The Gentlemen Bookreader's Club of America

Quick HItters

2012-01-19T00:04:00.001-08:00

So between episodes of Storage Wars and finishing the entire series of Breaking Bad, I managed to read a book or two over the past several months. Below are incredibly brief summaries of plots, opinions and ratings. I apologize in advance for their brevity, but I'm a very busy man. Here are the highlights.

Shogun - James Clavell

This epic 1,200 page novel is set in ancient Japan as the country faces colonization and the spread of Catholicism by the Spanish and Dutch in the early 16th century. The protagonist, John Blackthorne, and his ship and crew are detained by Japanese soldiers, or samurai as they are commonly referred to in Japan. The book follows Blackthrone from his total contempt of the Japanese and their culture, to embracing the way of the samurai and quickly climbing the ranks and becoming a trusted confidant to Toranaga, an ambitious Diamyo set on earning the title of Shogon. The book is literally as exciting as that synopsis.

Spies, wars, prostitution, betrayal, karate, explosions, earthquakes, hawks, castles and swords were not enough to interest me in this never-ending "saga". Not sure why I put saga in quotes, but it felt right.

This much celebrated novel took me months to finish because I dreaded reading and it made me physically angry thinking about have to complete just one chapter. I agreed to read Shogon after a drunken argument with a buddy over the best book I'd ever read. He literally pleaded like a little girl until I agreed to read this stupid book because he would not shut up about its awesomeness. I urge you with the same intensity now, do not read this book. Just don't do it.

Rating: 2.5 Clubbed Baby Seals (A generous rating as I did enjoy the historical aspect)

The Ask - Sam Lypsite

I enjoyed this book quite a bit. An easy read that kept me interested. It's a modern day Catcher in the Rye, if Holden Caufield was grown up with a shitty job and a family he didn't particularly care for. Although the word phony is not peppered throughout the book, the protagonist is quite judgmental and definitely insecure. In keeping with my brevity theme, onto the rating.

Rating: 2 Beaver Pelt Hats

Four Seasons: The Story of A Business Philosophy - Isadore Sharpe

Drinking the Kool-aid, climbing the ladder. Unless you work for a hotel or plan on opening one, probably more suitable books on the shelf that would interest you.

Rating: 5 Beaver Pelt Hats if my manager is reading this. 1.5 Beaver Pelts Hats if I'm being honest

White Noise - Don Delillo

What can I say? Obviously a great read by a great American novelist. I'm scared as shit of dying, and I certainly don't welcome any Airborne Toxic Events into my life. Knowing the majority of the members in this exclusive club have read this book, let me pose this question: Did you want to punch that kid Heinrich in the mouth ever? I did. My only negative comment about this book is that I built it up so much in my mind and it didn't exceed those expectations. But, that's not Delillo's fault. Underworld is still my favorite Delillo novel, that's that.

Rating: 3.75 Beaver Pelt Hats

The Book Thief - Markus Zusak

I mistakenly picked up this book based on a recommendation from a friend. However, in my inebriated state I wrote down The Book Thief instead of Book of Thieves. I have to admit I didn't hate The Book Thief, but found several parts droll and cliche.

Set in Nazi Germany in the late 30's and early 40's the book begins at a disadvantage. Elie Weisel and Anne Frank pretty much have this category dominated. However, the book's saving grace is that it was narrated by the Grim Reaper, Death himself. I enjoyed the perspective of looking at the holocaust through the eyes of death, but the book lagged at times with the details of a war-torn Germany and the Holocaust which are well documented in several works, both in the entertainment and academic worlds.

The story focuses on a young girl with a veracious appetite for reading. As books were burned by Nazis and citizens alike in compliance with Hitler's wacky mandates, our protagonist takes to breaking into a local house known for its expansive library. I could give more insight into the plot details, but honestly, I just don't feel like it. You've seen Schlindler's List, Schlindler's List is better.

I would recommend this book to a high school student looking for a quick read on vacation, but other than the unique narration aspect, I was fairly neutral with my feelings on The Book Thief. At certain points I found myself enjoying the story immensely. Other times I would skip to the last page to see how much more was left before I could begin my next reading endeavor. So with that in mind, you know what's coming...

Rating: Whale Oil Lamp

White Teeth - Zadie Smith

*See Barrister Lichtenauer's previous post. I concur.

Rating: 1 Beaver Pelt Hat (rating based on ability to brag at cocktail and dinner parties)

You Shall Know Our Velocity - David Eggers

After you saw the name of the author, you probably assumed that this book was a great read and that I absolutely loved it. Well, you'd be correct to assume that. In classic GBCoA fashion, I'm going to throw some bullet points your way and you can decipher whether or not this book is for you.

Two childhood friends deal with their grief after the loss of their best friend (he died, he didn't become best friends with other guys or anything like that)
They plan a trip around the world to random and obscure places
They encounter several setbacks; some hilarious, some dangerous, some unsettling
Said setbacks lead to coming to terms with their friend's death and discovering some truths about themselves

Intrigued? You should be. Do yourself a favor and go to your local book dispensary and pick up a copy of this book. You don't need to read it immediately or anything, but you'll be glad once you do.

Rating: 4 Beaver Pelt Hats

All the King's Men - Robert Penn Warren

If you're into 1930's political corruption in the South and haven't read this book, then you are a giant fool, my friend. Loosely based on Louisiana's 40th Governor Huey "Kingfish" Long, All the King's Men reads like an honors American lit teacher's wet dream. Warren's prose perfectly captures the dialogue and vocabulary of the region and era and tells the tale of a small-time corrupt politician's rise to becoming a prominent Governor. The story is told through the eyes of Jack Burden, a history major who is befriended by politician Willie Stark through a series of backroom dealings.

The plot moves briskly and much is accomplished in a rather short novel. My favorite character is Willie Stark's driver, Sugar Boy, given the moniker because of his habit of sucking on sugar cubes. He also drives like a madman and no one seems to mind. Worth a read for sure and a plot twist or two to keep you on your toes. If you do decide to pick it up, imagine Willie Stark as Boss Hog from the Dukes of Hazard. You'll thank me for the comparison.

Rating: 2.25 Beaver Pelt Hats

And with that, I will call it a night. I have about a dozen other books that I will provide feedback on as soon as I feel motivated, so don't hold your breaths. Until then, fill your snifter, light your cigar and crack the spine of a freshly purchased paperback (Scott, I know will refuse to do this. Shaw, I know you buy your books used. That previous statement was mainly meant for Zach and I).

Barrister Wells

Books I've Read Recently That I'm Going To Tell You About In A Not-So-Brief Way

2011-10-04T08:38:00.001-07:00

People say summer is for reading, which I don't get. It's freaking hot out. And being that I'm a quintessential WASP, my reading experience is enhanced by the lilting breezes of a 75-degree day. Which means I don't read much in the summer. Which means the following reviews detail books read in a 2-3 week blitz here in the more lovely and more temperate fall - or whatever it is we Missourians are experiencing currently. So grab a shawl and enjoy.

The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

Here's what happens when you get a $660,000 advance as a debut author: People read your book en masse because they've heard of it. Jon Franzen blurbs an inert one-liner replete with the ever-fashionable elipses on your cover. Because it was marketed well. Because the publisher needed it to be marketed well. Because you got a $660,000 advance. Consider me one of these people. Cause see, from my personal reading experience, I've found that very few authors can talk sports. Maybe it's because the utter saturation of daily sports-related material is so ingrained into my psyche that to watch the literary scion give it a go is, well, fingernails on things that make awful sounds. Or maybe it's because I played both baseball and basketball pretty competitively, and even the highest-paid Harbach's usually fail on an Updikean Rabbit-ish scale. (Unless of course you're David Foster Wallace, and you reinvent sports journalism with a Roger Federer piece just after you publish maybe the greatest sports novel not considered a sports novel of all time.) But I'm one of the people that fell to the throngs of reviews and ringing endorsements and decided to read a literary novel about baseball, despite obvious hesitations.

Well, let's just say that everyone was right.

Harbach's prose is effortless, much in the way this sentence and that initial clause was effortless, being that it might be the most common, purposely vague praise of book critics. I say this because his prose is effortless, effortless in a way that didn't change the game, that will never feature the word 'avant', that doesn't befriend the wandering hipster brow, but rather, one that draws no attention to itself and, in a surprising turn to the traditional, steps into the shadows and lets the story have its turn in the spotlight. So I won't focus on his writing, which is both brave and endearing in this most cynical of times. I'll focus on the story, blessedly.

Henry Skrimshander, Guert Affenlight, Chef Spirodocus, Affenlight's daughter, Pella: these are some of the Pynchonian characters inhabiting Westish College, a mid-Wisconsin liberal arts school that evokes the most romantic, searingly sober aspects of adolescence for each one of us. There's the green grass of a ball diamond in the morning, the dreaming hoi polloi sprawled out across a mid-afternoon quad, the gritty integrity of cafeteria cooks, the aristocratic invisibility of school presidents, the homey grunge of dorm rooms, and the Infinite Jest-ian duel with routine and the crushingly ordinary. Oh, and there's a gay love affair, a preternaturally gifted shortstop with an inexplicable case of the yips, a five-star chef that slaves away in a university setting serving helpings of life lessons and hash with each spoonful, and a Division III title race that's as compelling and spare as anything I've read in fiction in a long time.

