The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde

Jasper Fforde is a truly creative writer. He takes such simple things, like Nursery Rhymes and invents this whole new world of real characters (or somewhat real – they may be Persons of Dubious Reality) full of mystery and comedy. The Fourth Bear is the second in his Jack Spratt Investigates Nursery Crimes series, and while this series isn’t quite as good as the Thursday Next series, I enjoy anything Fforde writes and will keep devouring them as he writes them.

In The Fourth Bear, Jack Spratt and his partner Mary Mary must find out where Goldilocks has disappeared to, track down the crazed and notorious serial killer the Gingerbread man, and figure out why cucumber-growing enthusiasts are blowing up with their cukes. What does the all-powerful company, Quang Tech, have to do with it? Will Mary Mary finally get rid of Arnold, her ex-boyfriend who won’t stay away? Who was the fourth bear?

Jasper Fforde, you can’t write fast enough for me, but I understand. It takes a lot to be so damn creative, to come up with so many puns, pieces of satire, and oddball characters and situations. Just keep taking the vitamins and eating your apples. I want a long line of stories to enjoy for many years to come.

Rating: 4 Purrs for not being quite as good as Thursday Next but being funny and satirical enough to make me laugh out loud during lunch. Oh, and for making Punch and Judy marriage counselors. That was a hoot.

Teasing Secrets from the Dead: My Investigations at America's Most Infamous Crime Scenes by Emily Craig PhD.

I found Teasing Secrets from the Dead while digging through the stack of true crime books at Half-Price books. When I saw that Kathy Reichs, writer of the Temperance Brennan books and forensic anthropologist herself, wrote an introduction to this book, I decided to pick it up and give it a try. It wasn’t bad, but I wouldn’t have enjoyed paying full price for it.

Emily Craig started out as a medical artist, drawing detailed anatomy pictures for a medical laboratory. She describes how that interest led her to switch her career path to forensic anthropology, and gives you a short section on how her training and study went. She describes the difficulty of marrying fact and intuition, of the long hours of study, and of the differences in forensic anthropology and forensic pathology. Later she describes her work as a full-time employee in Kentucky, and they types of work she does there identifying remains most often found in the back country areas. She is candid about the difficulties of matching remains with missing persons, and definitely rips those CSI blinders off. It’s a lot harder to do this job than TV might make you think. It’s gruesome work, so I don’t recommend eating while you read.

Craig’s tale becomes really interesting when she gets into the chapters on the Branch Davidians in Waco, the Oklahoma City bombing, and the World Trade Center attacks. In Waco, she is the scientist who reconstructed David Koresh’s skull, and before that, the one who reconstructed the skull that showed not all the cult members died because of the fire (she found evidence of a bullet hole). In OKC, she helped rebut claims that the real bomber died in the explosion by identifying that the true owner of an extra severed limb did in fact belong to a victim who was inside the building. Her chapter on the World Trade Center was devastating and emotional, and you can tell the difficulties faced by those workers will never be truly understood by anyone not there to share their burdens. In fact, it is the one chapter where it doesn’t feel like Dr. Craig is bragging.

That is the one thing I had an issue with when reading this book. Dr. Craig’s tone was almost condescending and self-involved, especially when describing the “intuition” side of things. Another thing that was not fun to read– the constant descriptions of maggots. Seriously, yuck. Other than that, it was interesting to get a factual account of how someone becomes a forensic anthropologist and the difficulty of being in that profession.

Rating: 3 1/2 Purrs

Sideways by Rex Pickett

My husband Pandabob picked up a copy of Sideways because of the good reviews about the movie. He read it quickly and hounded me for a while to pick it up and read it too. It was a fun read, and the movie is a good companion to the book. It’s similar enough, but different enough to not be a re-tread.

The best way to describe this book is a buddy movie crossed with a wine instruction manual. Two buddies go off for a bachelor trip through California’s Santa Ynez wine country, only to become entangled in one mess after another. Miles is the wine lover; he’s also divorced, broke, and a failed novelist who somehow friends with Jack. Jack is handsome, about to marry a very rich woman, and is a successful actor. All he wants to do on this trip is drink copious amounts of wine, have a last few days of freedom, and get laid as much as possible. Their adventures are so comical you’ll end up laughing out loud while you read: Jack’s attempts to have sex with any woman he meets, his attempts to set Miles up with his crush, Maya, the boar-hunting episode, and a staged car accident. The scene of Miles sneaking in to get Jack’s forgotten wallet brought tears to my eyes. Don’t forget every event is colored with some sort of wine-snob speech from Miles as they gulp excellent bottles of wine.

