I have saved the best for last to end Small Book Appreciation Week. When the idea struck me for this quirky little theme for a week of reviews I already had a number of books picked out to review and a few to read. But while at the book store looking for something else The End of the Alphabet by C.S. Richardson caught my eye.

It had all the things that trap me: well designed cover, interesting plot hook, novella length, etc. This slim little book turned out to be a minor masterpiece; a thoroughly enjoyable story that you simply didn’t want to put down. Luckily at 139 pages you can read it in one sitting. But like many good books you almost didn’t want it to end.

The story follows Ambrose Zephyr and his wife Zappora (Zipper) Ashkenazi in the aftermath of his diagnosis with a fatal disease that leaves him only 30 days to live. Since a very young child, and as the son of a newspaper man who played with printing blocks, Ambrose has been fascinated with travel and the alphabet. He has collected travel brochures and dreamed of travel to far away places. He decides the use his remaining time to visit these places - or as many as he can - and immediately makes up a alphabetized list.

His wife - they have no children - is not so sure this is the best response but out of love for him agrees to go. What follows is their attempts at coming to peace with themselves, their relationship, and the tragedy that has befallen them. Describing it, you might think it corny or maudline, etc. But it is none of those things.

I really can’t describe it any better that the Washington Post review (no longer online):

The surprise of this little book is not that it is poignant but that it is delightful: graceful, stylish, humorous, intelligent and lacking even the faintest whiff of sanctimony. Each page shimmers with life at its gentle, everyday best: always unraveling at one end of the alphabet or the other, laced with love.

A couple of things stand out. One is the amazing way the author captures Ambrose and Zipper and their relationship with so few words. He has a way of quickly sketching their personalities - the quirks, the likes and dislikes, the mindset - and weaving them into their lives that paints a picture in the readers mind. The story is short but it doesn’t feel thin.

The other thing that is enjoyable is the artful balancing of emotions. Richardson seems to hit just the right notes with grace and style. It is artful without being artsy; poignant without being maudlin; humorous without being corny. This is a challenge in a story about impending death. But it isn’t only about death obviously, but about life, art, love, and home.

Amazingly, Richardson - a respected and award winning book desinger in Canada - is a first time novelist. I have to say that he has set the bar very high for himself for his second book.

The End of the Alphabet is one of those rare gems that comes along and reminds you why you love reading. I would highly recommend it to anyone.

–> Newton on the Tee: A Good Walk Through the Science of Golf by John Zumerchik

Amazon.com:

A lively, accessible discussion of the physics of golf, John Zumerchik’s Newton on the Tee is, to players at all levels of ability, at once a beacon of hope and a shoal of despair. It assumes what golfers already know–that it is a damnably difficult game–and proceeds to tell them why. For instance, the allowable angle of lateral error (pushing the ball left or right) of a 160-yard shot “can be measured in the one one-thousandth of a degree range,” compared with that of a basketball free throw, which is 1.5 degrees. Zumerchik also explains why dimpled balls (hit equally) will travel two times farther than smooth, nondimpled ones, and casts a cocked eye at the advantage “reading the grain” of greens has long been supposed to bring.

He discusses the two schools of thought regarding clubhead acceleration and succinctly explains how and to what degree altitude, latitude, moisture, and air temperature affect ball flight. He includes a chapter on physical conditioning–what might help, what might not, and why–and, dishearteningly, one on the aging process and its attendant decline in playing ability. Newton on the Tee is free of the cant found in most golf books–either instructional or meditative–and dispels many (but not all) claims of equipment makers. This is a delightful and trustworthy book which, if nothing else, will ground golfers’ time-honored tradition of excuse making in solid, irreproachable science.

–> Skin in the Game: How Putting Yourself First Today Will Revolutionize Health Care Tomorrow by John Hammergren with Phil Harkins

“John Hammergren is one of America’s best CEOs, and his new book, Skin in the game, makes a strong statement about the serious issue of health care reform. Moreover, he does so with clear thinking, contagious optimism, and a refreshing, pragmatic approach that can be readily understood.”

- Mark Hurd, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Hewlett-Packard Company

–> Dark Summit: The True Story of Everest’s Most Controversial Season by Nick Heil

“In this authoritative, colorful look at the grimmest Everest season in years, Dark Summit carries forward Outside magazine’s formidable tradition of high alpine literature. Nick Heil is alive to Everest’s majesty but fiercely skeptical of those hubristic souls who attempt to ‘conquer’ her. Through rock-solid reporting and vital prose, Heil leads us up into this rarefied world, step by hypoxic step.”