Harbach's book has evoked names such as DFW and Franzen when searching for comparisons, and both fit the bill for specific reasons. Franzen's style is throwback, and famously so, landing him on the front cover of Time because, well, he's a white male, and he writes in a way most people are used to reading. (There are other reasons, like, he's a phenomenal storyteller, his characters are the most realized of any author working today, etc. But you get the idea.) Harbach's style is similar. His characters are full. His story is filling. And he evokes DFW because of his Hal Incandenza-like character, Henry, who basically mirrors Hal's downfall.

Hal begins to suck at tennis because he can't smoke pot anymore. The spiral is irreversible and even goes as far as rendering him completely incomprehensible and outwardly incontinent, a complete 180 from his formerly erudite, OED-memorized self. Henry, without giving too much away, basically forgets how to throw the ball to first, a la Chuck Knoblach, and transforms from a surefire first-round MLB draft pick to a lowly, journeyman ballplayer. In fact, there's a line in A of F that, had I had the time to comb the tomb that is IJ, is eerily similar to one penned by DFW, one that describes Henry's realization that, for the first time in his life, he's happy when practice is cancelled, just as Hal, for the first time in his life, is happy when tennis is cancelled due to snow.

Bottom line is, you could do worse than get almost 3/4 of a million dollars before selling a single copy of your first book, then get universally praised and compared to who many consider the two greatest writers of the last 20 years. And I'm not here to take anything away from that. I loved every second of the book. Harbach's ability to describe baseball is fluid, but doesn't do any bar-raising of its own, which might be a win in this case. His story is, quite simply, engrossing and fun. With The Art of Fielding, we all win.

3.95 Beaver Pelt Hats

Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead

It's probably no secret to those of you who read this blog, which would be you fellow members of the GBCOA, that CW is my favorite living writer. And it's really not even close. His penchant to change it up every time he comes out with a new book, whether it be a racial allegory about dueling elevator inspectors, a modern-day folk tale/journalism diatribe about/not about John Henry, a love letter to a city that everyone loves to write love letters to, or a paradox of language and nomenclature held together by the renaming of a town, speaks volumes of his gifts and imagination as a writer. And yet, his sentences are gorgeous. There is no writer working today who chooses words more carefully, has a wider array of words to choose from, and constructs sentences with such variance and wit.

This is all to say that I was hesitant to read his latest offering, Sag Harbor, as I'd heard it was basically an autobiography, and man do I hate autobiographies. My obvious admiration for CW and subsequent trepidation about SH should illustrate just how colored my hatred of books-about-me-told-by-me really is. And yet. I was wrong, of course.

What a hilarious, loquacious, subversive read. If you follow CW on Twitter, then you'll know exactly what this book is like. It's deprecating in the best way, brutally honest and yet hopeful for no evidential reason. Basically, CW was the son to a doctor and a lawyer, grew up in midtown Manhattan, and summered in Sag Harbor, the part of the Hamptons where the African-American population settled some decades back. In other words, he was rich, and he was the real-life version of Theo Huxtable. The book chronicles one summer in Sag Harbor as he vacillates between epiphany and depression, finally ending up where we all end up eventually: in our own heads, wondering if anything's ever really changed.

Rather than coming-of-age, this bildungsroman manages to wobble and prod his way halfway across the tightrope of teenage angst without really making it across. We leave our young Colson, ahem, Benji, up in the air, in a figurative no-man's-land circa mid-1980's aristocrat New York, left to fend for himself in a world without too many real obstacles other than the ones created in that OT-punching dome of his. It's brilliant. It's exactly what life is without making too much up for selling-a-book's sake. Oh, and be on the lookout for the section about New Coke. One of the best passages in any book of the past year or two.

So here's to the Rum Raisin Imbeciles, and those that fight the good fight to ward them off and do something a little more substantive with our lives. We're with you, Colson. And from now on, I will be, too. I apologize for doubting.

3 Beaver Pelt Hats (based solely on Colson Whitehead scale, where JH Days is a 5, Intuitionist a 4)

Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee

In this spare, despairing account of a family in post-Apartheid South Africa, Coetzee managers to tell a story that needs to be told without putting a single thing into the story that doesn't need to be there. The result is sheer and biting. And at times, even a bit cynical. It also won the Booker Prize in 1999. So, some people agree with me.

Professor David Laurie, our sad sack of a protagonist, has an affair with one of his students and is driven out of his university and into the arms of his estranged lesbian daughter, Lucy, who just happens to live on a farm in rural South Africa adjacent a black farmer in the midst of buying up all the land in the area. Frosty relationships ensue, are borne out, and crumble around one very pivotal and scathing scene I won't ruin, and eventually one academic disgrace is curtained by two very private, very personal disgraces that taint the lifeline of the rest of the story. Safe to say this book is pretty much a downer. From beginning to end. But where new beginnings were signaled to a country post a revolution, it becomes quite clear that, in a strong and vindictive way, nothing has changed at all.

Maybe it's one person's disgrace, maybe it's a community's, maybe it's a country's. Or maybe it's just the way things are, and it's part of an evolution of ideas and pluralities that coexist to ram certain civilities down our throats while ignoring others entirely. Either way, it's Coetzee at his most political and emotional, in a moving and haunting story of a country where politics and emotion have supposedly changed everything - without, of course, changing the very way we live with each other each day.

2 Beaver Pelt Hats

Civilwarland in Bad Decline by George Saunders

This was a re-read for me, maybe my third time through, but figured I'd post about it in the spirit of full disclosure. Saunders is the man, a very strange and sordid man whose stories shake you out of the ordinary. If you're an aspiring writer and you find yourself falling into conventional storytelling cliche and trope, read these stories. Or anything by him, really. It's always refreshing and invigorating.

3 Beaver Pelt Hats

A Gate At the Stairs by Lorrie Moore

What can you say about Lorrie Moore? Her sentences are sublime, her word choice impecable. But her post-9/11 novel misses the mark in almost every other way. It tries to be sentimental, but ends up in nebulous territories that simmer in between uncomfortable and weird. And trust me, I'm cool with weird. Just ask Saunders. But there's just something about this tale of racial tension (not really hardly any racial tension here, just set against a 9/11 backdrop to kind of catapult it into some sort of racial thing) that leaves me feeling, well, fine about the world.

Really the only offensive thing that happens here is the main character is cursed at as she babysits a child of a different race one day and a car drives by hurling racial epithets her way. Oh no! What world is this?! Omar Little better take cover in this world Moore has audaciously created, #sarcasmfont.

There's no coming of age, there's no revelations at the end, although both are sought after and attempted to exhaustion. This just isn't an interesting or redeeming read. There aren't many post-9/11 novels out there that are any good, but this isn't even one of those that can be considered passable. It's vanilla. And Lorrie Moore is so much better than vanilla.

3 Clubbed Baby Seals

(Not So) Quick Reviews - Barrister Shaw Edition

2010-03-16T09:15:00.000-07:00

Thought I’d follow Barrister Lichtenauer’s lead here and do a little summarizing of my own. Here’s the latest news from the Shaw bookshelf.

The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan
When I got this book for Christmas, I was not optimistic. Reading about the Dust Bowl sounded about as exciting as the actual Dust Bowl itself, only about 7 years shorter. I was wrong. The Worst Hard Time is a National Book Award winner, and deservedly so. Egan does a masterful job describing the historical factors that lead up to this environmental disaster as well as making you feel the menace of these roiling, static-charged storms. More importantly, he brings the people who endured the Dust Bowl to life in a compelling manner. The Dust Bowl dragged on for nearly a decade through the worst depression our country has known. These survivors had the steel to last through it, whether it was stubbornness to refuse giving up the only land they had any hope of owning, or the enduring dwindling hope that the drought and dust storms would end any day now, that a return to prosperity was just around the corner. We shouldn’t forget that as we face our own economic troubles the fact that big problems rarely get solved with a quick fix. At least we have the internet, tv, video games and a lot of other distractions to pass the time. Beats sitting in a dugout hovel listening to centipedes chew up dirt.
4.5 Beaver Pelt Hats

Devil In The White City by Erik Larson
Another historical book that almost reads like a novel. So many have praised this book that I don’t have much more to add other than this: They’re right, read it.
3.5 Beaver Pelt Hats

Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff
I’m a sucker for a twisty psychological thriller/mystery. Big bonus points if it has some humor thrown in. I read this book years ago and recently bought a used copy to see if it held up. It does. I’ve read most of Matt Ruff’s other work, and this is a good one to start with to test the water. It’s a fast read and will surely entertain if you tolerate the more fantastical end of the literary spectrum. So Lichtenauer, there’s probably no reason for you to bother.
3.25 Beaver Pelt Hats

Silent Joe by T. Jefferson Parker
The more I think back on this book, the less I like it. It’s about a man (Joe) whose face was disfigured with acid by his father and abandoned, grew up in an orphanage, then was adopted by a prominent local politician who raised him like a son. Except that by “son” I mean a permanent bodyguard and driver. The politician gets killed in a kidnapping exchange/return gone bad and Joe swears to get to the bottom of who done it. And maybe get a little romance on the way. SPOILER: Joe gets his revenge on the thugs who killed his adopted dad and gets the girl, even gets to find a little peace in getting to confront his “real” father who mutilated him. But it turns out that adopted dad was actually his real dad, who was carrying on an affair with Joe’s biological mother when he was a beat cop, establishing him as a cockhole long before he became a politician. And this was not the last of his affairs over the years, some part of the story involves the murder of a illegal immigrant who was his latest squeeze. Anyway, the biker dude dating Joe’s biological mom is let to believe Joe is his son, but when the truth comes out, he dumps acid on baby Joe’s face and takes off. His real dad finds out about this and does nothing. Kid Joe goes to the orphanage for YEARS before he gets the balls to come back and adopt him and what does he do? He raises him like an indentured servant, training him to drive him around the city, usually at high speeds (he clearly enjoys the feeling of running away from things), and learning martial arts so he can whoop some ass when needed in defense of his adopted (real) dad. This guy that Joe loves with all devotion because he rescued him from the horrible reality of his existence actually caused the situation with his cowardice and bad judgment. I don’t get why Joe wasn’t angrier about it.
3 Clubbed Baby Seals

