David G. Cookson's Blog, page 32

I Just Want my Pants Back

I Just Want My Pants Back by David J. Rosen

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Jason has a one night (ok, maybe two night) fling with a girl who borrows his Dickies for the walk home and then never calls him again. And he really just wants his pants back, though it is also possible that he wants something more. Hence, the title of this book, which plays out against the backdrop of New York City and seems to resemble a more comedic and raunchy take on Catcher in the Rye. Along the way he forms a meaningful connection with his older neighbor Patty, and he also prepares to be the officiant in a wedding for his friends. But he is young and confused and really has no idea where his life is going and his job is a joke but hey…isn’t that everybody?

I vacillate between hating the crap out of this book and begrudgingly giving it the due it deserves. I happen to feel the same way about a certain TV show that I enjoy but that is backed by a performer that I hate (I’ll just let you guess at that one). On the one hand, there is real value in a book that entertains and keeps the reader into it. On the other hand, the main character comes off as such an insufferable smart ass who has it so much better than he ever realizes (ahh, to be in your twenties and have no one really counting on you…) that I just had a really hard time caring about his story. But then again, maybe that is the whole point of the character’s journey. At times I had to overlook what was undoubtedly a flaw of a first-time novelist: trying too damn hard to be so damn clever. (Example: was it really necessary to offer such a detailed description of how dirty the urinal at the local bar is?) See, look at what a jerk I’m being. I’m picking it apart a little because I truly don’t have an answer for how I feel about this book. And maybe that’s what a good novel does.

The book was published in 2007, and so it is quite possible that future works avoid some of the pitfalls I’ve mentioned here. I give it four stars because in the end, the effort was worth the journey it took to get there.




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Flash Boys

Flash Boys: A Wall Street Revolt by Michael Lewis

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I can definitely see one of the big advantages of financial crime: it’s just so damned hard to understand. Probably the easiest way to think of it is just to assume that a bunch of greedy bastards would kill their own mothers just to gain a few milliseconds advantage on other traders. To this end, in the late 2000's, the author describes the building of a super high speed line for transmitting stock data stretching from Illinois to New Jersey; installed somewhat in secret, and not to the benefit of anyone but the companies whose sole purpose is to make huge profits by benefiting from the few milliseconds shaved off of transmission time that this line would afford.

Within this book, the history of the stock market is framed as one that is defined by a series of scandals followed by reforms, some of which have actually just caused the cheaters to try harder, to become more clever. It has been this way since the beginning, for over 200 years. And lack of understanding of the market (I would guess) factors into why this doesn’t register with people as much as it should.

I read Moneyball, where Lewis explained the difficult concept of saber-metrics in baseball. That was a subject I already intuitively understood. But I think Lewis did a good job with this. He has taken a difficult concept and made it accessible to the layman, and has found the story within it.




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The Affinities

The Affinities by Robert Charles Wilson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Years ago in this country there was something known as a Eugenics movement, which, in essence, was all about breeding deformities out of the gene pool, about letting the weak and the mentally feeble be sterilized, so that they would die out and not continue to drag down the human race with their weakness. As horrible as it sounds, it actually gained much popularity in this country, with its own culture and festivals celebrating purity and clean and unpolluted bloodlines. And it all pretty much went by the wayside when a little man in a crazy mustache took something very similar and took it to its perversely horrific logical extreme.

I thought of this when I read The Affinities. The idea in the book as that personality types could be categorized and allow people to be separated into groups where the spirit of cooperation would prevail. The theory was that like-minded people would make a more just and equitable world, since the many conflicts that humanity has is surely the result of people not understanding one another. It is an idea that seems, in theory to be useful and valid, but what happens in the book is that the idea becomes skewed, and taken to a logical extreme where the idea becomes more perverse and unworkable than anyone would have ever realized. While it may have had some short term benefit to humanity, in reality the separation of people’s only serves to isolate those who don’t belong in any of the groups. And the problems of the world, as intractable as they are, don’t go anywhere.

At the heart of this story is Adam Fisk, who fits into the Tau group, one of the larger groups of the 22 “Affinities” that exist. What Adam finds is that relationships that exist outside the affinity are frowned upon, including those with your biological family. And the derogatory term “tether” is given to a person who intrudes into an affinity. It is a cold blooded way of isolating oneself from the flawed wonderfulness of humanity.

I read Wilson’s The Harvest many years ago and I remember really liking it, which is why I picked this new one up. By comparison, this book is much less wide in scope (ok, fancy way of saying it’s a lot shorter), but it is still pretty tight sci-fi. I think it invites the unfortunate comparison to the Divergent series (which I haven’t read) but I wouldn’t let that stop you from reading this.