- Hampton Sides, author of Ghost Soldiers and Blood and Thunder

–> Go Green: How to Build an Earth-Friendly Community by Nancy H. Taylor

From the Publisher:

Go Green is an indispensable resource for those among us who are ready to stop talking the talk and start walking the walk! There is a huge movement already underway towards going green, living sustainably, and creating a smaller carbon footprint. This book provides the means to do so. Homeowners, students, professionals and elected officials can all learn valuable solutions to save money, energy and combat global warming. Go Green offers user-friendly suggestions for individuals, schools, hospitals, businesses and communities.

Continuing along on our tour of novellas about depressing topics translated from another language, next up we have Detective Story by Hungarian novelist and Pulitzer Prize Winner Imre Kertesz. I had not read any of his work previously, but this seemed a perfect fit for Short Book Appreciation week.

It is also in its own way a morality tale, this one disguised as a police procedural. Here is the flap jacket copy which caught my attention:

As readers, we are accustomed to reading stories of war and injustice from the victims’ point of view, sympathizing with their plight. In Detective Story, the tables have been turned, leaving us in the mind of a monster, as Nobel Laureate Imre Kertész plunges us into a story of the worst kind, told by a man living outside morality.

Now in prison, Antonio Martens is a torturer for the secret police of a recently defunct dictatorship. He requests and is given writing materials in his cell, and what he has to recount is his involvement in the surveillance, torture, and assassination of Federigo and Enrique Salinas, a prominent father and son whose principled but passive opposition to the regime left them vulnerable to the secret police. Preying on young Enrique’s aimless life, the secret police began to position him as a subversive and then targeted his father. Once this plan was set into motion, any means were justified to reach the regime’s chosen end—the destruction of an entire liberal class.

Inside Martens’s mind, we inhabit the rationalizing world of evil and see firsthand the inherent danger of inertia during times of crisis. A slim, explosive novel of justice railroaded by malevolence, Detective Story is a warning cry for our time.

Having read the book I am not sure this is an entirely apt description. It, as book flaps are wont to do, oversells the story a bit. The copy seems to indicate much more drama and splash than the novella contains.

What the story offers is a minimalist vision of the crushing weight of totalitarianism. The narrator Martens didn’t set out to oppress and destroy innocent people. He just wanted to be a detective; a “flatfoot.” But saying no in this situation requires moral and physical courage. Martens never is able to reach that point, instead he is swept along almost by inertia and participates in the torture and murder of innocent people.

He tries to tell himself that he is just a pawn - tries to rationalize his involvement. His headaches, and the fact that he bought his victims diary, point to his guilty conscience but without any constraints or counter-pressures outside of himself he simply goes along.

His victims are trapped in a different way. Enrique Salinas is young and full of frustration at the suffocating nature of the regime. He seems to know that leading a normal life without real freedom is somehow a lie - to pretend things are normal when they are clearly not - but as the son of a wealthy businessman he isn’t exactly revolutionary material. But he is tempted by it and yearns for action that might give him meaning.

His father Federigo hopes simply to keep his head down and let this time of troubles pass. He wants to use his wealth and social standing to withstand the political winds. But his son is impatient and out of love he acts to protect his son. It is this act, however that proves his undoing.

The specific actions taken, however, are not important because just by their nature the Salinas’s are suspect in the eyes of the regime. Enrique is a long haired idealist youth who doesn’t believe in the powers that be. He is a danger no matter what he does. His father’s wealth, independent power and status likewise mark him as a threat.

As the story unfolds it is clear that guilt and innocence are irrelevant. The regime believes there is a threat and will act no matter what the circumstances. This determinism pervades the story. Both Martens and the Salinas’s play out the roles they have been given but the end is predetermined.

Kertesz is obviously no stranger to oppression and he skillfully captures the suffocating nature of totalitarianism and the corrupting nature of power without constraints. Despite the minimalist nature of the story the tension is always there in the background; the sense that tragedy is coming and there is nothing anyone can do about it.