What The Dead Know by Laura Lippman
I remember the major story points but forgot a lot of the details. The setup is a woman with no real ID is passing through a town when her car goes off the road. Authorities take her in and she tries to bargain for release by claiming she knows what happened to a pair of teenage sisters who disappeared from the town mall 20+ years ago. The rest of the book is spent trying to figure out who she is, where she’s from and how she knows – if she knows – what happened to those girls. It’s an ok mystery, good for passing the time on a flight or at the beach, but by no means a must-read.
1 Beaver Pelt Hat

Generation Kill by Evan Wright
This was the next official GBCOA selection before Wells’ horrible, horrible book killed the book club (although, I’ll admit, I was probably the least bothered by it out of the four of us). I watched the HBO miniseries and could not recommend it higher. The book is both more personal and down-to-earth than the miniseries, but the miniseries wins in the quotable/entertaining dialogue category. Both are worthy of your attention. Wright is a clear and capable writer, and the book gives a good perspective on how some of the toughest, deadliest men in our nation’s armed forces live and fight together. It also takes the military leaders to task for seemingly not knowing how to use them best in combat.
Book: 3.75 Beaver Pelt Hats, Miniseries: 4.5 Beaver Pelt Hats

The Given Day by Dennis Lehane
I like Lehane as a writer, and he clearly did a lot of research for this book. It’s set in late1910’s Boston, although other locations are used. The story focuses on the Coughlin family – an established Irish clan with ties to Boston’s power players in government, public service and business. The main character, Danny, is the eldest son who becomes the leader of the police union fighting for a decent wage and working conditions against the wishes and advice of his father, who is one of the higher-ups in the old-school police power structure. The other main protagonist is Luther Laurence, a black ballplayer on the run from a bloody past in Tulsa who winds up becoming the Coughlin’s new houseman. Lehane tackles the issues of the era – racism, the screwing over of the working man by the few moneyed people in power, and marginalizing of women. It all comes to a head in the Boston Police Strike of 1919 when all hell broke loose. Also, Babe Ruth pops in here and there as a celebrity cameo whose purpose seems to be to get you to go “Wow, racism was pretty rampant and sucky” or “Boy, those early union leaders were fighting an uphill battle.” And this is really the whole message of the book: society sucked if you weren’t a rich white man. Fortunately, a few brave people sacrificed and suffered to make things better for society as a whole, but the battle to get there was not pretty. Good for a historical fiction novel even if it clocks in a bit long at 700+ pages. In the end though, I still prefer Lehane’s mystery offerings.
1.5 Beaver Pelt Hats

Gentlemen Book Reader Quick Reviews: Barrister Lichtenauer

2010-02-15T09:00:00.000-08:00

For those of our loyal followers out there, we assure you that we have, in fact, been reading. Reading our collective asses off. As a club, we decided that we could cover more ground by all reading the shit out of a wide range of literature. So. With that being said. We present the first installment of Quick Reviews – this is a summation of the books that we can remember reading since that horrible, horrible, horrible book called The Slide.

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole: Fat, disgusting asshole hates modern society. Complains constantly. You kind of start to like him. Book is funny – though not “gut-splittingly hilarious” or whatever the jacket says. I think he wins in the end? 3 Beaver Pelt Hats

The Devil in the White City by Erik Larsen: Super charming serial killer murders a ton of people in Chicago and elsewhere. Super determined architect builds a marvel. 4 Beaver Pelt Hats

Old School by Tobias Wolff: A lot of kids want to be writers. Ayn Rand is a bitch. 3.5 Beaver Pelt Hats

Everything is Illuminated by Johnathon Safran Foer: A lot of Yiddish. Guy finds out about his family. Gets boring/tedious in the middle. Ending is incredible. 3 Beaver Pelt Hats

White Teeth by Zadie Smith: First two chapters – incredible. Rest of book - meh. 1 Beaver Pelt Hat

Will You Please Be Quiet, Please by Raymond Carver: Short stories by the short story master. Some good. Some really, really good. Some bad. 2 Beaver Pelt Hats

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by David Eggers: Eggers wins. 4 Beaver Pelt Hats

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess: Street toughs terrorize people. Written in a made-up slang language. I approve. (Please note: The version I read had the original ending that was left out of it's American release, I like it better without it.) 3 Beaver Pelt Hats

The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon: It's obvious that Thomas Pynchon is a lot smarter than me. 2 Beaver Pelt Hats

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen: An up-close look at a family. Probably some of the best writing/character development this Barrister has ever read. One of those books that is so good it pisses you off. However, I do wish they would've left off the final "wrap-up" chapter, but I'll get over it. 4.5 Beaver Pelt Hats

White Noise by Don Delillo: Any book that coins the phrase "Airborne Toxic Event" is a winner in my book. An interesting look at consumerism, death and Hitler Studies. 4 Beaver Pelt Hats

Please note: I’m reflecting on a lot of these books and time usually mellows out my opinion. I specifically remember not liking White Teeth very much at all when I finished. Also, there may be others but I can’t remember them.

We Have A New Worst: The Slide by Kyle Beachy

2009-10-14T12:12:00.000-07:00

How was that for a catchy title? Sorry. This officially was the book that killed the Gentlemen Bookreader’s Club of America. Its hard to even catalogue how horrible this book was. Let me just go through a few of the things that happened:

A self-conscious ghost
A wine-making cult
Yakuza gangsters
St. Louis Cardinal references every… five…. pages…
Statutory Rape
Assault
More references to the Cardinals
The worst, clunkiest, least believable dialogue ever written
Seriously, a ghost
The least likable characters imaginable

And that’s all I can remember. It hurt me physically to read this book. At several points I said out loud, to myself, “you’ve gotta be fucking kidding me”.

So, I’ll try to recap the story. This pussy, Potter Mays, comes home from college and complains about his girlfriend for the whole book while delivering water and complaining about everything. He has a bunch of shit-head friends who he does drugs with and complains to. Then he gets his ass kicked for trying to teach some kid to hit a baseball (it was justified) but, unfortunately, he doesn’t die. He just complains more.

I can say quite honestly that this is the worst book I’ve read. Ever. I’m pretty sure Matt Christopher characters make more sense than this incredible turd.

The book club hated it. It’s the lowest rated of all the books. And it deserves to be there.

I almost encourage you all to read it just to experience how bad a book can be. One huge clubbed baby seal for this bad boy.

A Brief Discussion Amongst Classy Gentlemen

2009-07-22T08:55:00.000-07:00

By Barrister Lichtenauer

It’s not often you read something and:

Laugh out loud at the use of “dick waggling”
Think to yourself how much better a writer is than you
Have to take breaks because what you’re reading is unforgiving with long footnotes, several page passages with no breaks, etc…

But with Brief Interview with Hideous Men (BIWHM) late author David Foster Wallace (DFW) manages to do all that – and before page 100 to boot.

BIWHM is a series of short stories hell-bent on exploring the dark side of man. The consistent element that ties the book together is a series of “interviews” with men who know full well they’re terrible. Whether explaining the nuance required to convince a girl to let you tie her up, recounting the universe-stalling ramifications of a jerk-off fantasy or explaining how a man knew a woman would be a good wife because her body still looked good after having a baby.

DFW was not only a certifiable genius (he won the coveted MacArthuer Genius Grant) he was also certifiably crazy (committed suicide after years battling depression) – and both those sides come shining through in his stories. He has an ability to come up with dialogue so natural and original that you feel like you’re reading something that you’ve already thought. DFW then adds in a healthy mix of philosophy and logic and god knows what else.

There were, in this book, around 20 stories, so we want to highlight a few of our favorites and some of the ones we hated (because as Barrister Russell points out “DFW is incredibly on when he's on and incredibly off when he's off”).

A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life: By far the shortest of the stories and a great way to kick it all off, “makes you think.”
Forever Overhead: The whole thing was about a kid’s walk to the high dive – yet it was beautiful and brilliant and familiar.
The Depressed Person: The GBCOA hated this story (Barrister Shaw especially) it was a chore with its repetition, several-page-long footnotes and lack of anything happening.
Signifying Nothing: The dick-waggling story. A classic.
Datum Centurio: If it was any longer than 3 pages, this book would have gotten a significantly lower rating.
Octet: A nice exercise in self-awareness as a writing style
Adult World (II): Literally an outline of what he planned to write… but it still worked.
Tri-Stan: I Sold Sissee Nar to Ecko: The best part, the title is probably one of the most clear sentences in this story.
On His Deathbed, Holding Your Hand, the Acclaimed New Young Off-Broadway Playwright's Father Begs a Boon: A father hates his son. Wells’ self-proclaimed favorite story of all time.

The GBCOA have this book a well-earned “Bully” even though Barrister Russell admittedly hates short story collections.

Overall rating: 3.167 Beaver Pelt Hats

Barrister Lichtenauer: Abstained (I would’ve have skewed the results with my unnatural love of DFW’s work)
Barrister Russell: +2
Barrister Shaw: +3
Barrister Wells: +4.5

Meeting Place: The Flying Saucer. Nothing makes us feel more like hideous men then ogling waitresses wearing school-girl outfits – and yes, Hooters was too far away and no one felt like eating at a strip club.

