is pushy and only wants what she thinks is best for her kid.

Anyone who has ever made this trip at some point in their lives can already understand the depth of this fall. Wondering what is the next step and hitting a low point, she runs into her childhood Rival in the parking lot of an Asian Grocery store.

Daniel is the PK (the Pastor’s Kid) and makes a lot of money and has a nice car and he has forever been pitted against Jessie…who is now at her lowest point….

...so, we meet again…

And then old childhood rivalries are unleashed.

And Jessie finds a path forward with a cooking hack that goes viral. And she finds help in unexpected places.

And at some point, I may have even cheered out loud.

It has basic elements of a smart rom/com with a fair degree of social relevance about whitewashing and the soul sucking nature of corporations ruining great ideas by consuming small businesses, as well as the sad reality of how women (esp. minority women) are treated in the workplace.

This is a lovely book. Honestly, I was with Jessie all the way. Hers is a comeback story: you may see it coming, but it is irresistible. And so much fun.





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The Corrections

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


There are few things more annoying than losing the book you were reading before you finish it. This book is 566 pages and around page 450 someone broke into my car and stole it…well…they stole the bag that I was keeping it in…I was sitting in the car and reading before the Velocity Girl Show and I was getting toward the end of this layered family saga. Because when you read Franzen you are in for a long ride but it feels well-worth it.

(I was led here by my reading of Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s The Long Island Compromise, which was compared to this book).

I was so annoyed that I went out and bought it to finish it.

The Lambert family. Mother and father, Enid and Al. AL is suffering from Parkinson’s disease but it is plain to see that while he is suffering, his wife is truly dealing with it more. They live in St. Jude Florida and their three kids are grown in age if not in temperament and scattered across the country. Chip is a middle child fu*kup who is constantly at work on a screenplay, while borrowing money from sister Denise. Gary is engaged in a war of wills with his wife, Caroline and had no idea how they got there.

These people are a mess. Papa Al once invented a highly specific piece of railroad equipment that he never truly got compensated for…but he was too old school and pig-headed to realize what he had and what he was entitled to. Pride and an out-of-touch and outdated idea of what he owed to the Company cost him dearly…but not only him but his kids as well…but what may solve his problems is an experimental drug called Correctall which could cure his condition.

All Enid Wants is the Whole Family to spend One Last Christmas in St. Jude.

All the Family wants is to minimize the pain of being related and struggling to make it through both their bad choices and the insufferability of others.

It’s basically a comedy set in the days right before 9-11 CHANGED EVERYTHING but even before that, the surveillance state was booming. Corporate greed was enjoying the field day of little regulation, Regular folks getting screwed. Poor people…well…you’re on your own. (It hasn’t really changed much.)

Franzen spins a web and there are few authors that make so much exposition so much fun.





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Fleishman is In Trouble

Fleishman Is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The Author of this year’s hot new book, Long Island Compromise, started with this book in 2019…

Toby Fleishman would appear to have it made after a divorce from his long-time partner Rachel gives him the freedom to explore and live the life of the single man once again. Hey, it sounds great. He will have the kids half the time and she will have them the other half and he will be free, free…to find women on a dating site that is just this side of actual prostitution. He is a doctor who works regular daytime hours and has the nights to himself. It all is coming up Milhouse for him…
Until the day that Rachel does not come to pick up the kids…and he has to scramble to figure it out…

What ensues is a dissection of the institution of marriage…it is perhaps overdue, perhaps nothing surprising. For Toby is a man and believes that his problems are important and he will see Rachel’s actions as those of a selfish person who is not playing by the rules. But as we flash back to the dawn of the relationship, and the individual career paths of the couple, it is clear that each has a claim for why the marriage didn’t work. And it is clear that Toby does not see Rachel for who she is: while Rachel is vilified in Toby’s eyes, she also has an origin story that puts it all in a different light.

I enjoyed this quite a bit while being confused at times when another narrator jumps in that is a side character who knows both Toby and Rachel. It does not quite achieve the satisfying conclusion that you might want. But is good nonetheless.





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The Genius of Judy

The Genius of Judy: How Judy Blume Rewrote Childhood for All of Us by Rachelle Bergstein

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


As a child of the 80’s, just the mention of the name ‘Judy Blume’ causes me to smile. I remember having story time in 5th grade and for about a half hour a day a teacher would read from a book. I remember Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl and then I remember Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and Superfudge by Judy Blume. These were two of my favorites.