But this tension and kernel of insight left me wanting more. The Observer review echoed my feelings:

Ultimately, this slender novel reads like a preliminary sketch, not the Orwellian fable the author had perhaps intended. Something is lacking and that, perhaps, is a sense of plausibility. Martens’s motives for dispensing such horrific violence remain obscure: clearly Kertesz likes the mystery of the unresolved. Translator Tim Wilkinson has rendered the sparse Hungarian into smooth English. It remains a bleak essay on the corrupting tendency of power.

And the New Statesmen also gets at part of the problem:

Martens is an untrustworthy but beguiling narrator, blind to his own moral decline. Kertész is careful not to sentimentalise, making Detective Story very much a two-way piece: the reader is compelled to work with the author in order to gain any kind of fulfilment from the writing. Even then, the sense that something important is missing cannot quite be avoided, despite the novella’s genuinely haunting and lyrical character. It is this delicately evoked moodiness that renders the book a memorable and thought-provoking work, even if it is, in the end, a fundamentally unsatisfying one.

As both these reviews indicate, there was something missing; a sense that this was incomplete or unsatisfying. Perhaps that is the risk in such a short work. I have a hard time describing it exactly myself, but the story just didn’t seem enough.

Perhaps, I should re-read it. That is what Chauncey Mabe recommends in his review:

Detective Story is the kind of short novel that repays rereading. Its effects, wrought with subtlety and craftsmanship, tend to suppress the humanity of its characters the first time through, leaving us little moved by their tragedy. A casual reader might protest that too little care is expended on the police procedural framework for the existential seriousness Kertesz asks it to support.

Reading the novel a second time, however, reveals the necessary elements were present all along. What seemed indistinct and colorless before suddenly sharpens into vivid clarity. Enrique, Federigo and Martens — and, indeed, Rodriguez and Diaz — become more than types, and what happens, or doesn’t happen, to them matters.

It is a short enough work that I may just do that.

I also want to offer an editorial comment. Most of the reviews also note that this book is a warning for our time or some such. And I am certainly not one to play down the dangers of totalitarian regimes or the corrupting nature of power.

But I can’t let the, perhaps to be expected,comparisons to President Bush go unmentioned. The Bookslut review has this to say:

What is the mystery? We start with the bare-bones details of a detective story. We have some documents to piece together. We move backwards, we move sideways, through hardboiled noir, into the dark core of secret police under a Hitler, under a Stalin, under a Pinochet, under George H.W. Bush’s CIA. We end up — somewhere a long time past Auschwitz, somewhere a long way away from “that scummy Europe, in its eastern half” — looking at a Boger swing. We end up with a secret police chief, Martens’s boss, who, under the nameless Colonel, can frame the innocent in less than an hour and a half.

Are educated people now unable to tell the difference between Hitler, Stalin, Pinochet, and George W. Bush? Has it really come to that? This is a sign not of political or partisan differences but hyperbolic overstatement or ignorance on a grand scale.

The folks over at Complete Review offer much the same:

A solid little tale that once again finds greater resonance, as these are times (2006) when an American president claims the right to detain suspected (for whatever reason — he refuses to give specifics) ‘terrorists’, with no oversight by any independent authority to ensure that the prisoners are not abused. Sadly, in 2006 Detektívtörténet no longer reads as a novel of what can happen in, say, Argentina or Hungary, but rather of what can and is being done by the governments of powers such as Russia and the United States.

Again, where is any sense of context? Say what you will about any over-reach on the part of President Bush, he is certainly not without constraints. He may claim the ability to do all sorts of things but that doesn’t mean he can actually do them.  The above makes it sound like Bush is running around grabbing innocents off the streets and having them tortured and there is nothing anyone can do about it.

I have no problem with criticisms, but folks should attempt to tether them to some sense of reality and context. President Bush may be horribly wrong but he is a long way from a totalitarian dictator or military strongman. And if critics can’t see that then don’t expect me to take their ominous warnings all that seriously.

The Voyage of the Short Serpent caught my eye at the local library as I was purusing the new arrivals section. It had an interesting cover; it was a short work which, as readers know, I appreciate; and the central concept intrigued me:

Years ago, a group left Europe to start a colony in Iceland, “the northernmost part of the world,” as they called it–a frozen, desolate place where it is difficult to survive. They called the place New Thule. But as the years wear on, communication between New Thule and the people back home has become less and less frequent, until finally it stops altogether. They fear that the people of New Thule have gone native–or, worse yet, gone pagan. A cardinal orders an evangelical mission in order to see what has become of the people, and to revive their faith.