Next Up: The Slide by Kyle Beachy

Perlman's Prose Worth Every Dollar

2009-06-22T11:46:00.000-07:00

By Barrister Russell

Every now and then an author comes along that helps remind you why you read fiction in the first place. For the Gentlemen Bookreader's Club, Eliot Perlman was not that author. But he was darn close.

His more recent and slightly less-ambiguous offering, Three Dollars, was a story carried by it's ornate, elegant language and flowing structure interspersed with moments that caused us to set our books down and stare to the skies, letting his words bounce around in our heads until they shook free of their context, leaving only meaning. For good authors, this happens a few times throughout their novels. For Perlman, it happened at least once a chapter, blessedly.

Unlike any of our previous readings, this one was devoid of a plot (although it can be argued Roth's lack of coherence from start to finish can be counted in the same vein). But we wouldn't do that to Perlman. True to its hysterical realism roots, the story was pointedly real, prickling with imagery, characters and circumstances we all have known and hated at some point in our own experiences. Every nine years, our main character, Eddy, ran into Amanda, his first love. And each time had only three dollars to his name. This is the flat line with which the rest of the story peaks and valleys around, touching on his wife, Tanya, who's eternally working on her PhD thesis, his daughter Abby, who's wholly unnecessary to any movement of the story until the end, and his boss, Amanda's ex. As is the case with hysterical realism, plot lines take a back seat to the description of characters, scenes and their interactions with each other. Tanya's chronic depression only adds to the collected dust on her work, growing greater and less significant with each day she spends in her curtain-drawn bedroom. Abby's precocious tendencies made her a distraction, an unwanted distraction most of the time - which is the fate of most kids to most parents at that age. Until the end of course, when an entire family is brought back together around the ultimate unifier, a child. And Amanda, well, her brief appearances changed the entire landscape of a chapter, which aligns nicely with Eddy's mindset and inevitable rambling, stuttering overreactions upon seeing her.

But overall, it was a story that moved along at a steady pace and an even keel. And with an ending that was "the only way it could end," as described by Barrister Lichtenauer, we were all left full, satisfied. Although we were not all in agreeance on the magnitude of greatness of Perlman's work, we could still concede that it was well-worth the read - a unanimous beaver pelt hat approval that's given out all too infrequently here at the GBCOA.

Overall rating: 2.75 Beaver Pelt Hats

Barrister Lichtenauer: +3
Barrister Russell: +3.5
Barrister Shaw: +2.5
Barrister Wells: +2

Meeting Place: In accordance with Eddy's late-blooming affinity for roasted chickens and nearly vacant wallets, we convened at Cosentino's Market, the only place in town where shoppers can choose from whole chickens or smaller, less poultry-centered meals for the bargain of only three dollars.

Next Up: Brief Interviews With Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace

Rejected Title: December For August

2009-05-11T14:59:00.000-07:00

By Barrister Shaw

For The Gentlemen’s latest book, we tackled the beach- (or airport, in the case of this reviewer) friendly read Water For Elephants by Sara Gruen. By all accounts, this was a quick and compelling read full of lively and memorable characters, probably a large part of why it’s a recent bestseller.

We follow the story of Jacob Jankowski, a Cornell Veterinary student in his final semester of school. Jacob is just cruising along, hanging out at college and hoping to get in his hot classmate’s pants when tragedy strikes. His parents are killed in a car accident, leaving behind nothing but debt. Devastated, Jacob skips out on his final exams and hops the nearest train to three months of adventure, life lessons, romance and drama with the nation’s umpteenth-rated fleabag circus. His veterinary skills come in handy to the ragtag tribe, and he soon finds himself at odds with his patron, head trainer of the animal show, August. Largely this conflict stems from Jacobs refusal to accept August’s abuse of the animals in his care, but rapidly expands to Jacob’s designs on his wife, Marlena. Not surprisingly, the story ends in chaos and murder, though how it plays out may surprise you.

Told in parallel to this story, is the recounting of this story by an elderly Jacob Jankowski, whiling his days away in a shitty nursing home, waiting for his shitty kids to come and take him to the circus nearby and enduring the shitty behavior of his nurses and would-be Casanova of the blue hairs, Joseph McGuinty, who claims to have carried water for the elephants. Jacob could blow this guy out of the water for being a liar since apparently nobody carries water for elephants, but he chooses to sit and stew about it. To be fair, there’s one nurse who takes a shine to Jacob and makes his days somewhat more tolerable.

Honestly, you can probably read the book yourself faster than it would take me to tell the whole thing. And it’s worth it. For expediency, through these combined stories, we are reminded of a few long-standing truths.

The 1930’s were tough.
Circus folk are one big, grimy, dysfunctional family.
Moonshine will fuck you up. Like puking-on-two-prostitutes-who-are-about-to-give-you-the-trump-all-others-best-virginity-losing-story-before-waking-up-in-a-trunk-naked-slathered-in-clown-makeup fucked up.
You can’t fight true love, but you can kill for it.
Hurting animals is bad.
Getting old sucks.

Barrister Lichtenauer, while he enjoyed the book, made a rather compelling argument for looking at the story from a different perspective.

Here’s a story for you. A gruff but loving animal trainer makes his living on a 1930’s traveling circus with his beautiful wife, the lead performer in his show. When a brainy young vet school dropout on the run from his demons hops the train, he takes the troubled boy under his wing, inviting him into his heart and home. But before he knows it, the kid is making goo-goo eyes at his wife, turning his coworkers against him and leaving knives on his pillow in the middle of the night. Soon enough, his wife is sleeping with the kid and he has a homicidal elephant ready to give him the old Kentucky dirt nap. And all because he disciplined some of his animals here and there. Ok, and his wife. But it was the 30’s. Society didn’t have its shit together, just ask black people. It wasn’t right, but at the time it was perfectly acceptable. Plus, apparently the guy was a paranoid schizophrenic, undiagnosed in that time.

Short recap: College dropout steals wife from mentally ill man.

Just think about it from August’s side. Now doesn’t that sound like a damn tragedy? But history is written by the winners, even in fiction, and Jacob the cuckolding dropout is our hero. And he gets a very compelling sendoff, even if he was a bit of a prick at times. Yeah, yeah, who isn’t? Just remember that every antagonist isn’t necessarily a full-blown black-hatted moustache-twirling villain either.

As always, dear reader, we’ll let you decide for yourself.

Overall rating: 2.5625 Beaver Pelt Hats

Barrister Lichtenauer: +2.25
Barrister Russell: +2.0
Barrister Shaw: +3.0
Barrister Wells: +3.0

Meeting Place: The Gentlemen convened at Rosedale Barbecue both to honor the titular elephant and enjoy hanging out by the railroad tracks in hopes of a circus train passing by. But all we found was horsemeat.

Next Up: Three Dollars by Elliot Perlman

Chabon Out-Jews Roth

2009-04-23T11:40:00.000-07:00

By Barrister Wells

In the battle of Jewish heavyweight novelists, Michael Chabon beats Philip Roth by more than just a schtickle with his novel, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union. Yiddish takes place in an alternate history version of the present day, based on the premise that during World War II, a temporary settlement for Jewish refugees was established in Sitka, Alaska in 1941, and that the fledgling State of Israel was destroyed in 1948. The novel depicts Sitka as a large, Yiddish-speaking metropolis with it’s own government, societal values, and yes, an all-Jewish police force.

The novel opens on a dank hotel in the heart of Sitka’s seedy underbelly. Detective Meyer Landsman has been called upon to investigate the murder of a heroin-addled vagrant executed in the midst of heated chess match, that’s right, I said chess match. Landsman enlists his partner and cousin, Berko Shemetz, to help solve the case, I mean, it’s not every day a heroin addict is found dead in a sleazy hotel. This is obviously the case of a lifetime, a real career builder.

In true GCBOA fashion, the plot has been boiled down to a series of chronological bullet points. Don’t spend too much time analyzing them, I’ve read the book and I’m still unclear on several points:

Mendel Shpilman is found dead in his hotel room. A clue leads the detectives to travel to Verbov, an Island inhabited by a crime ring comprised of Hasidic Jews.
Thanks to the local Boundry Maven (Def: a Jew that uses maps and strings to somehow get around Judaic law. Try not to think about it too long or your eyes will bleed) Landsman learns that Mendel Shpilman was once the proclaimed Messiah and son to the island’s Rebbe, the most powerful Jew outside of Hollywood.
Landsman learns of a rehabilitation center where Shpilman resided for a brief period. He uncovers a series of clues that lead him to the true identity of Shpilman’s killer as well as his sister’s killer (oh yeah, Landman’s sister who is hardly mentioned in the book was murdered trying to rescue Shpilman, small world).
As the loose ends are tied, the reader discovers a red cow, a dead messiah and a Zionist militia are all means for the Jews to regain control of Israel. Totally logical.

Now that everyone completely understands the plot, let’s get down to brass tax. A battle royale if you will: Michael Chabon vs. Philip Roth:

Protagonist: Landsman vs. Roth

Landsman is a rogue, alcoholic detective that sets his sights on taking down the biggest Jewish conspiracy since the New York Times. He fends off murderous Indians, militant Yids and a bitch of an ex-wife all the while drunk on plum brandy. A real mans-man. Roth chose to write himself into Plot Against America and portrays himself as a whiney butthole that accomplishes nothing of merit throughout the entire book except to narrate the goings on of one of the most worthless pieces of American literature, ever, and I’ve read Fourth of July by James Patterson. Also, stamp collecting is for wieners.

