Lucky by Alice Sebold

I borrowed this book to read on the plane back from Boston and actually finished it all in one day.  I couldn’t put it down.  It was disturbing, detailed, intriguing and excellent.  I had never read anything by Sebold before and was pleasantly surprised.  I also do not usually read books like this, I tend to stick to the lighter side of things.  This book starts by the main character being raped on her college campus.  The story continues as we learn about her past and follow her through the trial of the man who raped her.  It was interesting to me the wide range of people in her life it affected and how it affected them.  It made me stop and think about life changing events and how so much of the world moves on and leaves the victim there to struggle with the remains.  It is odd to me to want to recommend a book with such a dismal and tragic plot line but I must say, I would recommend it.  In fact, I look to seek out another book to read by Sebold.

The Heart of Horses by Molly Gloss

I received this book as a gift from Mom last year for Christmas or my birthday, I don’t remember which.  I finally had some time to do some reading and this was an easy first choice.  To start it off I must say I truly enjoyed the book.  It goes back to during WWI when a woman leaves her home to break horses for people as the majority of the able men have gone to fight in the war.  She stumbles upon a small region in the pacific northwest where she starts riding numerous horses and breaks them in ways people have not seen before.  This is the story of a brave woman and those that she comes into contact with.  It can be a bit choppy at times but overall an easy and delightful read.  It made me smile, laugh and cry which I think is a pretty complete checklist when selecting a book.  I would recommend it if you like tales of the old west!

A song of Ice and Fire - books 1 - 5

I've posted about the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series before... I just finished slogging through book 5, the most recent book to be published. In case you don't recall, this series is the basis for the HBO series, "A Game of Thrones."

Books 1 -3 were hard to put down. Book 4 was like starting over. Book 5 finally starts to build some story back up. The characters you love in books 1-3 are either dead or not mentioned in book 4. It's long and very, very slow. You get to hear about some of your favorites in book 5 again but they aren't doing much. Some are wandering across the narrow sea, some are captive, some are fretting over whom to marry, some are wandering around Westeros. Oh yeah, Arya still exists, what the hell has she been up to? It was very, very frustrating to reach the final page and realize that not much has happened.

The thing is... I really like it! The story lines move glacially which cause me to feel both frustration at the lack of action but also a connection to the characters. It's a rich, fully developed world that feels familiar. Need directions from King's Landing to Winterfell? I can do that. What are the preferred foods in Mereen, I could probably cool you some. Where does the best wine come from? The Arbor, of course.

I really hope the stories start to come back together in book 6. It hasn't been published yet and we'll likely have a couple years to fret over what it may or may not contain. I hope there is a payoff or at least resolution within the next 10 years. I'll read the future books as soon as they come out but I've already started to ask myself, "Why?" In for a penny, in for a pound. 

"Full Black" by Brad Thor

When I was in the airport on the way back from DC last week, I picked up "Full Black" by Brad Thor. This book was hilarious, but not on purpose (I suspect). The first clue is the dedication: "To the patriots who exist all across the political spectrum." This is, of course, a warning that in this book if you're not a white Republican, you're going to have a bad time. The plot is based around an attempt by an antisemitic Jewish banking mogul who is trying to collapse the US government by using Islamic fundamentalist terrorists. I am not kidding - this reads like a Bourne Identity version of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The action sequences are exciting, but the plot gets more and more ridiculous over time.

The part of this book that really bothered me was the constant repetition that all Muslims are terrorists, and it's OK to think that until "good Muslims" stand up and denounce terrorism (what do you think they've been doing since 9/11?). There's one scene that is fantastically terrible - a woman in an airport line is looking at two Arabic men and decides that she's going to be different and not assume all Muslims are terrorists. She is immediately blown up by the men, who are of course terrorists. See what happens when you start thinking like a liberal?

You can probably pass on this one.