I read this book after seeing the movie version, and I admit the casting in the movie fit the characters I read perfectly. Paul Giamatti was cast as Miles, and Thomas Haden Church was cast as Jack. I couldn’t help but see them while I read. Rarely does a book get translated so well onto the screen.

I’ll admit to Sideways inspiring me to learn more about wine. Despite Miles’ very long-winded and snobby speeches about Pinot Noir, there are a few facts to glean. It also gave me a good laugh. I’d definitely recommend checking this book out if you want a fun, buddy trip book to read. There’s even a good moral to this story, if you can get past all the bumbling and drinking.

Rating: 4 Purrs for a good, entertaining read that got me to sign up with our local wine club

Lucky Number Slevin

"What's a Kansas City Shuffle?”

We rented Lucky Number Slevin because a large chunk of our friends told us it was a great movie. I wouldn’t say it was a great movie, but it was a fun hour and a half.

Josh Harnett is Slevin Kelevra. He’s on a trip to NewYork to see a friend, and on the way to his friend’s apartment he’s mugged. That is pretty much just a bad start to a really bad weekend for Slevin. His friend is gone and Slevin is mistaken for him by a couple of very irritated mobsters. It wouldn’t be a problem except that his pal owes a mob boss a whole lot of cash, and of course Slevin can’t pay it. To keep his life, Slevin is coerced into an agreement to kill the rival mob boss’s gay son. Mayhem ensues while the cops get involved and Mr. Goodkat (Bruce Willis) starts playing both sides of the mob.

The dialog is snappy and there are plenty of twists and turns in the plot to keep you guessing on who is screwing over whom. Josh Hartnett and Lucy Liu play with the dialog quite well, bouncing lines off of each other like the old black and whites with Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn. (I’m not saying they are on par with those two, but the feeling is similar.) The characters are larger than life and suit the plot. What I can’t figure out is why the characters keep eating sandwiches. Maybe if I had listened to the commentary, I would know why.

It’s a clever film, but it wasn’t as clever as some like the snappy dialog in Quentin Tarantino films. It’s a fun ride with equal parts gun play, romance, and chemistry. If you like that sort of thing, think a little darker version of The Whole Nine Yards, you’ll like Lucky Number Slevin.

Rating: 4 ½ Purrs

DVD library

I am currently cataloging all of our DVDs into an online database much like I have our books in LibraryThing. This place is called DVDSpot. It's pretty good, but nearly as great as LibraryThing.

http://www.dvdspot.com/member=beakermini

Immortality

Immortality sat in my NetFlix queue for a very, very long time when it finally reached the top. It had been pegged as one of those artsy vampire movies, which I wanted to see because Jude Law is in it, but didn’t want to see because it was an artsy vampire movie. It finally appeared in my mailbox, and to be honest I am glad it finally did. The movie was beautiful, weird, and the actors were excellent.

Steven (Jude Law) is a handsome Londoner with a very weird name. He is good at seducing women, and it is obvious at the beginning of the movie that he has seduced many of them. He is also ill, and needs a woman’s love to survive (enter the vampire mythos). The only way he can feed on that love is by drinking their blood and absorbing it into his bloodstream. He has yet to meet a woman who truly captures his heart until he meets Anna (Elina Lowensohn). She doesn’t know who he really is, and he isn’t quite sure he can kill her when he needs to. Also, he has the added trouble of a pesky policeman who suspects he is somehow involved with the deaths of his previous girlfriends. Will he do it, or will he waste away?

The movie is quite lovely to look at with beautiful locations and a vivid use of colors. The use of color is striking in almost every frame of the film. Jude Law is seductive and creepy, pitiful and ruthless. You genuinely begin to pity him. The only thing I found difficult was some of the vampire mythos and the way it was adapted. The crystals took some thinking to figure out what was going on there.

Overall I wouldn’t go into Immortality looking for a vampire flick. It is really more of a seductive thriller in the vein of The Talented Mr. Ripley, Body Double, and Fatal Attraction.

Rating: 4 Purrs for a beautifully shot thriller with excellent acting, and that very striking painting Jude Law's character has hanging in his flat. It's so freaking haunting, I can't get it out of my head.

Grindhouse: Planet Terror & Death Proof

I love Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, and I will pretty much see anything they make. The idea of Grindhouse made me wiggle my toes I was so happy, and unlike a lot of other people, I was toe-wiggling happy with how it all turned out.