Advantage: Chabon

Antagonist: Alter Litvak vs. Charles Lindbergh

The villain from Yiddish is a war hardened mercenary and master chess player with aspirations of leading an American-backed Jewish militia to reclaim Israel for God’s chosen people (Note: Chabon leads the reader to believe that pretty much every Jew is a master chess player, or at least a proficient chess player). Roth’s villain is a nazi-sympathizing Charles Lindbergh that is elected President after FDR fails to garner enough votes. Along with Hitler’s assistance, Lindbergh unleashes a plan to systematically rid the United States of Jews. Nazi’s trump Jewish militants.

Advantage: Roth

Character Naming:

Chabon:
Ester-Malke
Bina Gelbfish
Itzik Zimbalist
Hertz Shemetz

Roth:
Frtiz Kuhn
Joachim von Ribbenstrop
Rabbi Bengelsdorf
Seldon Wishnow

Although both books feature awful names that suck to pronounce in your head, never mind out loud, Chabon’s flair for Olde Tymey names adds a certain chutzpah that the GCBOA appreciated.

Advantage: Chabon

While Chabon clearly dominates Philip Roth, the Gentlemen found it necessary to give Yiddish a modest rating. Worth a read? Certainly, 1.1875 Beaver Pelt Hats can’t be wrong.

Overall rating: 1.1875 Beaver Pelt Hats

Barrister Lichtenauer: +1
Barrister Russell: 0.0
Barrister Shaw: +2.5
Barrister Wells: +1.25

Meeting Place: To celebrate the Yiddish culture, the GCBOA met at Jerusalem Café to feast on traditional Jewish fare and sip on Schlivovitz. All in attendance would agree it was a Mitzvah.

Next Up: Water for Elephants by Sarah Gruen

At Least Four Trees of Smoke Were Used to Publish This Book

2009-03-13T07:53:00.000-07:00

By Barrister Lichtenauer

This was a long and hard literary battle. This was 700 + pages of thin paper and lots of words. This will always be remembered as the book that almost killed the Gentlemen Bookreader's Club of America. But we muddled through it and, for the most part, are glad we did.

Dennis Johnson’s epic Tree of Smoke follows what feels like 41,234 characters as they work to understand Vietnam while trying to stay alive (spoiler – a lot of them die, but its not what you’d expect).

There’s the CIA operatives who drink bourbon and talk about stuff they want to do but never actually do
The on-the-ground grunts trying to bone Vietnamese whores and get shot at once or twice
There’s the Vietnamese people who sit around sweating and not trusting anyone
There’s the aid worker who bones the CIA operatives and looks gross
There’s the assassin who complains a lot

Don’t get me wrong. It was a good book, Johnson can write – he’s eloquent and brilliant when he wants to be. When he doesn’t want to be, you get clunky dialogue and really confusing descriptions. Make no mistake, this was a classic “stick-with-it” book. If you could get through the first 150-200 pages, it starts moving at a good pace and gets pretty interesting. But it’s tough. The first seventh of this book is a real chore.

I'd love to give you a well-written synopsis of everything that happened, but this book was full of storylines and sub plots and sub sub plots and characters who get killed or not... its a huge mess. But I think that's the point. When it comes down to it, reading a book about Vietnam probably shouldn't be easy. It probably shouldn't be a simple, straight-up story. Because isn't that the point? Things out there were a huge, bloody mess. No one knew what was going on. And it's reflected in Johnson's sprawling narrative.

So. What is a Tree of Smoke? It'll only take you 700+ pages to find out.

Overall rating: Whale Oil Lamp

Barrister Lichtenauer: +1.75
Barrister Russell: +.25
Barrister Shaw: +1.5
Barrister Wells: -3.5

Meeting Place: Jack Stack Barbeque - it wasn't really related to the book. It was more of convenience. Yes, we should have eaten Vietnamese food or something like that.

Next Up: The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon

Frey not Joyce. And that's just fine.

2009-03-10T09:02:00.000-07:00

By Barrister Russell

The incomparable James Joyce once claimed that if Dublin were to disappear, it could be reconstructed to every last detail just by reading his Ulysses. Quite a statement. But then again, Ulysses is widely considered the greatest piece of English literature ever written. So I guess you could say, quite a novel. But to say that James Frey tried to do for LA what Joyce did for Dublin, as Washington Post critic Steven Moore claims, is just too much of a stretch for the GBCOA.

Our guess is that Moore has never read, and will never read Ulysses, (probably has other things to read to keep him busy) and simply made his offhanded comment on reputation alone. But for those of you that have read this masterpiece, you know how ridiculous Moore's remarks actually are. Frey's book was good. It was really good. He stayed true to his staccato, machine-gun thoughts and created characters that kept us emotionally invested and turning the pages. But at no time could we recreate LA for you based solely on Frey's prose. And at no time did we think he was reinventing the perception this fantasy city already has in the eyes of millions. In these ways, Frey didn't fail. He just came up short.

That is, if those were his intentions at all.

The book itself is really no more than a snapshot of various characters' lives. You've got the secretly gay movie star, the overweight immigrant, the wary travelers searching for better fortunes and the homeless wanderer still searching for meaning in his life. Pretty typical stuff. But similar to his previous works, Frey has the uncanny ability to make us care for the characters more than we should. We've all read about drug addicts before, but we'll challenge anyone who says they've met a character more engrossing and relatable than Frey himself in A Million Little Pieces.

Bright Shiny Morning was no different. These characters have been written before. The stories that follow each of them have been told. But we cared nonetheless, and did long after the book had finished. That is the mark of a great writer. And Frey has established himself as just that - especially now.

So does the GBCOA think Frey went out on a limb here? No. Did he redefine the LA story? No. Did he do the impossible and mimic Joyce's greatest work? Not even close. But what he did do was illustrate the American dream - the path to LA that millions seek each year and the varying levels of success they all find. BSM knows dreams are different for everyone, and that finding success in LA means something different depending on your perspective. But that's why it's great. Because depending on your perspective, BSM was successful for many different reasons. If only for the simple fact that it tells all of us to continue to dream for something better. Because in the end, that's what LA is all about.

Overall Rating: 2.875 Beaver Pelt Hats

Barrister Lichtenauer: +3.5
Barrister Russell: +3.75
Barrister Shaw: +1
Barrister Wells: +3.25

Meeting Place: Jack Stack Barbeque - Don't try and figure it out. Just know that it was delicious and we don't regret it for a second.

Next Up: Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson

An Open Letter to Anyone Who Actually Reads this Blog

2009-03-09T11:41:00.000-07:00

The Gentlemen Bookreader's would like to take a moment to apologize for our little break. We know there are hundreds of thousands of you out there who depend on this blog for book suggestions and incredible, ground-breaking insight.

We will be updating shortly with reviews for James Frey's Bright Shiny Morning and Dennis Johnson's Tree of Smoke and, so you can get a head start catching up to us in reading, we will be finishing Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policeman's Union by the end of March then starting on Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants.

So hold on tight dear readers and get your monocles dusted.

Swedish Mystery Debut Fails to Leave a Lasting Impression

2009-01-09T13:14:00.000-08:00

By Barrister Shaw

Stieg Larsson is many things, journalist, magazine editor, communist, novelist and sadly, a corpse. It turns out the man died in 2004 leaving three complete novels unpublished. The first of these books found its way to translation and release in the US under the title The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, GBCOA’s ninth selection.

Girl’s plot introduces Mikael Blomkvist (pronounced Bloomquist) a respected financial journalist and Millenium Magazine editor facing a losing battle in a libel court case against a shady industrialist as the novel opens. While he’s trying to figure out how to cope with the threat to the loss of his journalistic good name and jail time (or gaol, stubbornly un-translated in the text), a wealthy benefactor in the form of Henrik Vanger makes him a job offer he can’t refuse: Spend a year on a secluded island writing a Vanger family history for a huge cash payout and hard evidence of guilt on the aforementioned shady industrialist. The catch: Blomkvist is actually there to solve the long cold mystery of the disappearance of Vanger’s favorite niece 30-odd years ago. Tall order, since the best of Sweden’s police and Vanger’s own extensive resources have failed to produce any results over that time.

Over the course of the novel, we also get to meet Lisbeth Salander (the titular girl with the dragon tattoo), a highly intelligent and capable intelligence and research expert with major antisocial and anti-authoritarian tendencies. Lisbeth is the most compelling character in this book, smart, wily, tough as nails yet sympathetic. From the outside, she appears to be just another troubled adolescent, even diagnosed as retarded by a state system with no clue as to how to recognize her abilities. Blomkvist and Salander eventually join forces to solve the mysteries of the Vanger family in the most compelling section of the book.

Yes, for about 150 pages, you get a cracking murder mystery, cat and mouse chases, revelations and resolutions. Too bad this book is 450 pages. I get that this is the first book in the series and there’s a lot of character groundwork to be laid. I get that. And the book is well written, no issue there. Clear, concise language that Saramago* could take a page from. But this is the GBCOA, and we have some gripes.

