Book Review: Another Brooklyn

Another Brooklyn, by Jacqueline Woodson

A great novel is both familiar and enlightening. This one qualifies.

It's familiar in the sense that Woodson writes about growing up on the streets of Bushwick, Brooklyn, near the same time as I grew up on similar streets in the Inwood neighborhood of upper Manhattan. We played the same games and shared related experiences of life in the big city.

But, of course, our perspectives are world's apart -- mine of a white boy being reared by immigrant, Irish Catholic parents, and hers that of a women of color growing up in a motherless apartment.

I think I know her story, but of course, I don't.

 And such is the wonder of this book: Woodson gently removes any preconceived notions of her life I might have, and replaces them with a stark reality. She shows us her fears and her joys. She bring us small moments of love coupled with times of change and rebellion.

When August and her brother and father move into the neighborhood -- her mother is coming "tomorrow" -- she looks out her apartment window and longs to be a part of the three girls she sees skipping together down the block. She eventually gets her wish, but as the story develops and the now four friends' relationships change, she begins to look for a way out -- to find "another Brooklyn."

It's sad and it's happy. It's funny and it's serious. Overall, it's a damn good book. I highly recommend it.

Book Review: Sleeping Beauties

Sleeping Beauties, by Stephen King and Owen King.

This is the first book King has written with his son Owen. King and his eldest boy, Joe Hill, have written short stories together, and I have enjoyed them. I'll put this book in the five-star category.

Its underlying premise is simple: The woman of the small West Virginia town of Dooling are falling asleep. But it's a strange sleep: Once they doze off, the women become wrapped in cocoons and do not wake up.

Where the women wind up, and the psychological, social, and practical implications of what comes next -- and why -- is the heart of the 699-page tale.

Dooling is your basic Appalachian town. It's poor; it's sole major employer is the state's women's prison, and it has the wide assortment of characters that populate King's novels. You have your criminals, your drug dealers, and your bullies.You also have your people just trying to get by, along with those working to battle their inner demons while trying to set things rights. King and King get us into the minds of these people, so we know not only what they do, but their thoughts and rationales for why they do it.

At its heart, the story explores the different ways men and women deal with problems. Men use violence to get what they want; women cooperate and try to work things out. Men are desperate to protect and try to bring back the women; the women are like, "yeah, we miss the guys, but we can live without them." The story starts off as a fight of good against evil, but soon becomes more nuanced, with both sides softening and realizing the other gender is needed.

But it certainly explores the different ways men and women look at life. It notes that a society of females could survive, first through the use of frozen sperm, and later through natural means. A society of men would never make it past the current generation. Beyond that, the Kings explore whether a matriarchal society could change the essential nature of women and men.

Women alone could be "building something new, something fine," one character says near the end of the book. "And there will be men. Better men, raised from infancy by women in a community of women, men who will be taught to know themselves and to know their world."

But, says one of those surviving men, a psychiatrist at the prison for women: "Their essential nature will assert itself in time. Their maleness. One will raise a fist against another. ... You're looking at a man who knows."

Perhaps, responds the woman: "But such aggressiveness isn't sexual nature; it's human nature. If you ever doubt the aggressive capacity of women, ask your own Officer Lampley."

Book Review: Grunt

Grunt, The Curious Science of  Humans at War, by Mary Roach

Mary Roach has a talent for finding the seemingly mundane and turning it into bizarre and fascinating reading. As in Bonk (science and sex), Packing for Mars (science and space), and Stiff  (science and dead bodies), where Roach looked at various aspects of the topics, here she researches how noise, dirt, bomb blasts, and water -- among other things -- affects war planning and the people who fight wars.


The book also has chapters on groin injuries and penile surgery. If you are squeamish like me, you can skip these. I did. But if you're interested, go ahead.


In tackling these issues, Roach does so in a wonderful style -- simultaneously lighthearted and thoughtful. As she says at one point, she takes her work seriously, but herself? Not so much.


But this is a wonderful book. Her observations are witty, sometimes irreverent, even snarky. But her science is sound, her research -- both scientific and historical -- extensive, and her writing grand. Her anecdotes and history of events are compelling and to the point. Her descriptions of people are wonderful and spot-on.

For instance, here is how she describes Craig Blasingame, who works in noise research: "... a former Marine with a wide superhero jaw and muscles so big that when he walks in front of the slide projector, entire images can be viewed on his forearm. Though it's ten in the morning, Craig has a five o'clock shadow."

Yeah. She is that good.

Book Review: Golden Hill

Golden Hill, A Novel of Old New York, by Francis Spufford

Written in a stylish language of a time long ago, when New York was a tiny city in pre-colonial America, this book is fun and informative, a character study of a unknown man who comes to town and stirs up the sleepy populace.

The book is a character study of Mr. Smith, who arrives in New York in 1746 with a check for $1,000 pounds, and demands payment. But he refuses to talk about who he is, why he is there, and why he is owed the money.

The Londoner soon becomes part of the life of the city, ingratiating himself with the prosperous and powerful. Indeed, he even tries to court Tabitha Lovell, the cagey daughter of the family whom he comes to to pay him the money.

Tabitha is a wonderful character in a book filled with them. She is a woman before her time, a feminist in colonial dress. Mr. Smith at one point suggests that may be the reason for her aggressive manner. You bite because you are caged, he tells her. She responds, "What if I am the kind of dog who bites because it pleases her?"

The books is filled with such dialogue. It is filled with great descriptions of time and place.

And in the end, it does wrap up the story, which is always a plus. The epilogue explains it all.