The ship, built especially for this journey, is called The Short Serpent, and at its helm is an abbot named Montanus. Across an ocean of hard and motionless ice under an indifferent sky, The Short Serpent carries its crew toward a horror that no one could conceive. The children of New Thule have taken on a truly primitive life, wandering on the ice in the search of seal meat, of mounds of peat, and of other warm bodies with which to copulate. Slowly, the crew of The Short Serpent begin to succumb to the filth and depraved excesses of New Thule.

Told in an elegant, compulsive, and increasingly unhinged style, Bernard du Boucheron’s The Voyage of the Short Serpent is a masterpiece about mutable human morality in inhuman conditions–a story about truth, obsession, and the myth of utopia

I must confess that after having read it, however, I was left wondering what anyone saw in such a book. The book - in its original French - had won the Grand Prix du Roman de l’Académie Française and a number of the reviews were quite positive. Here is a sampling.

New York Times:

Can a novel that features cannibalism, amputations, burning at the stake and the devouring of children by wolves be a comedy? Tackling the gruesome and the grotesque with gleeful abandon, “The Voyage of the Short Serpent” is an eccentric, slightly maddened and often brutally funny tale of a colony of Roman Catholics marooned in medieval Greenland by the encroachment of a new ice age.

[. . .]

Throughout, du Boucheron steers clear of overpsychologizing, staying true to the medieval worldview even as he slyly creates a modern morality tale. The result is a portrait of a society destroyed by its inflexibility, by its obstinate faith in its superiority.

The LA Times:

“The Voyage of the Short Serpent” is more than a story of survival in the frozen north; it’s a parable on the perils of excessive morality, colonization and religious tyranny.

Houston Chronicle:

Yet du Boucheron’s hopes as a novelist are surely buoyed. Remarkably, he had spent his entire life as an administrator in the aeronautics industry and turned to fiction only upon his retirement — The Voyage of the Short Serpent is his first book. Winner of the Grand Prix du Roman de l’Académie Française, it is a well-crafted and compelling tale.

To all of the above I say: What? To me the book was simply a dark, violent, vulgar, and hopelss story. I failed to find any parable or morality tale or anything else.

To be fair, there were at times elements of dark comedy and farce involved but they were drowned out by the relentless plodding ugliness that made up the book. I kept waiting for some payoff, some sense of what all this death and destruction meant, but it never came.

The folks at The Complete Review capture the missed oppertunity:

There’s some vivid description here, but it’s to surprisingly little end. For all the descriptions of the cold and pain and suffering, most of it comes across just as a list of complaints, rather than letting the reader really feel what the characters are feeling. Much is presented through I.Montanus’ obviously limited perspective, but even that is often far from compelling. He comes across as a right religious freak, and is convincing enough in his single-mindedness, but the way he’s presented he isn’t a very interesting character.

Religious absolutism confronts physical necessity here, but du Boucheron doesn’t do nearly enough with the clash. Even I.Montanus seems often just to be following some official rulebook rather than being moved by honest conviction. It’s not that one expects soul-searching from him, but with such rich material du Boucheron should, one way or another, have been able to make more of barbarism clashing with this Christian sort of civilisation I.Montanus wants to (re)impose on them.

As they so often do, Publishers Weekly expresses my feelings in one sentence:

Despite a competent translation, the cardinal and bishop’s grave dictums are stilted, and the blood and gore titillate less than they bore.

If there is a silver lining it is that The Voyage of the Short Serpent was short and thuse didn’t cost me a great deal of time or energy.

–> The Society of S by Susan Hubbard

Publishers Weekly

Identity issues involving a child of mixed heritage get a supernatural spin in this affecting coming-of-age tale. Ariella Montero’s mother vanished the day she was born, leaving her to the care of her overprotective scientist father, who homeschools her and limits her contact with the outside world. Only when she reaches adolescence does Ari discover that her special diet and insular home life set her apart from her peers. Her father’s confession that he was vampirized shortly before marriage, and that Ari can choose whether to be undead like him or mortal like mom, set her off on a road trip that eventually brings her to her mother and into an understanding of tough truths about her family. Hubbard (Walking on Ice) delineates Ari’s world of innocent and uncertain adolescence with uncommon poignance and forgoes sensationalism for sensitivity in her depiction of vampirism as one of many emotionally charged challenges Ari faces as a child of estranged parents. She doesn’t do much original with the vampire theme, but the novel’s open ending suggests inevitable sequels where this may develop further.