• Get to the story already. Jesus Christ, do we need 250 pages of Blomkvist sitting on his ass reading reports? I’ve had to read reports before, and the only thing more boring than doing the reading is reading a description of someone reading excruciating reports. If he’s not doing that, he’s farting around the island, bemoaning the cold and carrying on inappropriate affairs with Cecilia Vanger (described by Zach as Glenn Close). Speaking of which:

• Apparently Blomkvist is a machine with the ladies. Young women, old women, married women, they can’t get enough of the Stieg, oh wait, I’m sorry, Blomkvist. His partner at his magazine is a married woman who frequently just bangs away at him like a screen door in a hurricane. You see they’re old friends, so it’s all good. Besides her husband is cool with it. Then there’s Cecilia, who’s like 60 and knew from the first moment she saw Blomkvist move in the cabin next door that she wanted to get some of that pickled herring. And of course there’s Lisbeth, who is so thrown off by his cool, capable demeanor she has to figure him out, naked of course. All fine if you have some dashing lead character in mind but all I could picture was some doughy pale Swede resembling the author himself.

• The mystery all of a sudden just starts unraveling at a breakneck pace, which would be fine if the trigger behind it wasn’t just “I saw something in this picture and it hit me.” When it’s a mystery, we want to play along. We want to be able to make educated guesses with the scraps of evidence presented. When the pieces start falling into place we want to smack our foreheads and wonder why we hadn’t seen the clues in that light before. Here you’re just hanging on to the bumper of the car as it blazes down the road.

• An ending that drags on longer than the Lord of the Rings. Especially when it wraps up with corporate subterfuge. People drama = interesting. Business drama = zzzz.

• Spoiler Alert: Larsson really went for it in his first book. Evil-wise you’re dealing with misogyny, rape, kidnapping, torture, incest, murder and Nazis. That’s the Grand Slam Special of novel villainy. Save a little for the sequels, Steig. At this point I think you only have aliens and zombies left in the omnibus of evil.

The Gentlemen agreed there were good and bad parts to the book, but were left underwhelmed, and amid some allegations of voter fraud, came to rest on the first ever combined neutral rating. Only Zach and I had interest in possibly reading Larsson’s follow-up novels. Wells said he’d read a synopsis. Lichtenauer wants no part. Much like a temporary tattoo, it’s amusing for a bit, then washes away with little effort or longstanding effects.

*Yes I know Saramago’s style is unique, wonderful and artistic, but I swear sometimes it was like trying to read broken glass.

Overall rating: Whale Oil Lamp

Barrister Lichtenauer: -2.5
Barrister Russell: +0.5
Barrister Shaw: +2.0
Barrister Wells: 0.0

Meeting Place: To honor both the Dragon in the title as well as Larsson’s status as a godless Communist, the Gentlemen convened over Chinese food at The Red Dragon House.

Next Up: Bright Shiny Morning by James Frey

Hyperbole: I Know About That

2008-12-31T07:20:00.000-08:00

By Barrister Wells

Jonathan Safran Foer’s second journey into the world of literature drops the reader into the life of Oskar Schnell, a precocious nine-year old that possesses above average intelligence and a seemingly endless line of questions. Dealing with the pain of losing his father in the attacks of September 11, Oskar embarks on a journey through New York City to solve the final puzzle left to him by his father – a key, in an envelope, in a vase, in a closet. Intrigued? Read on.

Seriously though, I’m not going to bore you with the details of the story. I enjoyed the book and highly recommend you read it. In all honesty, this book was well received by the GBCoA and for the most part negative comments were kept to a minimum. After all, it got the bad taste of Lullaby out of our mouths. But, in the spirit of the holiday season, I’d like to share with you one of my favorite Festivus traditions, you guessed it – the airing of grievances:

Don’t get me wrong, I liked Oskar. He was an extremely good protagonist whose plight is incredibly identifiable to those grieving the loss of a loved one. That being said, his shenanigans were extremely hard to stomach at times. I can count at least five times that I wanted to punch him square in the mouth*. I mean, talk about an incredibly trusting youth willing to jump into the nearest van that promises candy and puppies. Oskar wanders about New York City, often unaccompanied, venturing into strangers' houses, handing out his apartment key and sharing details of his life that would have any pedophile twirling their mustache with anticipation. Which brings me to my next point;
Where the hell was his mom? It’s infuriating how a small child can be allowed to be-bop through Brooklyn, the Bronx and Central Park, at night no less, with no sign of worry from his extremely distant mother. Well, come to find out, his mom knew what he was up to the entire time. She wasn’t an absentee mom, she was just an incredibly horrible one.
Nowhere Zones: Don’t even get me started on these. If you ever want to intentionally piss me off, just mention nowhere zones in my vicinity. I’ll come at you like a tornado of teeth and fingernails.
Spoiler Alert: I don’t mean to tell any tales out of school here, but Oskar’s grandfather really chapped my ass. I mean, say a goddamn word for crying-out-loud. Yeah, I know, the horrors of war, tragic love-loss, blah, blah, blah. You know who else experienced the horrors of war and tragic love-loss? Everybody else from your generation! Get on with your life and grow a pair. You’re acting extremely childish and incredibly selfish.
The pictures. Actually I liked the pictures. I have no problem with the pictures. They made me feel like I was reading an extreme amount of pages at an incredible rate. Pictures are good. Other authors should steal a page or two from Foer’s playbook.

Now that that’s out of my system, I have to say Foer’s follow-up to Everything is Illuminated is an extremely interesting read and at times incredibly poignant. The unique style of Foer’s writing (although not all GBCoA members would agree) was very much appreciated and welcomed. In conclusion, if you only read one book in 2009 chronicling a nine-year old boy dealing with the loss of his father in the September 11 attacks, make it this one.

*Note: The Gentlemen’s Bookreader’s Club of America in no way endorses or supports the use of physical violence against children. But seriously, someone needed to smack a little sense into that kid.

Overall rating: 1.25 Beaver Pelt Hats

Barrister Lichtenauer: +1
Barrister Russell: -2
Barrister Shaw: +2
Barrister Wells: +4

Meeting Place: In honor of Oskar's search for the lock that fit his key, we had planned to meet at the Keyhole Tavern, however, inclimate weather forced us to change plans and meet at a bar that was both extremely loud and incredibly close - McFadden's.

Next Up: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

An Open Letter to Chuck Palahniuk - or - How Lullaby Made Me Want to Put Myself To Sleep

2008-12-04T08:52:00.000-08:00

By Barrister Lichtenauer

We get it. You’re subversive. We get it. You hate people and society. We get it. You like to imagine different and creative ways to undermine pop culture. We. Get. It.

Can we move on? Please? It’s the same in all your books. Listen, I realize that I’m probably being too hard on you. But here’s the thing, I was the one who recommended this book for the book club and you made me look like an asshole.

It started off really well:

Cool style
Unique subject matter
Great foreshadowing

Then it fell off a cliff. I had to look my fellow bookreaders in the eye and tell them, “No, I didn’t know it was about magic and spells” and “Yes, I hated all the characters too.”

Seriously man. We all actually had a debate about if were you trying too hard or if you had just given up. I said you were trying too hard. I figured that you had exhausted your whole society-hating routine and were grasping at straws so you pulled out magic. MAGIC. However, we came to the consensus that you, in fact, could have cared less about this book. Your publisher probably signed you for like 6 books and this was number 5. Just struggling to get through the contract.

For those of you who haven’t had a chance to regret reading this book, it’s about some stupid poem that kills people. Some stupid journalist gets hold of it and kills a bunch of people. He meets up with a stupid real estate broker and her gross assistant and they try to destroy it all. They also find some other book full of stupid magic spells that let them do things like have middle-age sex floating in a ballroom. Unfortunately, it was a lot more detailed than that – but I didn’t really leave anything out. Oh! Except that the hero of the story accidentally has sex with his dead wife… talk about a cold fish! Hahaha! Get it? That was terrible and I apologize.

Overall, The Gentlemen Bookreader’s Club of America felt that the book was an easy read. Engaging. Flowing. Interesting. It’s just the subject matter that really disappointed everyone. The character’s were universally annoying. The book involved a few twists but they weren’t surprising or gut-wrenching or emotion-evoking at all. Thanks but no thanks Mr. Palahniuk.

Shout out to Barrister Russell for his headline suggestion of "Palahniuk Introduces New Suicide Method for Readers". Nice try.

Overall rating: .625 Clubbed Baby Seals

Barrister Lichtenauer: -1
Barrister Russell: +.5
Barrister Shaw: -1
Barrister Wells: -1

Meeting Place: This book was about contradictions between nature and man. How man moved west and tried to improve upon nature but ended up irreparably harming it. That's why we chose Ted's Montana Grill in the Power & Light District. A place that that claims to be eco-friendly but serves huge helpings of American Bison. You know, because there's a ton of those around nowadays.

Next Up: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

Don't Tell A Childhood Memory Around Beah. He'll One-Up You.

2008-11-24T11:52:00.000-08:00

By Barrister Russell

**Before we begin, let me say that the GBCOA is composed solely of White Anglo-Saxon Protestants - meaning we have no perspective with which to relate to the civil unrest, poverty or war-derived savagery that takes place in both the setting of this book and the many second and third world countries around ours. For this I am thankful. But for you readers, I apologize, because I am forced to believe everything I read and sympathize greatly with the characters and their respective dispositions. A memoir does not afford us the luxury of skepticism, for that would make us racist, bigoted and another word that has similar connotations. With that said, here is our incredibly distant and biased review of A Long Way Gone, for what it's worth.

Here's what you need to know:

Sierra Leone has been at war with itself for centuries
Sierra Leone is still at war with itself

As told from the eyes of a precocious 12-year old boy, A Long Way Gone tells the story of a people in constant conflict with their brothers and sisters. The story of a country so far gone that its very future is being handed AK-47's at the age when they should be reciting multiplication tables. The story of a world where culture, family and bloodshed are indistinguishable from each other - all painted in different shades of gray.

