Vicarious Opening Sentence: Sunken Klondike Gold

"If you travel to southeastern Alaska by water, your route will likely include Stephens Passage, a part of the Inside Passage between Skagway and Juneau."

Sunken Klondike Gold: How a Lost Fortune Inspired an Ambitious Effort to Raise the S.S. Islander by Leonard H. Delano.

It's actually my husband reading this book, which is why this is a "vicarious" opening sentence.  He nabbed it off my stack of Guilt List books the day it arrived.  It is just his kind of book -- a real life adventure story about sunken treasure, chock-o-block with photos of the salvage operation and historical pictures of the Klondike Gold Rush and people involved in the ship's sinking.

From what I observe, he loves this book. For one thing, he keeps exclaiming while he reads, "I love this book."  Other clues are: "This is a terrific book!" "These pictures are amazing!" And, "What a story!"

Review of the Day: 99 Novels

99 Novels: The Best in English Since 1939 by Anthony Burgess.

It was the arrival of 1984 (the year, not the book) that inspired Burgess to compile a list of what he considered to be the 99 best novels published since 1939. He explains his inspiration in the introduction:

For thirty-five years a mere novel, an artifact meant primarily for diversion, has been scaring the pants off us all. Evidently the novel is a powerful literary form which is capable of reaching out into the real world and modifying it. It is a form which even the non-literary had better take seriously.

Why he chose to include only books published since 1939 is a little less clear. Burgess says only that "it is more poetic to begin with the beginning of a world war and to end with the non-fulfillment of a nightmare." His book choices, like his timeframe, are his alone. He chose books that brought him reading pleasure, but also "concentrated mainly on works which have brought something new – in technique or view of the world – to the form."

Each book, discussed in chronological order, gets only about a page, sometimes two, of Burgess's keen analysis. He briefly describes each book and a little about its circumstances, such as its historical context, how it fits in with the author's other work, or how it was received. He explains why he thinks it is significant and why he enjoyed it. Then he usually wraps up with a pithy little conclusion, such as, "The vitality of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning compensates for its faults of form," or "Written in the middle of the swinging sixties, it has a very clear vision of Western moral decay."

His mini-reviews are generally compelling. Some make you want to hole up with a particular book immediately; others engender respect for the choice, but little actual excitement. For instance, after reading 99 Novels, I am eager to crack the spine on The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark ("Brilliant, brittle, the production of a fine brain and superior craft"), but not looking forward to Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban, a post-apocalyptic story written entirely in a made-up dialect ("This novel could not expect to be popular . . . [b]ut it seems to me to be a permanent contribution to literature").

It becomes apparent that Burgess was drawn to novels exploring the concept of free will. In particular, several of the books he chose deal with the exercise of free will in the face of religious tradition or political tyranny and suicide as an expression of free will. In discussing these concepts, Burgess doesn't avoid spoilers, probably because his analysis requires looking at the whole story. For those who enjoy the process as much as they payoff, this won't matter, but be warned.

The best part of 99 Novels is the introduction, in which Burgess expounds on the art of fiction, what he thinks makes a good novel, and the joys of reading. Filled with such gems as "BOOK can be taken as an acronym for Box of Organized Knowledge," and including a fervent apologia for popular fiction, this essay should be required reading for any bibliophile.

NOTES

The list of 99 novels Burgess chose can be found here.  I've read several books because they were on this list and greatly enjoyed them.

If anyone else is reading the books on this list, please leave a comment on the list page with links to any related posts and I will list them there.

OTHER REVIEWS

If you would like your review of this book listed here, please leave a comment with a link and I will add it.

Opening Sentence of the Day: Because You Might Not Remember

You, for instance,
coming upon these words
not exactly by accident
or design.

-- from "Coincidence," the first poem in Because You Might Not Remember by Don Colburn.

I don't consider myself much of a poetry reader, but I do try now and again to fix that.  My friend Kirsten Rian, a talented poet in her own right as well as a teacher (and artist, and singer, and all-around Renaissance woman), helps by emailing a poem every Monday.

Now I have taken the plunge into this beautiful little book -- a "chapbook" although I don't know where the term comes from -- of poems by Don Colburn.  Last evening, over martinis, Hubby and I dabbled with reading a few out loud to each other (always good to spice things up now and again).

Our favorite was this one because it reminded us of neighborhood conversations we've had over the years:

EACH YEAR

Each year we gossip about the trees,
how the dull oaks browned before they burned
or maples and sycamores let go too soon,
their rioting a shade less vulgar this time,
the stolid dogwood late to catch fire.
When the curled wan papery beech leaves cling,
maybe deep into winter, we wonder what has ended
all that flourishing, what might last.
We remember drought, rain, frost,
the strickening wind --
whether it came or didn't come.

Opening Sentence of the Day: Bech: A Book

"Dear John,
Well, if you must commit the artistic indecency of writing about a writer, better I suppose about me that about you."

-- Bech: A Book by John Updike.

This is from the fictitious forward by Henry Bech, hero of Updike's novel-in-short-stories.  The stories, published between 1965 and 1970, tell of the exploits of an American novelist.  This is the first of a trilogy, followed by Bech is Back and Bech at Bay.

So far, this isn't like anything else I've read by Updike.  Bech seems more like a Saul Bellow hero.  I am enjoying the book tremendously.

I'm Famous!

I've been blurbed!

My review of The Mermaid and the Messerschmitt by Rulka Langer is quoted on the back of the reprinted edition.



This was one of my favorite books of 2010.  Subtitled "War Through a Woman's Eyes," it is a lively, personal memoir about the WWII German invasion of Warsaw.   

My full review is here. There is a hefty quote from my review on the back of the new edition, along with a glowing compliment from Alan Furst, author of Spies of the Balkans and other really good historical spy novels.

From my review:

An incredible book . . . thoroughly absorbing and quick to read . . . deserves a wide audience . . . would make an excellent book club choice, especially for readers who enjoyed  Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky, The Diary of Anne Frank, or Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay.

I feel like the Book Blogger Queen for a Day!