Book Review: The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

Title: The Hobbit 

Author: J.R.R. Tolkien 

Genre: Fiction- Fantasy 

Finished: January 13, 2013

I dug this one out of the shelves in celebration of the movie, which I have to date seen a grand total of 3 times, none of which I regret in the slightest. Okay, I didn't take the book off of the shelf and dust it off. I uploaded it to my Kindle Fire, but the same concept is at work here: I pulled out a book from my past to enjoy in the present. I haven't read the Hobbit since I was in secondary school, I'm certain English class in middle school. Even then it was an assigned reading, so I read it with the most begrudging of pleasure, and I did not get as much out of it as I could have had it not come with the attached stigma of being a book assigned for school. But alas, the Hobbit is the sort of book that everyone need read at least once in their life. I wanted to give it another shot, and with more appreciation for fine literature and fantasy. I was first touched by the fast pacing of the book. Tolkien certainly paid scant attention to detail and drawn out events. The timing for things like anticipation or suspense, even drama, is lacking. That doesn't necessarily make it a bad book, and neither does the book come across as too hurried or without character development and involvement. Indeed, it is a bit surprising how much Tolkien is able to pack in a few short words. By fast pacing, I mean that there is little to describe their wanderings. Instead, our esteemed author chooses to gloss over the aimless wandering across terrain of Middle Earth, and let us as readers enjoy one action packed sequence to the next. It is at times like that that I realize the book was meant for children, and so needed to be relatively free of too much boring description, and also required enough entertaining action to keep the attention span of a child engaged. But I loved the fast pace of the book; it seemed like a long short story. And of course, as a fantasy novel lover, I can't forget the honor that must be paid to Tolkien as a master of his own world, language, and mythology. Bilbo was adorable, his character complex and curious, equal parts brave and frightened, as anyone would be taken from the comfort of their home and thrust on a deadly adventure. I loved all of the dwarves. They were just, each and every one, adorable and brave. Of course not all dwarves were fully fleshed out, as I imagine that would have taken a lot more work and detail than the tiny novel could handle, so only a few dwarves are "real"characters in the novel. The rest of them are just background names. Though I do wonder how future movies will alter some of the story a bit, particularly with Smaug and with the final battle between man/dwarves/elves and the goblins/wargs. I can't see some of those details (trying not to spoil here) being preserved in movies, but maybe that's just me thinking that people want heroic and happy endings.

Book Review: The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1) by Suzanne Collins