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American Nerd

American Nerd: The Story of My People by Benjamin Nugent

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I was drawn to read this after having read Good Kids and really liking it. It’s basically a scholarly treatise over the story of the nerd, as a fixture in modern culture, where the nerd came from, what makes someone a nerd, etc. It’s a bright and breezy romp through its subject matter.

When interviewing Paul Feig, the creator of the short lived cult favorite Freaks and Geeks, on why jocks hate nerds: “Guys like that just seem to hate guys like us, and I honestly see the battle between Democrat and Republican, liberal and conservative, as the exact same dynamic…there’s a group of people in this world that don’t like conflict and care about what other people are going through, and then there’s this other group of people in the world who hate that. ‘Suck it up, man, we’re not coddling you, take care of yourself, what’s your problem?’ It’s jocks versus geeks, and I’ve always referred to life as perpetual high school because it never stops.” (page 70-71). Which seems like a pretty good analysis of the political situation, especially in light of the upcoming election.

It kind of sails over my head at times, but overall a fun book.





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The Cassandra Project

The Cassandra Project by Jack McDevitt

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


It is a few years in the future, and it’s still been over 50 years since we’ve been back to the moon. Public relations specialist Jerry Culpepper still believes in the importance of NASA, but every day is a struggle to maintain its relevance in the face of so many other earth bound problems.

Then comes the release of a recording in which Astronaut Stanley Myshko is heard telling ground control that he is in a vehicle on the surface of the moon… from January of 1969, a full 6 months before Neil Armstrong’s famous walk…

Suddenly the agency is embroiled in a huge controversy, fueled by the billionaire “Bucky” Blackstone (gotta love the comic book sounding name!) that challenges the history of the space program and brings about the greater question: did someone walk on the moon before Neil Armstrong and, more importantly, why would they cover it up?

Both a public relations nightmare for NASA and for President Cunningham (apparently a late entry into the 2016 Presidential Race--if only there were such a person, maybe I’d feel less voter apathy) a shadowy “conspiracy of men” (as they are fond of saying on The X-Files) is at the heart of something called the Cassandra Project. And you will stay up late reading this to figure out just what that is.

Exciting page –turner, I promise you the ending is worth hanging on for the whole ride. It is a no B.S plot-driven, fun sci-fi story from two authors I will be sure to seek out more of in the future.




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Be Frank With Me

Be Frank With Me by Julia Claiborne Johnson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Nine year old Frank Banning is an unusual boy who doesn’t exactly fit in with the other kids. He has odd social characteristics and a propensity for dressing in vintage clothing, and is forever reciting facts about old movies, old movie stars, and any number of popular trivia from eras past. His mother, Mimi Banning, is a reclusive author whose only published book is a classic (a la Harper Lee) but due to her losing her money in a Ponzi scheme, is forced to write a long overdue follow up.

This is where Alice Whitely enters the picture. Sent by Mimi Banning’s publisher, it is her job to do whatever Mimi needs to get the book done. In this case, it is taking care of Frank, which is not an east job and is not for everyone. But after a rough start, Alice forms a real bond with Frank. But Frank does not fit in with the kids at school, and is largely misunderstood by the other adults in charge of his care.

Debut novel from Julia Claiborne Johnson contains elements of the movie Stranger than Fiction (I’ve been making that reference a lot lately) and Nick Hornby’s About a Boy. I read this book in three days out of necessity(had to return to the library), but even had this not been the case it still would have been the type of book that one can burn through. Very, very good.






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The Mark and the Void

The Mark and the Void by Paul Murray

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


A book that has similarities to the film Stranger Than Fiction (one of my favorites, the film that made me respect Will Farrell’s ability to underplay a comedic part and the film that made me just love Maggie Gyllenhaal), The Mark and the Void is Paul Murray’s long-awaited follow up to the utterly terrific Skippy Dies.

I say similar to Stranger Than Fiction: both involve some stiff person who works in some financial job who become attracted to some free-wheeling server type, whose lives are being chronicled or narrated by an author whose goal is to somehow or other effect the life of their subjects. But there are key differences.

For one, this is set in Ireland and centers on the World Banking Crisis of the last decade. And while at first Claude, the banker and main character in this novel, becomes the unwitting tool of a writer/con man, the two lives become intertwined, and it is because of this relationship that he pursues the lovely Ariadne, a waitress at a local café. The writer (like the book’s author) is also named Paul, and he has struggled since his last book flopped years ago, largely in part to the fact that it was fairly similar to another book that came out at the time (yet did not equal it in quality) and was extremely successful. The financial ruin that being a failed author causes him is what leads him into Claude’s life.