Grindhouse is a great tribute to the old exploitation movies of the 60’s and 70’s. It starts up with a couple of grainy trailers, which I just loved (and to be honest I can’t remember them all now). Enter then Planet Terror, Robert Rodriguez’s installment. What more could you want- poison gas, flesh-eating zombies, strippers, and machine guns? After a gas is accidentally released near a military base in Texas, people start turning into crazed, brain-eating zombies. An rag-tag group of people, Cherry Darling, a local pole dancer, her boyfriend mechanic, the sheriff (Michael Biehn – woot!), a crazy doctor, his assistant wife (who has Fergie as a lover, thank you), and a group of others have to fight off the zombies, crazy military men, and all the rest to get to safety. I can’t even list how many familiar faces are in this movie: Marley Shelton, Michael Biehn, Rose MacGowan, Freddy Rodriguez, Fergie from the Black-Eyed Peas, Tom Savini, and more. It’s awesome. Of course, I love zombies, so naturally I would love this half of the Grindhouse.

After a few more trailers, we get to see Quentin Tarantino’s half: Death Proof. Here, Kurt Russell plays a crazed stunt man who has a special car, a “death proof” car. He has an affinity for pretty girls, which he likes to dispatch via stunt car driving. He’s a bit kooky and over the top. Soon he meets a group of ladies who won’t take his crazy and dangerous driving lying down. They fight back, and that’s where the great car chases and action begins. It’s fun with some really awesome car chases and stunts. Zoe Bell is not a great actress, but you can tell she’s pretty excited to be doing what she is doing.

Overall, Grindhouse is everything I could have hoped it would be. Unfortunately, I had to buy 2 different DVDs to get the movies, and they are missing all of the very funny trailers that accompanied the movies the first time around. Each film has the touches of their directors, but neither one is at their best. Grindhouse isn’t for everyone, but if you like the nostalgia idea, see it for the fun.

Rating: 4 1/2 Purrs for well, everything. I mean zombies and chicks driving stunt cars. Come on!

Candles Burning by Tabitha King and Michael McDowell

I have never read any of Michael McDowell’s work, and the only book by Tabitha King I read ages ago I thought was so-so. Based on that I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect from Candles Burning, I only knew that my always-awesome book club recommended it, so I grabbed it with some free book points I had earned. I was pleased with what I got; this was book of the true Southern Gothic.

Calley Dakin is a young girl when her family travels to New Orleans where her self-made father, Joe Cane Dakin, is attending a conference. Unfortunately, her father doesn’t come back to the hotel one night, and the next day her crazy Southern momma gets a ransom note for 1 million dollars. In true Southern Gothic fashion, two half-witted women who seem to have no motive dispatch Calley’s father in a very bloody, crazy way. This changes the course of Calley’s life, as her crazy and disapproving grandma takes over her life, ends up “adopting” the “man of the family,” Calley’s brother, and basically runs her mother and her out of the house. Calley and her mother end up in Florida at a strange B&B, where they spend their days entertaining the guests, working, and scheming to get the money back her mother knows her father had before the grandmother and her lawyer ran off with it all. Eventually Calley is able to get revenge for her family, but it takes awhile (she is a grown up by then). The journey there is just dripping with the feeling of swamps, heavy kudzu, magic, mystery, off-beat characters, and oh so twangy Southern dialogue, so it is equal in intriguing reading and annoyance at the silly accents.

I wouldn’t run right out and buy this book for everyone I know, but if you like William Faulkner or Flannery O’Connor and want to read something like Faulkner-lite, pick this up. There is some imagery there that will stick with you, even though you might spend a large portion of the book wondering what the hell is going on.

Rating: 4 purrs for naming her Calliope and for adding just a touch of the supernatural. The story had enough atmosphere on its own without too much “magic” in it.

Beneath

I saw a trailer for Beneath before some other movie and it looked intriguing. Others thought so too, because it took me awhile to get it via NetFlix.

In Beneath, Christy is haunted by visions after she and her sister are in a horrible car accident. Christy was responsible, and her sister was burned terribly and eventually died. But did she really? If so, why does Christy keep having these visions? After many years, she returns to her hometown to attend a funeral of an old family friend. Why do the visions return? Why won’t her sister’s widower husband let her stay in their house? Why does her niece have nightmares of the “dark thing”? Christy is determined to find out the truth once and for all, even if it costs her life.

This is a nicely creepy, atmospheric thriller. The dark old house of her in-laws really conveys a sense of secret doings. Nora Zehetner is delicate and determined in her role as Christy. I really liked her in Brick and Heroes, and she really does a nice job here. She does a great job conveying that determination, but you also wonder if she really is just bonkers. Matthew Settle is less impressive, but the little girl was great.

Beneath was a scary thriller that, while I figured out what was going on with it part way through, I still wasn’t sure if I was right until the end. It was without doubt worth the rental.