–> The Year of Disappearances by Susan Hubbard

Book Description

Wherever Ariella Montero goes, it seems, someone is murdered. Writing in a style that The New York Times calls “minimalism O. Henrified,” Susan Hubbard continues, with The Year of Disappearances, her heroine’s mysterious and spellbinding quest, begun in The Society of S, to recognize the demons who may live inside us and the ones we love — so that they can be removed.

–> The Stone Gods by Jeanette Winterson

From Publishers Weekly

Prize-winning Brit Winterson applies her fantastical touch to a sci-fi, postapocalyptic setting. Heroine Billie Crusoe appears in three different end-of-the-world scenarios, allowing Winterson to explore the repetitive and destructive nature of human history and an inability (or unwillingness) of people to learn from previous mistakes. In the first section, inhabitants of the pollution-choked planet Orbus have discovered Planet Blue (Earth), and soon set about launching an asteroid at it to kill the dinosaurs that would prevent them from colonizing the planet. The second and third sections are set on Earth in 1774 and then in the Post-3 War era. Though passionate condemnations of global warming and war appear frequently, the book also contains a triptych love story: Billie meets Spike, a female Robo sapien capable of emotion and evolution, and falls (reluctantly) in love with her. In each of the scenarios, Billie and Spike (or versions of them) fall in love anew while encroaching annihilation looms in the background. Winterson’s lapses into polemic can be tedious, but her prose—as stunning, lyrical and evocative as ever—and intelligence easily carry the book.

–> Where Are You Now? by Mary Higgins Clark

Publishers Weekly

Bestseller Clark (Where Are the Children?) spins yet another imaginative tale of murder and deceit. Every Mother’s Day over the 10 years since Charles “Mack” MacKenzie Jr. disappeared from Columbia University just before his graduation, Mack has phoned his mother in Manhattan to let her know he’s all right, but otherwise reveals nothing. In the meantime, Mack’s lawyer father has perished in the 9/11 tragedy. Now Mack’s younger sister, Carolyn, a graduate of Columbia and Duke Law School, where Mack was intending to go, tells him during his annual call that she’s going to find him. When a note from Mack turns up in the collection plate at St. Francis church, asking Father Devon MacKenzie, his uncle, to tell Carolyn not to look for him, she becomes even more determined to do so. Based on a real story, as Clark notes in her acknowledgments, this novel of suspense will keep readers guessing to the nail-biting conclusion.

I enjoyed My French Whore enough that when I found out Gene Wilder had recently released a new one, The Woman Who Wouldn’t, I decided to check it out. After all, I had the following to say in my review:

It should be interesting to see if Wilder can further hone this craft as he did his comedic acting. His first effort showed enough promise that I will be sure to pick up his next work.

So, does his latest work reflect that he has furthered honed his craft? Not really. But before you assume that is a harsh or negative answer, allow me to offer that I don’t think that was his intention. I don’t think Wilder is seeking to be a great writer or hone his craft in some academic or literary way. Rather, I think he enjoys telling stories of a certain kind. He isn’t doing this to get rich or famous but because he enjoys it. 

So what kind of stories are involved? Well, here is how PW describes the plot of The Woman Who Wouldn’t:

Wilder’s short second novel, following the similarly semifarcical My French Whore, takes a poignant and whimsically romantic poke at turn-of-the-last-century Europe’s privileged gentry. When British concert violinist Jeremy Spencer Webb snaps, pouring water down a tuba and pounding the Steinway during a performance, he is sent to a health resort in the German Black Forest to recover. There, under the care of the orchestra director’s brother, Dr. Karl Gross, Jeremy meets his idol, the consumptive Anton Chekhov, and an elusive cute Belgie named Clara Mulpas. His treatment, a regimen of rigorous walks, long baths, fine dining and the local white wine, is put to the test when he is asked to play with the string quartet that entertains the guests during dinner. The episode ends badly, but helps deepen his friendship with Chekhov. Jeremy also grows closer to Clara: struggling to restrain his normally flirtatious impulse so as not to scare her off, he gradually wins her over, with unexpected results.

I said of My French Whore that it was a “silly, sappy, love story. But Wilder infuses it with enough wit and heart that it is enjoyable regardless.” That can be said of this work as well. Kirkus calls it a “A sweet, adult fable.” Wilder has a certain minimalist style; a straightforwardness that matches the brevity of his stories. But there is also a sense of humor; what PW calls “whimsically romantic.” This second novel has a happier ending but it still has the poignancy and the sense of the power of love.