Title: The Hunger Games 

Series: The Hunger Games

Book Number: 1

Author(s): Suzanne Collins 

Genre: Dystopia Sci-Fi 

Finished: August 21, 2012

Most of the popular books of late have been tales of little substance. The female characters are weak, silly, or co-dependent to some male who has emotional problems and treats her rather poorly. I will refrain from getting into a long dialogue about how this may negatively impact a few generations of young girls, but I will say books like Twilight and Shades of Grey have little to nothing to offer people in the way of true importance and meaning. With that being said, the one thing that I liked immediately about the Hunger Games was the female lead, Katniss. She is independent and strong, yet she still displays a weakness that she cannot admit or make sense of, which I think shows her complexity and depth. She isn't some generic caricature of the strong female that can do all, and neither is she weak, weepy, or vapid. Fortunately, since the Hunger Games is not only an immensely popular book, but also a movie, I don't need to repeat the plot. But to give a very succinct summary: it is a dystopian future of an undated era. What's left of civilization is called Panem and is situated into a number of districts, 12 in total, and a Capitol city that is pretty much the center of money and power. There was a rebellion years ago that failed, and so every year in remembrance each of the districts must give a boy and girl as "Tribute" to fight other Tributes from all districts in the annual Hunger Games. It's a reminder of the power of the government, you know? The power of life and death. Poverty and want are rampant throughout this world. So is fear. Enter Katniss Everdeen from District 12, a depressing and poor mining area. Most people there are starving and impoverished. To put food on the table Katniss has become very capable with a bow and arrow, which she uses to hunt food. When her little sister is drawn in the random lottery that selects Tributes, Katniss volunteers. The rest of the book contains the trails of training and then finally the games themselves, completely bloody and violent affairs. I suppose when it is die or win, the natural desire is to live, even at all costs. I can't say that I completely hate the other Tributes for their brutality. When your only choice to stay alive is to kill everyone around you, I think it would bring the worst in a person out. And I also think there is a lot more psychology and human nature there than we really need to ponder, but needless to say, it says something about how strong the will to live is, and what fear and pain can bring out in a person. But when a book makes you ponder human nature and even question yourself it is a good book. I love dystopia novels because I think they are more accurate as to what a true "utopia" would become. I'm not bothered by violence or gore, and I certainly don't hold it against an author when there is a copious amount of both. To be honest, I respect an author who doesn't shy away from graphic detail. There was a point during the romance that I wanted to shake her and make her pay a little attention to the fact that the dude (Or Peeta, as he is called) really does like him. But then I realized that I was being unfair to her development as a character. First off, she is fighting for her life... boys aren't a priority. Secondly, she has always had to struggle and fight and care for those she loves. When you live day to day, you aren't afforded the time to ponder your future. And living like that has a way of sucking the feeling out of a person, giving them only what they need to operate at a basic mode of survival. Unnecessary feelings of want or desire or frailty just don't fit in, so they have to go. She wasn't blind for not being a silly girl when I wanted her to be. She was even more real of a person because she didn't see. And I liked the parts where she was close to giving up the most because it threw a kink into the typical "badass girl" scheme. I mean, come on... we can't be brave and strong and capable all of the time. I know most authors like to Mary Sue and live vicariously through their characters, but this isn't one of those cases. Thank God. That is on my list of things that grate on my nerves... it's a long list. I will read book two and three, and I am certain I will enjoy them.

Book Review: Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

Title: Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch 

Author(s): Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett 

Genre: Fiction - Paranormal Humor 

Finished: July 18, 2012

People have been encouraging me to read Neil Gaiman for a long time, so when Paperbackswap sent me this particular novel, I figured that was a sign (no book reference intended) that I should begin with this one. Who wouldn't love an amusing, comedy-filled imagining of the end of the world? It suits the morbid in me. The plot begins with a baby switch at the beginning: two babies are being born, one being the child of an important ambassador, which is to be replaced by the son of the Devil. Unfortunately, a mishap places the Devil's only son, named Adam by his clueless human parents, with an innocent Lower Tadfield couple. They know nothing of what their baby is or what will happen. All information about the eventual "apocalypse" is found in a book of prophecy penned by a long dead witch known as Agnes Nutter, who wrote down her foretellings for her descendants to interpret. Enter in to the story a motley cast of characters. You have an angel and a demon who are residents on earth. Their duty is to handle various dealings for their respective sides in the eternal battle of good versus evil. They are friends. They are aware that the end of the world is coming. The both of them are also reluctant to see the world go because they rather like it. You also have the young Antichrist Adam who is, thanks to his raising, a normal kid with strange powers and a sweet Hellhound. Mixed in with this is a witch, a couple of witch finders, a medium, the horses (or in this case the motorcycles) of the Apocalypse, and a group of young human children getting into the messes that young children do unaware that their leader is the Antichrist. Beneath the comedy is a little theology to satisfy the intellectual in all of us. It makes us ask questions like what is good and evil? Does good and evil exist only to fulfill a role because we need them to? Both the resident angel and demon in the story aren't necessarily identifiable as what we think of as theologically good or bad... they just are. And sure, they enjoy a little morality and destruction, but not enough to destroy the world for it. Angel and demon both exist as pawns in a game that no longer has meaning, but continues because both sides want to win. It's like carrying a grudge because someone did something bad to you long ago, but you no longer remember what you did, just that it made you mad. Maybe also a little because that is what is expected. And consider young Adam, the son of the Devil, who lacks the capacity for true pure evil because he was raised as a normal kid. His "evil" isn't a part of his person, it isn't embedded in his gene code, and he is only a mischievous kid with powers he can't understand or make sense of. He doesn't want to be bad, he just wants to be a kid and create a world that would be perfect to him as a child. Which, yes, does ultimately lead to a near nuclear crisis. Of course you can read it just to enjoy being witness to a creative adventure that allows one little mix-up to snowball into a chaotic mess that almost sees the world to the brink of extinction. The book is funny, clever, well written, unique, and interesting. It's not some dramatic, edge of your seat apocalypse book full of military personnel speaking in code and superhuman main characters that perform heroic acts not possible for normal people. Just a bunch of people, both human and not, running in haphazard circles trying to stop the world from blowing up in a rain of nuclear missiles.