Rating: 4 ½ Purrs for a decent straight-to-video thriller

Comics Read in 2007

This year I tried to read more graphic novels and keep my local comic guy happy with spending way too much on comics. Here's what I ended up reading, and I still have more to go.

• The Pride of Baghdad
• The Walking Dead, trades, Vols 1-5
• Pheonix: Endsong, Vols. 1-5
• Powerless, Vols. 1-6
• Black Harvest by Josh Howard
• Fray by Joss Wedon
• Nightmares & Fairy Tales: Once Upon a Time by Serena Valentino
• 300 by Frank Miller
• The Cat with the Really Big Head by Roman Dirge
• Y: The Last Man, trade, Vol 1
• Ronin by Frank Miller
• The Living & The Dead by Tod Livingston, Robert Tinnell
• The Mystery Play by Grant Morrison, Jon J Muth
• Agnes Quill
• Holmes, Vols. 1-4 by Omaha Perez
• Friday the 13th: Pamela's Tale, vols. 1-2
• Friday the 13th: A Summer to Remember
• The Dark Tower: Gunslinger Born, Vols. 1-7
• BookHunter by Shiga
• Tales of the Vampires by Joss Whedon
• Tales of the Slayers by Joss Whedon
• Ultimate Daredevil Elektra, Vols. 1-4
• Eightball by Daniel Clowes
• Friday the 13th: How I Spent my Summer Vacation
• Buffy Season 8, Vols. 1-5 by Joss Whedon
• Blood of Saints by Josh Howard
  

Books Read in 2007

Here's a list of what I read this year. I'm only at 72 this year, but I did read a crap ton of comics, so maybe that makes up for missing my normal 100.

Fiction - Sci Fi, Fantasy, Horror

• Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein
• The Hellfire Club by Peter Straub
• Lisey's Story by Stephen King
• The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
• Eccentirc Circles by Rebecca Lickiss
• Dragonlance Chronicles: Dragons of Autumn Fire by Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman
• Dragonlance Chronicles: Dragons of Winter Night by Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman
• Dragonlance Chronicles: Dragons of Spring Dawning by Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman
• Stardust by Neil Gaiman
• Candles Burning by Tabitha King & Michael McDowell
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling
• Fear Nothing by Dean Koontz
• Nightwatch by Sergei Lukyanenko
• Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill
• Earth Abides by George R. Stewart

Fiction - Classics

• The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
• As I Lay Dying William Faulkner
• The Country of Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett
• A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

Fiction - Suspense, Mystery

• Cradle and All by James Patterson
• The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
• The Vision by Heather Graham
• Kill the Messenger by Tami Hoag
• Arthur & George by Julian Barnes
• Slow Burn by Julie Garwood
• The Poe Shadow by Matthew Pearl
• The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld
• Ghost Walk by Heather Graham
• The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde
• Cover Her Face by P.D. James
• Birds of a Feather by Jacqueline Winspear
• Pardonable Lies Jacqueline Winspear
• Messenger of Truth by Jacqueline Winspear
• A Mind to Murder by P.D. James
• Unnatural Causes P.D. James
• An Unsuitable Job for a Woman by P.D. James
• Shroud for a Nightingale by P.D. James
• The Presence by Heather Graham
• 7 Steps to Midnight by Richard Matheson
• Blaze by Richard Bachman
• The Pale Blue Eye by Louis Baynard
• Never Sleep With Strangers by Heather Graham
• The Sunday Philosophy Club by Alexander McCall Smith
• The Island by Heather Graham
• The Black Tower by P.D. James
• Death of an Expert Witness by P.D. James
• The Skull Beneth the Skin by P.D. James
• The Husband by Dean Koontz
• Grave Secrets by Kathy Reichs
• A Taste for Death by P.D. James
• Devices & Desires by P.D. James
• Original Sin by P.D. James
• A Certain Justice by P.D. James
• The Murders of Richard III by Elizabeth Peters

Fiction - General

• The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier
• Spring Collection by Judith Krantz
• Sideways by Rex Pickett
• Northern Lights by Nora Roberts
• The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
• Blue Smoke by Nora Roberts
• The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
• Practical Demonkeeping by Christopher Moore

Nonfiction

• Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her by Melanie Rehak
• The Great Mortality:An Intimate History of the Black Death, The Most Devastating Plague of All Time by John Kelly
• Marie Antoinette: The Journey by Antonia Fraser
• Strange Piece of Paradise by Terri Jentz
• It's All Too Much by Peter Walsh
• Thunderstruck by Erik Larson
• A Death in Belmont by Sebastian Junger
• Teasing Secrets from the Dead by Emily Craig, PhD.
• Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer