Author of the Day: Jack Ohman

A week that included Christmas shopping with a friend for her fisherman husband, reading Erica Jong, and some seasonally-induced nostalgia for my own brief time spent as a copy aide at The Oregonian inspired me to add Jack Ohman to my list of favorite authors.

Ohman is the in-house political cartoonist for The Oregonian. His cartoons are syndicated in hundreds of newspapers and magazines.  He has also published several books -- themed collections of fly fishing and golf cartoons, and compilations of his political cartoons.  His latest book, Angler Management, is a book of essays on fly fishing and includes more than 50 original cartoons.



Those I own and have read are in red. 

Angler Management: The Day I Died While Fly Fishing and Other Essays (reviewed here)

An Inconvenient Trout

Get the Net: The Crazed Fly Fisherman's Catalog

Do I Have to Draw You a Picture

Media Mania: A Collection of Mixed Media Cartoons

Fishing Bass-Ackwards: Coming Down the Pike With Off-The-Walleye Humor

Why Johnny Can't Putt . . .

Fear of Fly-Fishing (my favorite title)

Drawing Conclusions: A Collection of Political Cartoons


Back to the '80s

NOTES

Last updated on September 21, 2010.

7 Days to Christmas

Review of the Day: The Italian Lover

The Italian Lover is a literary mash-up with a Hollywood spin – the heroine from Robert Hellenga’s debut novel, The Sixteen Pleasures, falls in love with the hero from his second novel, The Fall of a Sparrow, while her book is being made into a movie. For fans of the earlier books, this has the immediate appeal of visiting old friends. Unfortunately, the appeal wears off pretty fast.

The main problem is that the stories of Margot and Woody were told very well and in full in their own books. They faced conflict, grew as people, and, in their own ways, lived happily ever after – their “story arcs” were complete. There is nothing more to add to their stories in this book, so these beloved characters are relegated to being little more than props for the story about making the movie. They are involved in the plot, but they do not develop as characters.

The movie story is central to the book, but it is thin and choppy. Any of the several characters involved in making the movie – the newly-divorced producer, anxious to prove she can make a movie on her own; the director dying of cancer, trying to make one last good movie; the aging starlet questioning her life choices; or several peripheral others – would make good anchors for a novel. But Hellenga skips from storyline to storyline without delving deeply into any of them.

The Italian Lover is entertaining. It moves right along and is full of beautiful Florentine scenes. But unlike The Sixteen Pleasures and The Fall of a Sparrow, it lacks depth and it does not linger in the mind.

8 Days to Christmas

Announcement: The IRB is Here!

The December issue of the Internet Review of Books is posted now and is packed full of worthwhile reviews.  In addition to 11 other non-fiction reviews, I am pleased that my review of The Age of Reagan by Steve Hayward is included this month. And my short review of Massacred for Gold by Gregory Nokes tops off the Brief Reviews section.

There are also several full-length fiction reviews, including a review of Nick Hornby's new novel. I am going to read that one first.

The reviews in the December IRB may inspire some Christmas gifts, as will the IRB Holiday Gift Guide that is also posted now.

Happy holiday reading!