Whether you would enjoy The Woman Who Wouldn’t thus depends a lot on your taste. If you are a fan of Gene Wilder you will obviously enjoy these books as they share a large aspect of his personality. But if you are looking for complexity, cynicism, or psychological realism I am not sure Wilder is for you.

But if you enjoy simple, romantic, and often poignant stories told with a touch of whimsy then you probably will enjoy Wilder’s novellas. Personally, I enjoy complexity and depth as much as the next but it is fun to try something different now and again. And I enjoy Wilder’s simplicity and belief in the redemptive power of love.

A little sappiness never hurt anyone.

Frederick Buechner is one of those authors I probably should have known about but didn’t. His short bio at HarperCollins tells us that:

Frederick Buechner, author of more than thirty works of fiction and nonfiction, is an ordained Presbyterian minister. He has been a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, and was honored by the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Short literary works touching on faith and history? Yeah, I should have been reading this author sooner. I only recently stumbled upon his novella On The Road With Archangel, however, at a used book store and promptly picked it up and read it. I turned out to be a interesting take on faith and fate.

Here is how the flap jacket describes the plot:

Inspired by events in the apocryphal Book of Tobit, from the second century B.C., this is the magical tale of two families brought together, as no mere coincidence, by the devilishly clever archangel Raphael. One is the family of Tobit, a virtuous man who can no longer support his wife and son because of Raguel, the quiet, devoted father of Sarah whose pact with the demon Asmodeus has left her life in tragic shambles.

Assuming human form, Raphael appears before Tabias, Tobit’s devoted son, to help him retrieve his father’s fortune hidden in a faraway city. Together, they embark on a miraculous journey in search of the answers to both families’ prayers–a journey that is made challenging and delightful by Rapheal’s artful efficiency.

A retelling of a Apocryphal story certainly intrigued me, but if there is a danger here it is over-selling the book and raising expectations too high Here is the rest of the promo text:

On the Road with the Archangel is a masterful combination of fluid writing, lyrical storytelling, and ancient truth blended with modern wisdom. And beneath it all lies a subtle, glowing meditation on the nature of the Holy.

Hailed as “one of our most original storytellers” (USA Today), Pulitzer Prize-nominated author Frederick Buechner has written an extraordinary new novel that shines with the mystery and wonder of the divine.Drawn from the ancient apocryphal Book of Tobit, On the Road with the Archangel unravels the tale of a eccentric blind father and his somewhat bumbling son who journeys to seek his family’s lost treasure. Narrated by the wry and resourceful archangel Raphael, Buechner’s tale is a pure delight, alive with vivid characters, delightful adventures and wondrous revelations.

Kirkus, perhaps a bit more cynical, captures it in less verbose fashion:

Buechner, a Presbyterian minister, emphasizes the goodness of God, playing down suffering, playing up faith. A slight tale, though often quite charming.

Now I am not so naive as to take the flap jacket copy at face value, but if you go in looking for the profound - looking to be blown away - you could easily miss the understated nature of the story and be disappointed. As Kirkus noted, however, it is quite charming. If you appreciate a story that doesn’t try to do too much, you will appreciate Archangel.

There is also a great deal of skill involved in (re)imagining a story already at least partially told and putting it into novel form. Buechner does this well. The characters are sketched out in insightful and interesting ways. When he is describing certain people and their relationships you find yourself thinking: “yes, I know just what he means.” In a short book, this is easier said than done.

And I don’t mean to short change the exploration of faith, because there are some interesting ideas going on in the background (about why we pray; about how we conceptualize God; etc.). But for me it wasn’t a “wow” type reaction as much as a hmmm” type one. “Shines with the mystery and wonder of the divine” may be a bit over-the-top.

But On The Road With Archangel really is a well crafted and enjoyable story and Buechner is obviously a skilled enough writer that I feel compelled to seek out more of his work.

And if, like me, you were not aware of this author’s career you might want to do like wise. On The Road With Archangel will only take an afternoon of your time so what’s the risk?

And that is one of the points of small books . . .

I am officially declaring this Small Book Appreciation Week.  What does that mean?  Not much really.  Each day this week I am going to be discussing a small book or novella that I have enjoyed recently.  And if I have time maybe some musing on what make small books so enjoyable.