Later, on my own I read Then Again, Maybe I Won’t. Her books were always fun, and she always wrote to the kids on a level that we appreciated, even loved. She was unafraid to tell the truth, to broach difficult subjects (for boys, the inappropriate boner was high on the list of things that we were afraid of that she just talked about in a book). She was trusted: she earned it. She was our friend. Mention her to any Gen X-er and watch our faces light up.

So, it is so odd that she is not considered more highly as the literary force she was. He books sold well. She inspired kids to be their true selves and to not be ashamed of their bodies. But she spent a lot of time being regarded as this crude author who talked about periods and masturbation…well…somebody had to.

All this is explored in this wonderful book. For her time Judy Blume’s books were challenging to the social order, even while she herself was not a revolutionary. Married three times, a suburban mom, Blume is hardly the picture of feminism. Yet, show me any author (pre-JK Rowling) with a larger reach with kids who is more beloved.

Rachelle Bergstein manages to convey Blume’s importance while giving background to many of her books. Over the long life of this author of YA fiction, she has pissed a lot of people off simply by not shying away from the truth: being a kid is full of horrible things that no one wants to talk about. And sometimes telling the truth gets you on the shit end of a book ban and the Moral Majority, and their modern-day offspring, Moms for Liberty and the like.

Bergstein is a fan and I would have a hard time finding much wrong with her assessment of this beloved author. Fun read, well done.




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Long Island Compromise

Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Long Island Compromise
By Taffy Brodesser-Akner

440 pages. 2024

In 1980, wealthy styrofoam manufacturer Carl Fetcher is kidnapped right from his driveway, taken to an undisclosed location, threatened and mistreated but not permanently hurt. His ordeal lasts 5 days until a ransom is paid and he is released.
These 5 days become the before and after of his entire life.
Because while he is unharmed and physically fine, he is the shell of the man he once was…

Cut to 40 years later…
This is just the beginning of a saga in which this is merely a speedbumb in the lives of rich people.

What follows is an absolute vivisection of what is wrong with generational wealth and capitalism America.

We follow Beamer, Carl’s son. A screenwriter who has been in the room for a series of Lethal Weapon type mindless action movies called Santiago, who has more kinks than a garden hose. (I happen to think he’s the best character in the book). We follow his brother, Nathan, who is afraid of his own shadow. We follow their sister, Jenny, who is rebelling against the family but can find nothing worthwhile to do...

Spoiler alert, but this is an awful family. A hilariously awful one. And the third generation pf the Fletchers is just a copy of a copy of a copy. The matriarch of the family is Phyllis, whose husband brought over the formula from polystyrene after escaping from the Nazis. And even that contribution is tainted by an untruth.

It's both a guilty pleasure and a damning condemnation. You aren’t so much rooting for anyone as you are just morbidly curious how bad it can get. And experiencing the nihilistic pleasure of knowing that the rich will never learn, and never truly suffer.
Watching it all unfold is a pleasure. I burned through this and immediately picked up the author’s previous effort. I found this book in the airport and on people’s reading lists and it took me a little while to get to the top of the waitlist at the library. This is a hot new book that will most surely be made into a movie at some point.

5 stars, excellent.




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Do You Remember Being Born

Do You Remember Being Born? by Sean Michaels

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


As a human living in the dawn of the age of Artificial Intelligence making its way into the world, I’m mostly disappointed at the inroads it has made into creative fields, writing and art (music—it was kind of already there, actually). Like there are not millions of creatives out there who just want a chance to show people that they have something to offer…no…we have to take something that makes us unique and human and separates us from the animals (I still believe that as much as I love animals, they are still not capable of making things that are meant to celebrate what it means to be an animal…)

But here we are…in a world where real human beings are being forced out of journalistic jobs and giving way to AI…I’m not even sure that my Sports Illustrated is written by real people anymore…I mean, it looks great and I still read it…but I’m not sure anymore if there is a real human person behind it…

And you may say, “yay. You can’t tell the difference, that means AI is working and doing a better job than people.” Yay. It’s a victory for the masters of the slave labor class, who now must fight each other for what’s left of the crumbs…

And we come to Do You remember Being Born…a novel by Sean Michaels which presents a story about aged poet Marian FFarmer who is in need of money and is therefore pliable and willing to engage in a deal with the devil: agreeing to write a collaborative poem with an AI poetry bot called Charlotte…

The novel follows Marian as she navigates through the task with Charlotte, flashing back through her past with her husband and her son…at times this is a beautifully written novel and at other times it is also difficult one that didn’t always grab me but it earns the 4 star Goodreads review I swear I am not a bot and never will be.




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