Book Review: Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children (#1) by Ransom Riggs

Title: Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children

Series: Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children

Book Number: 1

Author(s): Ransom Riggs 

Genre: Fiction - Fantasy 

Finished: June 28, 2012

A young boy named Jacob recalls the strange stories his grandfather Abe used to tell him as a child. They were fantastical stories of children with special powers. Grandfather Abe was even able to furnish proof using old photographs of things like a floating girl, a boy covered in bees, and invisible boy. As children do, young Jacob believed his grandfather. Yet as the boy grew to a teenager, he began to doubt his grandfather's stories until they became just that: stories. It wasn't until the untimely and violent death of his grandfather at the hands of a horrific creature that it seemed only Jacob could see that Jacob began to wonder if the stories may be just a little more real than he imagined. His grandfather leaves him with a cryptic message that sends him off on a journey to find the old children's home in Wales that Abe was placed in as a child, of course Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. Naturally, like most people who sincerely believe in monsters, Jacob is sent to a shrink who decides that it is for his own good that Jacob go to Wales. According to Dr, Golan, it is the only way for Jacob to truly see that what his grandfather told him cannot be real. Except what Jacob finds instead is that the home was real and the children do exist. They exist in a loop in the past, repeating the same day over and over, the very day that their home was bombed and all the children killed. Miss Peregrine is one of a special sort of peculiar person, a shapechanger (a bird) who can manipulate time. There are loads of other pockets of loops throughout the world and time, each sustained by a headmistress who maintains the loop. The plot thickens with the introduction of hollowgast, creatures that feed off of peculiar children. These monsters, remnants of a time experiment gone wrong, are aided by wights who find them their peculiars to consume. This book was a very quick read and it combines a number of photographs with the story. I both liked and disliked the inclusion of photographs. Yes they added to the story, but it's not a perfect system. You can see that some photos are obviously fake, some portray the same people in the story but are noticeably of different individuals, and some just seem thrown in there and mentioned in the text to make room for them. Sometimes it was obvious that the pictures were writing details of the plot, not the other way around. And I found that to be cheating a bit. Maybe I am just picky. I thought the story was unique enough to be novel because don't we all want to believe that something magical exists in our otherwise mundane world? And the thought of these kids existing in some infinite time loop the day they all were to die helps curb the sheer morbidity that sits at the foundation of the storyline. Plus, monsters. It's just disturbing enough to please those who like to be disturbed, but sweet enough that people who reject disturbing things can sleep at night. I feel like the wind up to the climax of the plot was too long, and the climax was too fast. Or really, not as powerful as I would have liked. I will admit that I very much enjoyed the story and don't regret reading it. I need to stop focusing so much on the bad in everything and start shedding more light on the good. It is undoubtedly a book worth a read, and it blurs the line between horror and fantasy, between heartwarming and disturbing, which are all things that I very much love and appreciate. I just look forward to the sequel one day so that I can feel satisfied.

Book Review: Soldier of Rome- The Legionary Artorian Chronicles, #1) by James Mace

