Malcolm R. Campbell's Blog, page 44

Random Stuff for Saturday

Sometimes I look at the latest books on Amazon and don’t feel like reading any of them. That means returning once again to the comfort zone of books on my shelves where there’s always something to re-read. This week it’s Gods and Generals, Jeff Shaara’s prequel to his father’s book about Gettysburg, The Killer Angels. Gods and Generals follows the Union and Confederate principals at the point when secession occurs as a knee-jerk response to Lincoln’s election.Finally, after months of trying to get a company to commit to the job and then actually schedule it, we have plumbers working to redo all of the major pipes at the other house on our property, the one that was occupied by my wife’s late parents. I hope we’re making real progress with this necessary part of the process of getting the house to the point where we can lease it or sell it.Grist ran a strong article called “Hurricane Ian was a powerful storm. Real estate developers made it a catastrophe.”  It points out that the so-called dredge and fill process of preparing the land for new housing development is environmentally unsound and creates an unsafe (vulnerable to storm surge) location for the homeowners who flock to new homes near the coast. I posted a link on my Facebook profile and so far nobody has looked at it. The article points out that “These vulnerable cities only exist thanks to the audacious maneuvers of real estate developers, who manipulated coastal and riverine ecosystems to create valuable land over the course of the 20th century. These attempts to tame the forces of nature by tearing out mangroves and draining swamps had disastrous environmental consequences, but they also allowed for the construction of tens of thousands of homes, right in the water’s path.”I know your eyes will glaze over, but we’ve been making a squash casserole for years that fits our comfort food addiction. It’s easy to make and lasts for three dinners with only two of us in the house–not counting the cats. Years ago, we used it as a side dish. But as we’ve aged, we have less room for big meals.

–Malcolm

Growing Up With Hurricanes

Debris from Donna – Florida Memory Photo

I lived in Florida during the years from the first grade through college in Tallahassee which saw very few up-close storms of note, though we did worry about hurricane Donna in 1960. Since then, the state has been hit quite a few times by major storms, primarily in the peninsula on tracks similar to Ian’s.

As a child, I was always somewhat stunned when newscasters said that slight changes in the storm’s path meant we were safe even though it was (apparently) okay if a town fifty miles away was wiped out.

We didn’t have the kind of reporting available today, so we were never quite sure where the hurricane was when we went to bed at night. Now, until the power goes out we have live pictures showing a hurricane’ track and impact, being out of touch in the 1960s was a far cry from watching the Weather Channel today and seeing Jim Cantore standing in the storm and getting knocked down by a branch.

Nights were the worst time for storms since we never knew where they were or which way they were headed. Now we can log on and learn that the storm is on our street heading for our house.

When hurricanes hit Florida these days, I feel sorry for the people who are impacted by the winds and storm surges. When I was a kid, there was a certain excitement when hurricanes were near. As I’ve grown older, that excitement has morphed into worry and dread. While I live in north Georgia and don’t have much to worry about, having family and friends in central Florida anchors me to the real-life impact of storms. I’m just too old to find any excitement in it.

—Malcolm

Weak, unintelligent people are trying to control the books you and your children read

From July 2021 to June 2022, PEN America’s Index of School Book Bans lists 2,532 instances of individual books being banned, affecting 1,648 unique book titles.The 1,648 titles are by 1,261 different authors, 290 illustrators, and 18 translators, impacting the literary, scholarly, and creative work of 1,553 people altogether. —Banned in the USA

PEN America’s “Banned in America” summarizes what many of us have seen more and more often in the news: book bans.

They are a weapon used by weak people and weak groups who have so little confidence in their beliefs, they are fearful of what might happen if people are free to read about alternatives. The German government, controlled by the Nazi party, burnt the books in town squares, a more uncouth version of the book bans.

Book bans in government schools and government libraries are, of course, unconstitutional since they run counter to the Bill of Rights. And yet, how easily people flock to this method of stifling the free flow of ideas when a particular book bothers them.

In a September 22 news release, PEN said, “With free expression and the freedom to read being undermined in America’s schools, Congressman Jamie Raskin today introduced a resolution in the U.S. House of Representatives condemning the spread of book bans in schools nationwide, as Senator Brian Schatz leads a companion resolution in the U.S. Senate. PEN America commends the lawmakers’ efforts, which reaffirm Congress’ commitment to upholding free expression in the classroom and beyond.”

While I think this is good, I doubt that most people will even know that it happened, much less change their gutless, book-banning behavior if they did hear about it. I would like to hear more protests from those who abhor the book bans. Let’s put the banners under a microscope and embarrass the hell out of them for being too weak to admit they are weak.

–Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of the Florida Fok Magic Series.

Rest in Peace, Hilary Mantel

“Hilary had a unique outlook on the world – she picked it apart and revealed how it works in both her contemporary and historical novels – every book an unforgettable weave of luminous sentences, unforgettable characters and remarkable insight. She seemed to know everything,” her editor Nicholas Pearson said. “For a long time she was critically admired, but the Wolf Hall trilogy found her the vast readership she long deserved.” – The Guardian

Website Photo

I will miss her and her words, but then, I’m an expedient reader and so what I really miss is what her next novel might have been. I read a fair number of news stories about her death but don’t remember seeing whether or not she had a novel in progress.

Personally, I found the Wolf Hall Trilogy the best series of books I ever read. Everything about it was impeccable. And, as often happens with historical fiction, it clarified a lot of events and viewpoints that weren’t covered in our history classes unless we had a strong focus on Henry VIII.

Then, too, it (the universe) gives me a nudge when authors younger than I suddenly die. When I was young, I wasn’t alarmed when old writers died because, well, they were old. But now, I’m less casual about the notion of old authors who are here today and gone tomorrow.

I have a strange feeling that while she was a famous, respected, bestselling author, most readers wouldn’t recognize her name. When I said RIP Hilary Mantel on my Facebook profile, nobody responded. Not that I expect everyone out there to follow the Booker Prize; I do think everyone should recognize her name. Apparently not. Maybe that’s because she was British and outside the realm of the people, American audiences follow–not counting the royal family and rock stars.

I’ll keep my fingers crossed. Maybe someday a new novel will appear that was in progress when she died. That would be good.

—Malcolm

Briefly Noted: ‘Cold Cold Bones’ by Kathy Reichs

I enjoyed reading this novel about forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan in Reichs’ twenty-first novel in the series that inspired the TV show “Bones.” While I have probably seen most of the 246 episodes of the TV program, this is the first time I’ve read one of the books which are categorized as “suspense thrillers.”

I don’t think I can fairly review the book because I’m strongly influenced by the TV version of the character. However, this book kept my attention, the characters were real and fully drawn, and the suspense was constant.

From the Publisher

“Winter has come to North Carolina and, with it, a drop in crime. Freed from a heavy work schedule, Tempe Brennan is content to dote on her daughter Katy, finally returned to civilian life from the army. But when mother and daughter meet at Tempe’s place one night, they find a box on the back porch. Inside: a very fresh human eyeball.

“GPS coordinates etched into the eyeball lead to a Benedictine monastery where an equally macabre discovery awaits. Soon after, Tempe examines a mummified corpse in a state park, and her anxiety deepens.

“There seems to be no pattern to the subsequent killings uncovered, except that each mimics in some way a homicide that a younger Tempe had been called in to analyze. Who or what is targeting her, and why?

“Helping Tempe search for answers is detective Erskine “Skinny” Slidell, retired but still volunteering with the CMPD cold case unit—and still displaying his gallows humor. Also pulled into the mystery: Andrew Ryan, Tempe’s Montreal-based beau, now working as a private detective.

“Could this elaborately staged skein of mayhem be the prelude to a twist that is even more shocking? Tempe is at a loss to establish the motive for what is going on…and then her daughter disappears.

“At its core, Cold, Cold Bones is a novel of revenge—one in which revisiting the past may prove the only way to unravel the present.” 