One obvious reason I enjoy small books is the ability to read them quickly.  If you have what seems like an ever shrinking amount of time to devote to reading small books can help.  If you have an afternoon free you can often finish a small book in one sitting.

In order to really get engrossed in a larger book you have to have a larger block of time in which to devote to reading.  Reading a large book chopped up into tiny increments can significantly diminish the enjoyment.  Small books don’t require that commitment.

What say you?  Do you enjoy small books?  Or do you need a deeper more complex plot and text to keep you interested?  Feel free to leave a comment or link here if you feel like blogging on it.

Being a right wing warmonger I am not really the target audience for Peace: 50 Years of Protest, but given the historical significance and the anniversary (it was first used on Good Friday fifty years ago) I thought it worth mentioning. In case any of you peaceniks or hippies out there are interested.

Here is a brief synopsis:

It’s probably the most commonly used symbol of protest in the world, instantly recognised as everywhere as the universal sign for Peace - and in 2008 it will be 50 years old.The book tells the story of the enduring power of what was originally designed as the official sign for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in England. The symbol was first drawn on on home-made banners and badges in 1958, when CND was launched at a public meeting in London, but has since been apropriated by scores of different protest movements, from hippies in 1960s America - the first to use it to represent ‘peace’ - to feminists and anarchist punks. In 2008 just as it was 50 years earlier, the CND logo is re-created at anti-nuclear demonstrations the world over.This unique volume combines the written history of modern popular protest with a range of fantastic photographs of the diverse ways and places that the symbol has been used. Throughout are the original versions of the symbol drawn by rock stars, politicians, activists, scientists and writers, all paying tribute to the Peace Symbol on the occasion of its 50th anniversary.The book will coincide with a planned exhibition of the original drawings to be staged throughout 2008.

All kidding aside, anyone interested in the history of the peace or anti-war movement would enjoy this book. It obviously bring a certain bias, but it has an amazing collection of photographs and illustrations that trace the history of this symbol and the movement(s) that adopted it.

It seems William Grimes didn’t care Human Smoke either:

Muddled and often infuriating, “Human Smoke” sounds its single, solemn note incessantly, like a mallet striking a kettle drum over and over. War is bad. Churchill was bad. Roosevelt was bad. Hitler was bad too, but maybe, in the end, no worse than Roosevelt and Churchill. Jeannette Rankin, a Republican congresswoman from Montana, was good, because she cast the lone vote opposing a declaration of war against Japan. It was Dec. 8, 1941.

Mr. Baker’s title, a grim reference to the crematoriums at Auschwitz, effectively demolishes the edifice he tries to construct. Did the war “help anyone who needed help?” Mr. Baker asks in a plaintive afterword. The prisoners of Belsen, Dachau and Buchenwald come to mind, as well as untold millions of Russians, Danes, Belgians, Czechs and Poles. Nowhere and at no point does Mr. Baker ever suggest, in any serious way, how their liberation might have been effected other than by force of arms.

[. . .]

Writers are free to take on any subject they please. But Mr. Baker’s decision to tackle World War II seems curious. By talent and temperament, on brilliant display in novels like “The Mezzanine” and “Vox,” he is an obsessive miniaturist, a painter wielding a brush with a single hair. In turning to nonfiction, it was completely in character for him to delve into the intricacies of library card catalogs and newspaper archives, the subject of “Double Fold.” War and peace are something else entirely.

He attacks it in little bits and pieces, an approach that allows him a few Bakeresque touches. He notes that a roundup of Italians in Britain netted, on one occasion, “the manager of the Piccadilly Hotel, the head chef of the Cafe Royal and two clowns in the Bertram Mills circus.”

Elsewhere, mordant humor fails him. The sneering identification of an Allied bomber pilot as “a former Australian sheep farmer” seems pointless. Is it absurd, or more reprehensible, if a sheep farmer rather than a dentist or a welder drops the bombs? Outrage sends Mr. Baker racing off in all directions simultaneously. The right emotional tone eludes him.

World War II was a deeply unfortunate conflict in which many lives were lost. Mr. Baker is right about that, but not about much else in this self-important, hand-wringing, moral mess of a book. In dedicating it to the memory of American and British pacifists, Mr. Baker writes, “They failed, but they were right.” Millions of ghosts say otherwise.

Better to be criticized widely than ignored, I suppose.