"The Magicians" and "The Magician King"

While on vacation, I read "The Magicians" and "The Magician King" by Lev Grossman. The easiest way to describe these books would be if Stephen King wrote a Chronicles of Narnia / Harry Potter mash-up. The basic premise is that there is a teenage guy graduating from high school who is obsessed with a fantastic world called Fillory (basically, Narnia). He goes to a college interview, and on the way home gets pulled into a magical college where seemingly, everything he ever dreamed about becomes true. But only kind of. In reality, all the magic is true, but it's not what he expects. It's much darker, and grittier, and much, much more dangerous than he expected.

This is basically an anti-Potter novel. It looks at what would happen if you gave a bunch of college age weirdos and outcasts phenomenal cosmic powers. I don't want to give too much away, but I'll give you a hint - it involves a lot more hedonism and ennui than Rowling could even conceive of.

There's a lot of depth to this book, and it deals with some really interesting questions about purpose, power, and responsibility. The magical universe has no "big bad guy" - so what do magicians do when they graduate from these magical universities? If you're immortal, how long can you handle it? Given phenomenal magical abilities, do you solve world hunger, or redecorate your house once a week to look like a different historical place? There's no simple answers in these books, and I think that's an interesting statement in itself.

The first book is better than the second, but they're both well worth reading. I'd be interested to hear from anyone else who reads these, so speak up if you do!

Out of the Blue: A History of Lightning: Science, Superstition, and Amazing Stories of Survival

I first heard about this book on NPR and was hooked as the author John S. Friedman talked about his research. I have always been awed by lightning and was curious to see how much myth and superstition he would bring into this book. So I picked it up from the library and dug in.

I did enjoy this book a lot and I learned so much about lightning and its impact on humanity and history. For instance I did not know that Ben Franklin's lightning rod sparked so much Theological debate about God's punishment vs this new technology. I really had no idea how much lightning affected the daily lives of people and how much it impacted history (especially Church history.)

I also learned so many facts about lightning that I never knew. Like how most people aren't hit by the direct bolt but usually a splash off. And I learned that lightning can be generated up to 30 minutes before and after a storm. You can literally be hit seemingly "out of the blue."

As much as I enjoyed reading that book, the jury is still out as to whether I should have read it. As a hypochondriac I will probably make a bee line indoors and stay away from all faucets, telephones, and outlets at the first sign of lightning. But I will also be peeking out the nearest window to watch God's light show.

Skunk Works

I just finished Skunk Works by Ben Rich. Rich was the second director of Lockheed's Skunk Works division, which was responsible for the U2 spy plane, the SR-71, and the F-117A stealth fighter, among other neat airplanes. This is a really interesting look at what the aerospace industry looked like before all the regulation and red tape in the acquisitions process - the director of Skunk Works went in with an idea for an airplane at one point, and the director of the CIA wrote him a personal check to get his assembly line started. Everyone involved would go to jail if that happened today. Seeing how these guys wee able to develop stealth technology with essentially the equivalent of pocket calculators is fascinating, and honestly, and incredible story. Also, the way you hear it, our brave, brilliant American scientists came up with stealth ex nilo. As it turns out, the key idea of stealth (the faceted surfaces that reflect radar off away from the receiver) was developed by a Russian scientist and published in an obscure journal that a Skunk Works employee happened to read. Of course, the Soviets ignored the original developer, and Skunk Works went on to develop stealth, and the rest, as they say, is history.

From a managerial perspective, the Skunk Works model is really interesting. They worked on high risk, high payoff projects that revolutionized aerospace design. They had virtually no oversight from upper management, and the only reason they were allowed to do what they did was because they were incredibly good at it. You have to hire the absolute best and give them a lot more rope than you are probably comfortable with. They also have to have a parent organization to borrow tools, people, and production lines from (and return to after they finish a product). It's a model that a lot of people have tried to emulate and very few have recreated successfully, which should tell you something about how easy it is. Also, the current acquisition process basically prohibits this kind of development, which is kind of an important difference.

Well worth a read. The technical stuff is fascinating, and the personal dynamics are very interesting.