It is an enjoyable read, and even at a somewhat hefty 459 pages, it is never dull. But it does bring me to a not so deep insight about the three books that Paul Murray has written: this guy can really write. And because he can really write and his books are so good, I wind up wishing there were more of them, and that they would come out more often. But they can’t, probably because they are so long and most likely time-consuming to produce. I just can’t help but think that the literary world would be better off if we sacrificed a few hundred pages here and there in a few of these long books so that Paul Murray could come out with a book every two or three years, instead of every six or seven.

Oh well, you can’t have it all. It’s really the only even joking criticism I have for a writer that is the same age as me yet is so much better of a writer than I am. I kid because I love and I’m green with envy.




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The Underwriting

The Underwriting by Michelle Miller

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I was not expecting to like this book, in part because I wasn’t crazy about the way it was billed, with the tagline “Get Rich. Get Laid. Get Even.” (which, to be fair, likely has nothing to do with the author and more to do with the publisher). Plus, the comparisons to the Wolf of Wall Street, which I didn’t really like, in part because of the lack of any true heroes or even likable characters. The Underwriting has its share of unlikeables, including the arrogant prick of a Wall Street hotshot, the womanizing Todd Kent, as well as his West Coast counterpart, Nick Winthrop, who are both involved in a megadeal regarding the proximity based dating app known as Hook.

So I was happy to realize that after about 100 pages in, I was hooked.

Fighting their way through this Man’s World is Tara Taylor, an old college flame of Todd’s, who assists in the process of taking Hook public. But there are issues with the app, most notably in the area of privacy, and the whole thing threatens to be derailed when a college girl is killed in an apparent overdose that just may go down as homicide…

It was compelling enough for me to find myself finishing at 1 in the morning because I just couldn’t go to bed not knowing how it ended. While I had no particular background or innate interest in finances or Wall Street or even technology, the author (a former Wall Street consultant) did a pretty great job of explaining basic financial issues for the layman. The various characters help to make the story bounce around and move along well. The humor is not over the top, but it is there and makes even some of the unlikeable characters fun to follow.

I very much look forward to the sequel, which the back of the book told me would be out in spring of 2016. Not bad for a book I thought I wouldn’t like!




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Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend

Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend by Matthew Dicks

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Little children depend upon their imaginary friends, at least for a little while. Well, as long as they believe in them, which usually lasts until they get to elementary school. Budo is different. He has lived a long time as the imaginary friend of Max, an eight year old boy who has Autism. In Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend, an imaginary friend is imagined as a being that is separate and capable of venturing out away from the imaginer, and even talking to other imaginary friends out in the world.

For Max, the world is a scary place that he deals with through routine and predictability and the knowledge that his friend Budo will be there for him, always. Budo helps him with Tommy Swinden, a bully at school, he helps him in the bathroom by keeping an eye out intruders, and he is there to comfort him. Again, it all depends upon Max believing in him. That is how Budo stays alive, and how he has made it to such an old age.

Max’s parents argue about Max a lot. His father thinks there is nothing wrong with him, his mother thinks otherwise. But when events take a dark turn, it is up to someone that no one can see or hear to save Max.

The child-like narration takes whatever is happening and explains it in a way that simulates what it must be like to be a victim of crime and not even possess the words or understanding to explain it to an adult. Budo’s narration of what Max goes through belies the horror of it. And it works.

The conceit of the story being told from the point of view of someone who doesn’t truly exist is highly original, and absolutely commendable. For the most part, it holds up. And Budo’s existential dilemma is truly heartwarming.




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Darkness the Color of Snow

Darkness the Color of Snow by Thomas Cobb

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


On a cold winter night in a small town in New England, small town cop Ronny Forbert pulls over a car full of old acquaintances for speeding and driving with a broken headlight. The driver, Matt Laferiere, is intoxicated, belligerent, and fights with the officer, and during the struggle he falls and is struck and killed by a hit and run driver. So begins Darkness the Color of Snow, a terrific psychological drama set in the dead of winter in the cold of the town of Lydell (which I believe is a fictional town but I could be mistaken).

It is a small town, and everybody has a history with everyone else. That’s the thing with growing up in a place like that, and why it is normally a good idea to leave. Ron and Matt used to be friends, Ron’s girlfriend used to be Matt’s, the Police Chief used to mess around with a lady that raises goats…everywhere, history. There are no secrets, and everyone remembers the person you were in high school, which works out for some and not for others.

The police department in this small town faces the existential threat of being disbanded in favor of patrol by State Police. Politics in this town are controlled by Town Council President Martin Glendenning, who is a slippery fellow and an opportunist who sees this latest incident with the local Police as a chance to get rid of the Police force once and for all.

This isn’t my usual cup of tea, but it’s pretty excellent nonetheless. I can relate to the bleakness of the New England winter, the desperation of the small town, the entrapment of misguided career choices. This book succeeds because it captures all of that and makes the most of it. Awesome book.




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