Book Lover Reviews’ viewpoint is apt: “Cold Cold Bones could glibly be described as a mixed tape of Brennan’s best hits, akin to those photo boards or slideshows parents typically rollout at 21st birthday celebrations. This 21st novel certainly features several of Tempe’s most grisly past cases and pulls together many of her past colleagues and acquaintances, but does so in a way that I think enhances, and perhaps reinvigorates the anthropologist’s characterisation.”

Kirkus writes, in part, “Reichs supplies a great hook, a double helping of homicides past and present, and all the meticulous forensic details and throwaway cliffhanger chapter endings you’d expect from this celebrated series, though the motive behind the murders is significantly less interesting than the ghoulish crimes themselves.”

If you like books labeled as suspense thrillers and/or police procedurals, this novel might bring you just what you’re looking for at night after most of the lights are out and the world is quiet except for the kinds of perps this book brings to life.

—Malcolm

Malcolm R. Campbell is the author of the Florida Folk Magic series that begins with “Conjure Woman’s Cat.” 

Sunday’s this and that, often called hash

I just finished Carly Shabowski’s The Watchmaker of Dachau. For my taste, the book wasn’t as strong as The Rainbow, but I wasn’t disappointed. The story differs from most concentration camp novels in that the principal characters work at the commandant’s house rather than in work details. Coming up next is her novel The Note as soon as I finish Kathy Reichs’ Cold Cold Bones (my change of pace novel and a first look at a story from the Temperance Brennan series that inspired the TV show “Bones”).In my 1950s-era novel in progress, my main character, and secret agent Pollyanna Hoskins is changing her disguise from a grey-haired, elderly bag lady to a young woman with strawberry blonde hair. Back to the research biz: what kind of make-up and clothes would she wear? This takes a while to figure out, especially for a man, because Internet searches for vintage products often lead to retro sites featuring takeoffs on the originals.I was intrigued by Charles Passy’s article “Why Americans should think twice about watching Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral.”  The subhead reads: “Yes, it’s an occasion to mourn a respected global leader, but let’s not forget why the U.S. fought to free itself from Great Britain.” Apparently, half of the world’s population will be watching. Passy points out that Americans live in a country that doesn’t need kings and queens, even figureheads with limited power, so why do we love the Brit’s monarchy?  I wonder about this, too. Even the BBC was a bit puzzled over our fixation on the Monarchy. (I have no plans to watch it.)My wife’s birthday is today. Her age is, of course, classified. She has told me to stop referring to her as my trophy wife. The photograph, with my granddaughter Freya, was taken at Disney World several years ago. We’re kind of low-key about our birthdays. We exchange cards but stopped buying birthday gifts some years ago because both of us order the stuff we need/want Online and don’t need a separate birthday list. So, we’ll have some comfort food for supper and find something interesting on TV to watch other than anything about the monarchy. Our next “road trip” is scheduled for Thanksgiving when we visit my daughter, her husband, and my two granddaughters in Maryland. I’m looking forward to Stephen King’s latest novel Fairy Tale in which “King goes into the deepest well of his imagination in this spellbinding novel about a seventeen-year-old boy who inherits the keys to a parallel world where good and evil are at war, and the stakes could not be higher—for that world or ours.” His books are well written, though I usually avoid the industrial-strength horror stuff. I haven’t read a King novel for several years since I got ticked off at the third book in his “Mr. Mercedes” trilogy because he changed genres from police procedural to fantasy, something I considered out of line and probably illegal.

–Malcolm

Masterchef-style cooking drives me nuts

We watched the recent “Masterchef – Back to Win” TV series because it’s fun watching “home cooks” trying to create modern Gordon Ramsay-style meals in 45 minutes. Some of the meals looked interesting, even good enough that I would try them out if I had a chance and didn’t have to pay $200 for a meal at some fru-fru restaurant.

It comes down to this: my mother and grandmother cooked midwestern-style and southern-style food the way those dishes were prepared in the 1940s and 1950s in home economics courses or as presented in cookbooks like the Joy of Cooking.

Among other things, this means that a meal was composed of various elements that were placed separately on the plate rather than as something called a “dish” in which the elements are placed in an artistically assembled thing that’s viewed as one item–meaning stuff is piled top of each other.I generally refuse to eat rare meat even though Ramsay and the other judges consider anything cooked longer than rare to be ruined. I don’t know when rare became the default cooking level when, to me, it’s basically still raw.Whatever I order, I don’t want it placed on top of or next to some horrid-looking puree. This stuff looks (and tastes) like wallpaper paste and makes me want to pass a law that blenders cannot be used in food preparation.If I order meat and asparagus, I don’t want the meat sitting on top of the asparagus. Why the hell would I want each bite of steak to include a piece of asparagus on the fork?I love potatoes, grits, and other starchy stuff, but definitely don’t want it piled on top of the meat.I also don’t want a handful of mixed greens thrown on top of the whole shebang and called a salad. Sautéd arugula is not a salad.Random crap strewn around the plate (connected by colorful smears of puree) and called a garnish and/or an artistic presentation of the “dish” is horse hockey. Place the stuff in small serving dishes so those who want it can dump it on their entrées.I believe that if chefs want to ruin food they should do it in the privacy of their own homes rather than serving it to others as something special for $200 a plate.

I know I’m out of sync with the kind of meals that TV’s Masterchef and Hell’s Kitchen promote, but I like what I like and would rather have a sack of Louisiana chicken and dirty rice from Popeye’s than the swill I see on these purported upper-crust cooking shows.

–Malcolm

Friday’s potpourri

Yeah, I know, I’m supposed to save these news roundup posts until Sunday, but the week’s been strange.

We moved into this house, which we built new, in 2014, and since then the land has destroyed three mowers, leaving us with nothing at present to mow the lawn with. So, the fourth tractor is on order. If it weren’t for the continuing supply chain woes, some or all of these mowers could have been repaired–if anyone could get parts or employees to accomplish the task. Our mowers really weren’t built for such rough land or such high grass. So, they break down even though they’re nighly rated. Yes, we’re the 5th generation of the family to live here, but we didn’t expect that maintaining “the lawn” would become such a chore. When “Bones” began airing on TV in 2005, my wife and I watched all the episodes. Now, with our “regular” TV shows on hiatus for the summer, we’re watching them again when we can’t find an old movie that fits our mood. The show is loosely based on the books and career of forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs. After all these years, I finally became curious about her novels of which there are over thirty. So, I ordered the latest for a change of pace, reading-wise. Now I’ll find out how the Temperance Brennan in print compares with the Temperance Brannan on TV played by actress Emily Deschanel. This will be a change from Winterkill and The Watchmaker of Dachau. I’m looking forward to something that’s new to me. I’ve finally found a way to include short excerpts from my novels on my limited-space website. I’ve stolen half of the ABOUT page. I decided nobody needed to know that much about me when they did need to know more about the flavor of the books. The HOME page now has a picture of a book with the word “excerpt” superimposed over it that links to the current excerpt. I began with Fate’s Arrows, the most recent novel in the Florida Folk Magic series.Current temperatures here are in the 80s, decent weather for cutting grass if all of our mowers weren’t broken down. And we’ve gone without rain for several days as well. We’re fortunate that we don’t have a SoCal rainfall from tropical storm Kay or an Alaska weather problem from an incoming typhoon.According to Publishers Weekly, “ALA officials reported 681 documented attempts to ban or restrict library resources in schools, universities, and public libraries through the first eight months of 2022, on pace to shatter the 729 challenges ALA tracked in 2021. The challenges thus far in 2022 have targeted some 1,651 different titles—already more than during all of 2021—with some 70% of this year’s challenges targeting multiple titles. In past years, most challenges sought to remove or restrict a single title.” This is a good time to be aware of banned books week.

–Malcolm

Review: ‘Winterkill,’ a novel by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch

Holodomor is а genocide of Ukrainian nation committed in 1932–1933. It was committed by leadership of the Soviet Union in order to suppress Ukrainians obedient and the ultimate elimination of Ukrainian opposition regime including efforts to build an independent from Moscow Ukrainian State. In 2006 by the Law of Ukraine “About the Holodomor of 1932-1933 in Ukraine” Holodomor was recognized as genocide against Ukrainian people. In 2010, by the resolution of Court of Appeal in Kyiv region was proved the genocidal nature of Holodomor, the intention of Stalin, Molotov, Kaganovich, Postyshev, Chubar, Khatayevych, Kosior to destroy a part of the Ukrainian nation. In 1932–1933 were killed more than 7 million people in the Ukrainian SSR and 3 million of Ukrainians abroad in the regions which were historically populated by Ukrainian: Kuban, the North Caucasus, Lower Volga and Kazakhstan. – National Museum of the Holodomor-Genocide

Winterkill, by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch, Scholastic (September 6, 2022) Middle-Grade Fiction

Winterkill will break your heart.

Once again award-winning Ukrainian Canadian author Marsha Forchuck Skrypuch (Making Bombs for Hitler, Traitors Among Us) gifts readers with a pitch-perfect, well-written, extensively researched novel that shows the human side up close and personal of those trapped within the clutches of an atrocity of history that many still say never happened, was a quirk of nature, Eastern European weather patterns, or bad luck.

Joseph Stalin engineered a blatant genocide against the Ukrainian people by the Soviet Union, especially the farmers. He stole their crops and the food in their pantries and gardens and took their personal possessions, farms, and their lives. Whether through fate or coincidence, history is repeating itself with this novel’s release as the Russian Federation has invaded Ukraine while it once again steals the country’s grain.

Nyl lives on a small family farm and, like many of his neighbors, is puzzled when the Russians increase crop quotas while sabotaging the farmers’ ability to meet those quotas. He meets Alice, an idealistic Canadian who comes to Ukraine with her father purportedly to help modernize the country’s farming methods, introduce the promised efficiencies of collectivization, and advocate for the acceptance of mechanization–especially tractors. 

Skrypuch’s genius comes, in part, from making all of her characters three-dimensional, from those who hope to get by and those who turn on their neighbors as informers for personal gain. There are many points of view amongst these friends and neighbors and we see them clearly rather than as statistics delineating those who deny, who hide seeds and provisions, who try to escape, and who die without lifting a finger.

Alice appears at Nyl’s house with her father to take an inventory of everything in the house and on the property. Soon, it’s obvious that this inventory is helping the Russians dispossess the farmers and characterize them as an affluent, lazy drain on society. Alice doesn’t see the connection between her innocent task and the growing number of lost farms and deaths. By the end of the novel, Alice and Nyl are working together to survive and escape. The dead are everywhere. Food is nowhere. 

The people in this novel make it work. We know them. We see them fight. And we see them perish under conditions that remind us of the Nazi terrors and the lack of a piece of bread. 

–Malcolm

 

 

 

 

London Bridge Is Down

British Monarchy Photo

That’s a catchy code phrase other than the fact London Bridge has been in Arizona for years.

Otherwise, bloody hell, I’m a Scot, so I hope you didn’t log onto my blog for syrupy words about the passing of an English queen even though she had a castle in Scotland. I will admit that if we had to have a United Kingdom with a captured Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, she brought stability, wisdom, and a sense of duty to a country that’s gone through changes, many turbulent since her reign began.

Like many of my generation, I watched her coronation on TV. I had an aunt who lived to 102 or so; had I imagined the queen would almost reach 100, I probably would have thought she’d be in a home. Far from it. She was up and around a few days ago to help get Liz Truss’ tenure as prime minister get underway. Talk about stamina and duty.

As for Charles, he’s been known as Charles for so long as Prince of Wales, it might have been awkward had he chosen another name as king. However, since the reigns of Charles I and Charles II didn’t work out very well, I would have been superstitious about using that name. Well, we’ll see how it goes.

As for the Queen, Robert Bruce forgive me for saying, “And there’s a hand, my trusty fiere! and gie’s a hand o’ thine! And we’ll tak’ a right gude-willie waught, for auld lang syne.”

Malcolm