Title: Soldier of Rome: The Legionary

Series: Artorian Chronicles

Book Number: 1

Author: James Mace 

Genre: Fiction - Historical 

Finished: July 19, 2011

Varus, give me back my legions! Anyone who knows anything about Roman history has heard those words. Just the same, anyone who knows anything about Roman history can pick out the important names and places on the back cover alone: the ill-fated Publius Quinctilius Varus; the Emperor Tiberius, successor to Augustus; and Germanicus, glorious military man and the father of the infamously corrupt Emperor Caligula. James Mace’s Soldier of Rome: The Legionary is about what takes place after the defeat at the Teutoburger Wald forest when Rome sets itself up for a retaliatory measure against the Germanic people, led by the heavily applauded Germanicus. James Mace is not a Roman historian, or an historian by training at all. Rather, he is a military man with an avid passion for Roman history. While historians know to be cautious around the world of enthusiasts who usually do not understand issues such as historiography and source creditability, I have always tried to be more fair minded than that. I liked that in the front of the book is a glossary of Roman military ranks, which is a godsend to any and all who know nothing more about the Roman military than the centurion helmet. I cannot wait to start pulling out all of my books about Rome and checking against them. It’s like a great big fun scavenger hunt of historical detail. My favorite kind. I will admit that I too know little about the Roman military in the age of Empire. My experience is with the military structure of the Republic via historians such as Livy and Plutarch, and of Late Antiquity thanks the volumes of respected historians who study the endlessly to either prove or disprove that the Roman military was a dysfunctional machine by the end of the 200s. The complicated structure of the Roman military during its height makes my head spin. Republican that I am, I wonder where the Consuls are and then remember this is a couple centuries after the Punic Wars. So you see, simply having a glossary of ranks and jobs really assisted me in what I read. You know what else impressed me? That when I flipped back to the end of the book I saw a bibliography. Very few writers who dive into historical fiction bother to give proper credit to sources or reveal where they received their historian information. Perhaps they feel as fiction writers they do not have to disclose their sources or give credit where credit is due, but I am a stuffy nonfictionists who feels that things should be credited. Mace lets his readers know that he got some of his information from good ol’ Tacitus who was writing around the turn of the second century CE. I only wish he had elaborated on it and revealed more of the histories he read to recreate his Roman world, and not only cited Tacitus. 

The story begins with the disastrous battle of the Teutoburger Wald, which Rome mourns as military men plan and seek revenge. Loss is not something the Roman military takes lightly, after all. And enemies must be punished or annihilated. The rest of the story takes us through the early stages of retribution and then battle. A young Roman named Artorius has a personal vendetta since his brother was killed in the forest. Led by the young Germanicus, the Romans reenter battle against the Germans who pretended to be allies only to betray them. It becomes an epic battle between the forces of Germanicus, fighting for Rome, and Arminius, who is fighting to preserve his own land and his own people. The book was very exciting. “War” stories are not my thing, but the truth is that I will read anything about Romans. I just dig them. But this book was more than the overtly masculine posturing of male valor, and went beyond the tedious technicalities that bog down a lot of historical writing of the military nature where military maneuvers are described in long and diagram-free detail. I did wish that there was more... Roman context in it. Hidden beneath the surface are important Roman values, norms of respect and rank, and military training. I was also a bit confused about the naming of the characters in the book. But again, this could just be me, as a Republican, understanding Republican conventions of prenomen, nomen, cognomen, etc, as well as what the difference between Claudius and Clodius is. I wanted to be fully involved in not only what it meant to be a soldier, but what it meant to be a ROMAN soldier. One of the most fascinating things about the Romans is how they were. I wish there was more about this, which would place the reader more securely in the Roman world and therefore create a more realistic story. Also, unfortunately, the book needs a good editor. There were many words misspelled and even a mistake on the back cover book description. That alone could cause a lot of people to disregard the book and never give it a chance. It is clear, though, that Mace truly does love the Roman military and has put more research into them than your average person or even hobby historical enthusiast. It was a good and worthwhile read, I think, and puts me one book closer to my ultimate goal of reading every fiction book I can find set the era of the Romans.

Book Review: Changeling Moon (Changeling, #1) by Dani Harper

Title: Changeling Moon

Series: Changeling

Book Number: 1

Author: Dani Harper 

Genre: Fiction - Supernatural Romance 

Finished: June 15, 2011

Zoe Tyler is an editor with a unique gift that allows her to see things happening in her head. Desperate to start a new life far from her reputation and the stresses of the city, Zoey moves to a small Canadian town where she becomes editor for a tiny local newspaper. All is well until one night Zoey is attacked by a wolf, a werewolf. Enter Connor Macleod, veterinarian and werewolf, who rescues her, though not before Zoey is bitten. It is love at first sight, at least for Connor, who makes it his mission to ensure that Zoey does not become a werewolf. Problem is, her sire is insane and set to destroy the local wolf pack, which he has chosen not to join. The sire is out for blood, killing man and human without hesitation. He also wants Zoey. It’s a dangerous situation for wolf and human alike. Yet, even among the life threatening drama, there is still time for love to grow between Zoey and Connor. Dani Harper clearly knows her way around a word. She has a very clean but elaborate writing style that is both entertaining and accessible. Her book does not falter or linger too long in drawn out description, though it certainly does not lack in detail. 

Unlike those who just seem to have just gotten lucky publising their books, Dani Harper clearly has a natural writing talent, so she well deserves the praise she receives. I will admit that romance is not my cup of tea or preferred genre. As a result, I tend to be a bit harder on it than romance genre fans. Problem is, I think that most romance tends to be contrived and fails to convince me. It is almost formulaic the way a perfect, rugged, handsome loner (or playboy) falls in love with an equally perfect but firey woman who is certainly the first to resist his charms or fight against his possessive/protective/etc nature. And of course, when they have sex, lightening sparks behind her eyes and she has screaming orgasms that leave her shaking. Sound familiar? I bet it does. Because it’s probably somewhat or in part true for 95% of the romance books you’ve ever read. And it to me, it all feels very forced. What was the point of the above rant? Because if I were to pin the one part of the book that I disliked, it was because it fit the formulaic and forced romance model outlined above. Because, as I said, I just do not like romance as it all seems to be like the above and I want something new, something real, something full of complications. Something about discovery, not love at first site with cookie cutter personalities. This is not meant to insult the book because I am sure romance fans would love it. 

So you may be asking yourself: do I like the book? And the answer to that would be a definite yes. Here is why: because Dani Harper has created a believable preternatural world. I respect anyone who can approach an unexplainable situation and say simply, “this is how it is and we don’t know why” such as Connor did when he explained how during the shift their present clothes seem to fall into an invisible third dimension that return as soon as the shifter turns back into a human. Why? Because I think people over think things and sometimes fail to see that sometimes some of the best things are the things we cannot possibly answer. The world of the hidden wolf and normal human was also very believable. I also liked how Dani threw in her own little invention of silver suppressing the change as a way to control those who lack proper control. As a story of a supernatural world, I very much enjoyed reading Changeling Moon. The reader is neither flooded with a complex supernatural world, nor confronted with something that is impossible to believe or simplistic. Dani Harper fuses the natural and supernatural worlds together with flawless ease, and in that way convinces me that there just may indeed be hot werewolves veterinarians with a small auditorium full of brothers and a quaint, quiet farm out there.

Book Review: "When I Can Read My Title Clear" by Janet Duitsman Cornelius

Title: "When I Can Read My Title Clear": Literacy, Slavery, and Religion in the Antebellum South 

Author: Janet Duitsman Cornelius 

Genre: Nonfiction - American 

Finished: March 10, 2011

In "When I Can Read My Title Clear", Janet Duitsman Cornelius states that though much has been written about American slavery, little attention has been paid to slavery literacy. It is her intent to present information, sectioned off into six topical chapters, in the hope of inspiring further discussion and research (6). For this reason, Cornelius presents no overarching thesis or argument, though the book does present a number of her own interpretations and counters claims made by other historians. For example, Cornelius objects to Eugene Genovese's assertion that evangelists fully embraced the cause of slavery, which allowed them to win the trust of slave masters and safely preach the gospel. Cornelius feels that this interpretation is wrong, however, and plainly states her own opinion that acceptance was really just the language of appeasement, which evangelists utilized in order to have access to the slaves they wanted to educate (48). While Cornelius certainly proves earlier in the book that many evangelists rejected slavery and certainly may have catered to slave owners opinions through appeasement, much of the evidence that Cornelius presents also counters that generalized and optimistic image of the evangelical preacher. A subsequent quote by Methodist preacher James O. Andrew that their goal was not to civilize slaves or encourage them to freedom, but only to make holy their deaths would seem to prove that not all evangelists were simply speaking to appease, or to prove that Andrew did not make such a statement in sincerity. Cornelius even presents evidence of Christian preachers who insisted that slavery was a blessing to both the slave and the slave master. Some preachers even taught that educating slaves would, in fact, make them better slaves (46-48, 52). It is impossible, therefore, for Cornelius to claim that proslavery sentiment was entirely absent from evangelism, which, through "mysterious providence" did not always see slavery and Christianity as contradictory. That is not the only instance in which Cornelius fails to make her point with sufficient strength to convince. 

In chapter one, Cornelius promises to discuss the various reasons for white reluctance toward slave literacy in early North America, including the ways in which slave owners sought to restrict a slave's right to education (5). What Cornelius implies is that the chapter will be about the power of white resistance, especially after revolts aroused a sense of threat for the permanence of the slave institution, which white southerners adamantly protected. Throughout the chapter, Cornelius mitigates the strength of white resistance by stating that the rules against allowing slaves an education were rarely enforced, and that, in the end, only four states total had laws passed banning slave education, which were also rarely enforced. She admits herself that "the sweeping extent of these laws has been exaggerated." In addition, with her emphasis on various religious groups and their efforts to bring education to slaves, Cornelius seems to prove the opposite of what she claims will be discussed (18-22, 33-34). What the reader is left with is a sense that the white power structure actually cared very little about slave literacy, as evidenced by their ambivalent political stand on the matter. Cornelius can be praised for her careful use of sources in many cases, and in her attempts to point out where sources may be misleading, which is particularly useful for people new to the subject, or to students of history who are learning historical research methods. In one instance, after spending pages talking about the ways slave masters facilitated the learning of their slaves, Cornelius reminds the readers that we should not assume the picture presented was the total shape of society because such stories were often written in order to justify slavery and counter criticism (108). 

However, there are moments when Cornelius’s use of sources and the information contained within can be called into question. When discussing slave testimonies that speak of how slaves learned to read and write, Cornelius uses the autobiographies of the Federal Writers Project. The findings of the FWP, she feels, support her claim that by the 1840s restrictive literacy laws of the decade previous had been relaxed. One of the major pieces of her evidence is that most of those interviewed by the FWP claim to have learned to read between the years of 1856 and 1865 (63). It must be noted that the FWP was interviewing slaves who were still alive in the 1930s, and slaves who learned to read earlier in life would have been older than most of those who learned to read in the 1850s and 1860s, and therefore may not have survived into the 1930s. In another instance, Cornelius discusses the punishments slaves would face if caught learning against their master's will, one major punishment in particular being amputation. One of the stories used is of an uncle of a Mr. Henry Nix who had his finger removed because he stole a book to learn to read and write (66). Cornelius assumes from this story that the punishment was because the slave was trying to read and write, but by the quote she presents, nothing directly indicates this. It could be the case that the slave had his finger removed for stealing. 

Though the book is about slave literacy in the antebellum period, Cornelius includes an epilogue that describes the conditions of learning after slave emancipation. The inclusion of the epilogue strengthens Cornelius's claims that literacy was important to slaves as a mark of their humanity, as a way to liberate the soul, as a way to read the Bible, and as a way to resist power because it is these values and the lingering importance of them that drove many blacks to push for literacy after emancipation (150). Cornelius's book also gives the reader a sense of the diversity not only of slaves, but slave work and masters, however unintended this is. The slave testimonies of chapter 3 in particular, which discuss the challenges, obstacles, and dangers slaves faced when trying to learn to read are the most enlightening part of the book not only for what they say about slave literacy, but about slavery itself and all of the variations within the institution (74-78). Cornelius is able to achieve such a varied picture because she used a number of sources, both primary and secondary, in her research. Featuring prominently are slave narratives, which are the sources that give the book life. Cornelius also uses a number of archival materials and manuscripts, government documents, and newspapers. As far as secondary sources go, Cornelius clearly has a very good background in her subject because she uses the research of a number of well known and respected historians of African American history such as Carter G. Woodson, Eugene Genovese, and Herbert Aptheker.