Beah assumes that the reader is aware that there is an ongoing conflict in his homeland when he tells his story, but doesn't make that knowledge a prerequisite. The memoir is captivating enough to entertain even the most ignorant of readers. But if that previous statement hit home with any of you, then we're also making the assumption (a safe one at that) that you had a hard time following the nuance of Beah's language and diction. Few writers working today have the command Beah does over the English language, let alone foreign writers. But to be able to describe a setting or situation worthy of ten pages with the brevity and precision of two, the GBCOA has to remove their respective hats in recognition of a job well done. In fact, it's this very ability that allowed Beah to successfully walk the line of leaving the reader wanting more and drumming up sympathy for his cause - a task few penners have been able to master (see David Carr of Night of the Gun)

A Long Way Gone begins during a quieter period of Sierra Leone's history, when we first meet our 12-year old narrator. We learn of his family, his village, and his daily chores and activities. The background seems to go on a little too long, and at points, it gets overwhelming, especially when we learn about 86 very non-White Anglo-Saxon Protestant names at once. But all in all, the setup is justified. Mostly because there has to be some good to offset all the bad, especially in the selective memory of a present-day Beah. We then learn about the rebel uprising and the establishment of the RUF order in Sierra Leone, followed immediately by the subsequent oppression of anyone who isn't RUF. Beah floats throughout his country, from village to village for several chapters, narrowly escaping capture, torture and death before finally falling into the child army opposite the RUF. It's here that we are thrust into a harsh reality - a reality where children soldiers are more threatening than adult soldiers. Where the scariest thing is an army with no autonomy. Children who are simply following one order - kill anyone who doesn't look like you. Between the constant use of cocaine and brown brown, the lack of sleep altogether and the continual barrage of mass murders, it's a wonder Beah was able to make it through to the point where he is freed from the war and sent to rehab. It's here that we learn that possibly the only thing more eerie than a child solider is a recovering child soldier - a soul so gone that it will kill just to feel normal again.

The GBCOA won't get into the details of Beah's recovery, because it's clear he gets rehabilitated, but it will point to one conclusion after finishing the book: we wanted more bloodshed. Most of the book was spent leading up the the times when Beah was a child solider (even the cover suggests it), but once we got there, we only got a few chapters of drug use, killing and human savagery. Does this make us disgusting, awful beings? Maybe. But I'd also point a finger at those of you who have made Saw one of the highest grossing franchises in movie history.

The point here is this: As a whole, we as a people crave suspensions of disbelief. That's why we fork over 10 bucks to see Jigsaw's latest victim, why Stephanie Meyer is worth more money than we'll ever see and why video games exist altogether. We like operating in realities that aren't our own. So inherently, we want Beah to indulge us further. We want more blood and guts. It's what we crave. We're humans. But let's remember, this story is his reality. There is no suspension of disbelief for him. And he's a human too.

So are we being apologetic for Beah's omissions? Maybe. After all, it was his choice to release a memoir about his life. No one was holding a gun to his head. Either way, the GBCOA enjoyed reading what Beah was willing to let us in on - especially the parts where people were holding a gun to his head.

Overall rating: 2.5 Beaver Pelt Hats

Barrister Lichtenauer: +1
Barrister Russell: +2.5
Barrister Shaw: +3.5
Barrister Wells: +3

Meeting Place: Chicago is to hot dog as New York is to _______. In search of a hot, greasy slice, we chose D'Bronx - all in honor of Beah's trip to New York at the end of the novel.

Next Up: Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk

The Boy Detective Gets A Passing Grade

2008-11-04T12:58:00.000-08:00

By Barrister Shaw

Sit right down, dear reader, and hear a tale of the ever-vigilant boy detective Billy Argo, a genius in the model of the Hardy Boys and Encyclopedia Brown who, in the course of his young career, foiled many a fiend with the help of his sister Caroline and childhood friend Fenton. Of course, this tale picks up 20-something years later where Billy has been living in a mental hospital ever since his own attempted suicide following Caroline’s own successful self-destruction.

Billy rides the bus, goes to work at a wig and artificial facial hair phone sales company, hangs out with the neighborhood outcast siblings, and evades several attempts on his life by his former adversaries. As for the outcasts, the brother never speaks and demolishes the other classmates at school. And the sister is hated by her peers for her awkwardness. They find a friend in Billy, who seems to understand and accept them, helping them solve the mystery of where their pet rabbit’s head went and quietly monitoring their rocketry experiments. He also goes to great lengths to find and connect with a pink-clad kleptomaniac he spots one day on the bus.

One thing you can say about this book – it’s unique. Meno clearly has great affection and sympathy for misfits and outcasts, and he brings these characters to life in this book. The Gentlemen convened to discuss the book and found our group divided. On one hand, you have a well written, often moving story with moments of almost poetic observation. On the other, you have increasingly absurd villains appearing out of nowhere, random passages and characters who appear to be weird for the sake of being weird. As Scott said, “It was like Mitch Hedberg’s description of pancakes, ‘exciting when you start out, but by the end you’re sick of it.’”

Parts of this book can wear on you – especially if you’re going to sit and wonder how buildings get disintegrated with nobody noticing, or why even a mad professor would spend his entire life ineffectually menacing someone whose mental condition is already clearly in distress. If that’s the case, this book probably isn’t for you. All of this might make sense if, as Zach suspected, Billy is autistic. The more we discussed, the more likely that seemed to be the case. If so, props to Meno for presuming the intelligence of his audience and not spelling it out or making a big deal how much of a genius he is. It’s writing that respects and challenges the reader. And if there’s anything the GBCoA appreciates, it’s being mentally challenged.

Overall Rating: 1.875 Beaver Pelt Hats

Barrister Lichtenauer: 0 (the first ever Whale Oil Lamp)
Barrister Russell: 0 (the second ever Whale Oil Lamp)
Barrister Shaw: +3.5
Barrister Wells: +4.0

Meeting Place: The Gentlemen payed homage to the heyday of the Hardy Boys and Encyclopedia Brown by investigating the mystery of the disappearing drinks at The Foundry, known for its late 70's - early 80's themed fare.

Next Up: A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah

Night of the Gun?

2008-10-22T14:32:00.000-07:00

By Barrister Wells

Tensions ran high as the Gentlemen’s Book Club of America convened for their fourth meeting at the Newsroom, quite possibly Kansas City’s filthiest and most depraved tavern. As the transients and low-life regulars swilled their cocktails dwelling on life’s hardships, it was easy to imagine a young David Carr perched next to them on a stool contemplating his next fix.

Carr’s debut book, The Night of the Gun, explored the topics of addiction and redemption, a genre recently made popular by James Frey and most notably, Oprah. Carr’s approach was to use journalistic practices to uncover what he deemed a turning a point in his life - the night he showed up to friend’s house with a loaded gun. Or did his friend pull the gun on him? Or was there even a gun? Unfortunately for the reader, this issue is never resolved. And the topic is broached only momentarily in the first two chapters of the book, leaving the reader to conclude that the book is not aptly named.

Carr’s background in journalism quickly became evident as his staccato-style prose and research techniques filled nearly 400 pages. Carr’s journey into the depths of drug abuse began in earnest with some mild drug exploration in high school, followed by a transition to cocaine in college and finally to all-out intravenous drug use that eroded his promising career and ruined a myriad of relationships.

The book follows Carr through a series of seemingly unrelated anecdotes as he recounts his past through interviews, medical records, police reports and an admittedly spotty memory. Tales are often embellished, only to be corrected by former associates, family members, cronies and law enforcement. Below is a brief summary of EVERYTHING that happened in the book:

• Shows up to a friend’s house, possibly with a gun
• Gets fired from several menial jobs and devotes himself to day-drinking and snorting blow
• Beats the shit out of a cab driver
• Deals blow to support his habit
• Smokes crack with Tom Arnold and possibly The Hold Steady
• His then-girlfriend gives birth to twins hours after he smokes crack with her
• Gets clean and raises the twins as a single father
• Diagnosed with cancer, pulls through
• Marries some chick
• Relapses and alienates his children
• Gets clean again and meets Barbara Bush for some reason
• Writes a book and makes a lot of money

Carr’s narcissism was off-putting at times, but it became apparent that these traits, considered to be faults by many, are quite possibly the only reason he was able to pull himself out of the underworld of addiction and into the news room of one the most distinguished and respected periodicals in the world, The New York Times.

While Gun did not meet the lofty standards of members from the GBCOA (in some ways comparable to the wretched Phillip Roth novel), David Carr paints a fairly accurate portrait of drug abuse, alcoholism and recovery that is easily relatable to those unfortunate enough to have experienced addiction.

Overall rating: A very generous 1.5 Clubbed Baby Seals

Barrister Lichtenauer: -1.5
Barrister Russell: -3
Barrister Shaw: -3
Barrister Wells: +1.5

Meeting Place: In honor of David Carr's career as a journalist and his penchant for hanging out with scum bags, we chose The Newsroom. Disgusting.

Next up: The Boy Detective Fails by Joe Meno

I Can’t Believe Mine Eyes. Blindness.

2008-10-09T09:31:00.000-07:00

By Barrister Lichtenauer

So, apparently going blind out of nowhere is a pretty big deal.

When a mysterious outbreak of the “white sickness” (named because, unlike natural blindness which is black, this blindness gives you the appearance of being immersed in milky water) sweeps through an unknown country, we are the only one’s who get to witness the horrific mess - well, us and the doctor's wife.

The infected are quarantined in an abandoned mental hospital and left to their own blind devices. They must fight for food, decency and a means to preserve a “human” way of living. Luckily, interned with them is the doctor's wife, the only person who seems to be immune to the epidemic. While there, she subtly guides and cares for the afflicted.

Ok. Now that the synopsis is covered, lets get down to business.

Here are a few things the book teaches us about blind people - please note, the views expressed by Jose Saramago do not represent the views of the members of the The Gentlemen Bookreader's Club of America, seriously:

Apparently blindness must affect the olfactory sense as well. In this book, the blind people quickly develop their own makeshift bathroom system. It’s as if they all, at once, thought: “Hell, I can’t see, I might as well take a huge dump right here in this hallway… I think it’s a hallway, I can’t see a damn thing. Anywho. Bombs away. I hope I don’t step in it later. Because, if you’ll remember, I’m blind”
Blind people love to pump. See, for me, being in a disgusting place surrounded by disease and all sorts of butt, well, it’s a bit of a turn off. But not for these blind people. These blind people love getting after it with each other. Regardless. What are they going to tell their kids? You know, the kids that were accidentally conceived while humping on a pile of garbage.
Blind people ruin everything. Listen. They had plenty of room. Running water. Working toilets. Did they take advantage of it? No. They caught the thing on fire - after, of course, turning it into a veritable landfill.
Blind people are stupid. They get shot, trampled, suffocated. I’m sure this is some kind of allegory, but seriously, slow down. Think about it. Then act. Count to 10 if you have to.
Dogs hate dead blind people. Why else would they constantly be eating them? Man’s best friend? Nope. In the land of the blind, a mangy dog is king.

Blind people aside, this book was a good read. The experience was heightened by author Jose Saramago’s writing style - long sentences peppered with commas and a complete lack of character names (what use do blind people have for names?). This claustrophobic style created a real sense of the chaos felt by the blind people in the unknown city.

The Gentlemen Bookreader's Club of America (GBCoA) enjoyed reading Blindness, it was unanimously agreed to have significant worth as a piece of literature. However, some were turned off by the rambling, philosophical asides from Saramago as well as the repetitive nature of the book. A lot of talk about being hungry, defecating and being a stupid blind person. It was at this point that the GBCoA decided to adjourn the meeting early and take in the movie version of Blindness (two reviews in one).

The movie stars Danny Glover as an old blind man. It’s terrible. If I hadn't read the book and developed a reasonable time frame to expect the ending, I probably would have walked out. It followed pretty closely to the book, right down to the “Dog of Tears.” Some stupid dog that licks tears. Yep. The movie was too artsy and probably stuck too close to the book for its own good. You can't really get into a person's thoughts by watching them trip over a sink.

Below is the trailer:

Overall rating: 2.31 Beaver Pelt Hats

Meeting Place: Hint #1 - Blindness is also called the "white sickness". Hint #2 - The French translation of white is Blanc. If you can't put the pieces together, stop reading immediately. The rest of this blog will be over your head. Trust us.

Next Up: The Night of the Gun by David Carr

French Leaves Her Readers Lost In the Woods

2008-09-23T11:36:00.000-07:00

By Barrister Russell

After suffering through Philip Roth's excruciating account of his own childhood in a world dominated by the most boring brand of Nazism I've ever read, (I didn't think it was possible to make Hitler vanilla, but alas, Roth came through) we were all hoping the next selection would be better. Hard to imagine anything not being better, unless it was written by Merriam or Webster.

Luckily for us, Tana French and her not-so-charming boyish bangs came through. She was able to write a novel that kept all of us turning the pages and burning the midnight oil to see what was going to happen next. But most of the time, what happened next was the narrator, Rob Ryan, failing miserably as a detective and losing his nerve at the most inopportune times. The story followed Ryan as he investigated a murder in his childhood hometown - the same place that he was involved in a disappearing act as a child 20 years earlier. That's right. Ryan had his own little Amber Alert when he was 12, as his two best friends were abducted and never heard from again. And conveniently for the cops, he didn't remember a single thing from the whole incident. Thus the plot was set - two murders, twenty years apart, same place, same characters. What more could you ask for?

Unfortunately, a lot. As the two stories lace in and out like a pair of worn-out Chuck Taylor's, French properly builds the storyline into something truly epic. The two laces cross over each other time after time, but brilliantly never get in the way. Chapters fly by. Clues mount up. Tension builds. Then, just as the perfect climax is built, French flicks her pen and the shoelace breaks. It happens sometimes. The knot is tied too many times that it eventually wears out from overuse. French had us tied up and twisted and thoroughly engrossed in her simultaneous plots. But in the end, she had simply created something too big and too epic to properly solve or do justice - too many knots to untangle. And what that meant for us was complete and utter disappointment. We were left feeling empty. Lost. Used. With nothing but the stench of a worn out plot in our hands.

It's frustrating to read books like this. So well-written. So well-articulated. Characters unique and memorable. Crime dialogue and jargon impeccable. Pop culture references spot-on and unforced. But sometimes, the ending is the hardest part. Maybe that's why a lot of authors start there. Or why ideas sometimes begin at the end. I don't know. But French clearly didn't either.

One other thing - I really didn't appreciate her version of herself in the story, i.e. Cassie. Talk about waxing poetically about something that will never be aesthetically pleasing in any way. Let me explain. According to French, Cassie was the youngest, most savvy detective on the Murder squad. Cassie was a woman who inexplicably avoided any form of chastising in all her years on the force. Cassie was always right. Cassie made all the breakthroughs in the case. Cassie was continuously described as beautiful in the eyes of the narrator. Cassie overcame all the odds and challenges that faced her. Cassie got married. Cassie lived happily ever after. Oh, and in reality, Cassie had a man's haircut, was admittedly pudgy, worked in a man's field and couldn't get a confession out of a suspect if she had a signed presidential pardon in her hands. And Rob, the male narrator, well his life fell apart because he couldn't handle anything. His reactions to certain breakthroughs in the case were, excuse me if I sound sexist, what the reader would expect from a female character. But all those points were cleverly and conveniently glossed over by French. Well done, sweetheart. You managed to turn a psychological crime thriller into a feminist soap box. Or at least, it seemed that way to me. And if you asked Rob, I'm sure he'd agree.

Was it better than Roth? Oh yeah. Was it a page turner? Absolutely. Was it a good book? Yes and no. It was a flawed book with glaring omissions and shortcomings. But, it was a lot of fun and a nice escape. Just gonna need a little more out of the ending next time. The Gentlemen have high standards for their literature.

Overall rating: 2.875 Beaver Pelt Hats

Barrister Lichtenauer: +2
Barrister Russell: +3.5
Barrister Shaw: +3
Barrister Wells: +3

Meeting Place: Irish author. Irish setting. Irish restaurant. Where else in Kansas City but O'Dowd's on the Country Club Plaza? Ok, there are tons of other, probably more Irish places, but we got lazy.

Next Up : Blindness by Jose Saramago

The Plot Against America by Philip Roth - or - How to Ruin a Good Idea for a Book

2008-09-11T06:55:00.000-07:00

By Barrister Lichtenauer

The first session of the Gentlemen Bookreader's Club of America recently adjourned and it was unanimous - Philip Roth wrote a terrible book. Aside from the random mentions of masturbation and penis (described as "acorn-like"), it was chock-full of useless details.

A good term to describe this turd of a novel is Literary Masturbation. It seems Roth was in love with the fact that he did so much research, so he made sure to spurt it all over every page. Thanks Philip. Over six pages describing different stamps. Three pages detailing the Jewish social elite in 1940. He even took all the research he didn't use and threw it in the back of the book. Genius. I just read like 350 pages of your garbage, and I don't think I'll be reading your addendum.

Now, on to the plot. This book asked the question, "What would happen if Nazi-sympathizer Charles Lindbergh became president of the United States of America?" The implications and ramifications of such a fundamental shift in American ideology was a worthy subject to write about, which is most of the reason we were all so interested in reading it. The book examined this idea at a micro-level through the eyes of the Roth family. Young Philip (yep, he put himself in the book) watches as his Jewish family comes to term with their new circumstances.

Pretty provocative, huh? And the verdict? Roth managed to take all of the potential described above and wield an impossibly slow read. Boring. Tedious. Terrible. Written like an English textbook. And it's full of weird asides that never really amount to anything. For instance, the Philip character is a wimpy creep - plain and simple. He had a "game" that consisted of getting on buses and following gentiles home, or wherever they may be going. There was a whole chapter dedicated to this game. An entire chapter. And chapters were like 50 pages long. An entire chapter. I guess they call it character development, but this book would shoot for epic then go back and spend time with this minutiae. And if that "game" wasn't creepy enough, Philip also liked to steal clothes from the school nerd who lived below him. Yep. He didn't have any friends, his Dad just died and then comes Philip, stealing his clothes and getting him in trouble. Even worse, Philip literally ruins this kid's life later in the book. It's incredible. Made no sense. Completely illogical.

So. This book was horrible. Don't read it. The Gentlemen Bookreader's Club of America does not approve. Oh, and if any of you thought that Philip's "game" sounded like fun, then you're cordially invited by the The Gentlemen Bookreader's Club of America to never read our blog again.

Overall rating: 3.75 Clubbed Seals (that's bad)

Meeting Place: Dark Horse Tavern was chosen to highlight the dark horse candidacy of Charles Lindburgh from the story. It's also important to note that frequenting the Dark Horse Tavern is a somber, miserable experience - the parallels were too obvious to ignore.

Next Up: In The Woods by Tana French