Book Review: You Like it Darker

   By Stephen King

• Pub Date: 2024

• Genre: Short Stories

• Where I bought this book: Barnes & Nobel, Florence, Ky. 

• Why I bought this book: If you have to ask ...  

 *****

  

   Random thoughts that arose while reading King's latest collection. (May contain spoilers, but I tried to make them non-specific.)

    It's a collection of stories by Stephen King, so tropes will abound. But aliens? Aliens who save us? 

    Indeed, some of King's worst flaws -- overwriting, repetition, and echoes of and references to  previous tales -- abound and get a little tiresome after a while. An editor could fix that. Perhaps listen to her?

    Geography nitpick. If you live in Upper Manhattan, you cannot walk nine blocks to Central Park. 

    Too many of the stories centered around the fears and meanderings of an old white guy. (OK, some were about middle-aged white guys.)  Rattlesnakes, the sequel to Cujo, highlighted this trend. It went on and on and on and on -- and on and on -- sort of like the original. 

    The bizarre "I had a dream" alibi in the midst of a police procedural led by a bizarre police detective was, well, quite bizarre.

   Starting a story about a man named Finn (should have been Fionn) with a nod to the Pogues is brilliant.

     Laurie -- an oddly overly detailed story about an old man getting a dog -- may be the worst King story ever written. And yes, I believe I have read them all.  

     The final two stories, Dreamers and The Answer Man, are easily the best of the lot. They bumped the number of stars to the midpoint. 

    The title made little sense for this collection. I didn't find any of the stories particularly dark. King has written quite a few, but these don't measure up.

Book Review: Gwendy's Magic Feather

  By Richard Chizmar

• Pub Date: 2019

• Where I bought this book: Household Books,  Cincinnati. 

• Why I bought this book: I found this really cool, locally owned bookstore in my hometown, and felt I had to buy something. This was it.

 ******

    So, I had read the first and third installments of this trilogy because Stephen King co-wrote those two. Both were good stories, well told. 

    My review of Gwendy's Button Box is here, and Gwendy's Final Task is here.

    I really did not intend to read this middle chapter, because it wasn't essential, and I was unfamiliar with the author. But when I found it in this well-curated bookstore that was part of an under-served neighborhood near mine, well, I had to support it.

    It's nice. Well written. It fits in well to the overall story. It fleshes out the details of Gwendy Peterson, the girl we met as a young teen-ager when a strange man gives her this mysterious, other-worldly button box, who is now a young U.S. Congresswoman from Maine. The button box gives rewards, can cause real pain -- up to and including Armageddon -- and has a strange pull on those who watch over it.

    It's a King creation, through and through. But as King notes in his forward, Chizmar saved the first book from oblivion, and wrote a large role in the third. On his own in the second, Chizmar does a workman-like job, giving Wendy another opportunity to do well. 

    Gwendy becomes what we expected in book one. She's the same person, only older and wiser. But the writing and story have the same flaws as the other two books: Some long-winded, drawn out, unnecessarily long scenes, lots of tropes, and filler (see, it's not just King who does all that). 

    But overall, it's a decent read.

Book Review: Full Dark, No Stars

 By Stephen King

• Pub Date: 2010 

• Where I bought this book: I really do not remember 

• Why I bought this book: I buy every King book as it comes out.

********

    So. I was browsing in my local Barnes & Noble store this past week, and stopped by the horror section to see if they had a copy of A Face in the Crowd, a digital book he wrote a while back with Stewart O'Nan. 

    Instead, I came across a copy of 1922, a thin volume about a farmer who conspired to kill his wife in that year. I looked through it and did not recognize the synopsis. Looking further, I noticed it was originally published in 2010 with three other tales in the Full Dark, No Stars collection. I knew I had that copy at home.

    So I grabbed it and started reading the first story, 1922. Still did not recognize it. But I liked it, though it was a bit creepy. The second story, Big Driver, about a serial rapist, I also did not find familiar.

    Still, I was sure I had read this collection before, even if it was more than 15 years ago.

    But apparently, I had not. The next two stories, Fair Extension and A Good Marriage, also seemed new to me.

    I could have forgotten all of them, although I have often caught glimpses of King's past writing in his new works, But in these, nothing. So maybe I had bought the book and put it aside, then on the shelf, without even reading it. But my Goodreads page shows I read it from Nov. 25, 2010 -- Thanksgiving Day! -- to Nov. 27, 2010, about three weeks after it came out. So maybe I lied, or maybe I've read so much King my hippocampus cannot keep them all sorted out.

    *Shrug* I suppose I'll never knew.

    But I'm glad I have now read it (or read it again). The stories were good, if a bit unsettling, even for King.

Book Review: Fairy Tale

 

•  Author: Stephen King

• Where I bought this book: Carmichael's Bookstore, Louisville, Ky. 

• Why I bought this book: I've read every one of King's books. I ain't gonna stop now.

*********

    

   Fairy Tale is a shining example of the genius that is Stephen King.

    It's got a great story, with wonderful characters, and it's well told. What's not to like? I'd say this is among the Top 10 novels King has written.     

    It highlights the strengths of a King story, while playing down the tropes and flaws. But they are there. Indeed, as King seems to be drifting away from horror and into the realm of fantasy and thrillers, he has heightened his tendency to over-describe and overwrite.

    I first noticed this in 11/22/63, the story of the JFK assassination, when Jake Epping/George Amberson chases Oswald through Dallas in chapters that seem never-ending. In the latter part of Fairy Tale, when the action gets fast and furious, King's penchant for extraneous details slows things down.

      But so what? By this time we are so wrapped up in Charlie Reade's adventures with his dog, Radar, in Lilimar, that we easily speed through to the ending. But here's the thing -- we like Charlie, and his dog, and what he is doing, and we really don't want it to end. Because with King, we know it could have a happy or a sad ending.

    And because we have come this far, we know Charlie. We like him. Like many a King character, he's a normal teenager in a regular middle-of-America place (there's even a crazy old man in a weird house on the edge of town). Charlie has an unremarkable life -- his mother died young; his father struggles with alcoholism, and Charlie finds solace in football and his friends.

    But remember that old guy, name of Howard Bowditch? Well, Charlie somehow meets up with him, and they grew to like each other. Bowditch tells Charlie something remarkable about that shed in the back yard; Charlie looks into it, and the adventure begins.

    He enters a different world, one of hope but exacerbation. He senses its history, and how it seems to be  falling apart. He meets people he's never known before -- could never have known before -- but knows whom to trust and whom to help. It's a remarkable journey.

    When we first meet Charlie, the teller of this tale, he speaks in the voice of a young man. We watch him grow up as we hear him age through his words. Such is the power of Charlie's story and the mystical voice that King gives him.

Book Review: Gwendy's Final Task

 

•  Authors: Stephen King and Richard Chizmar

• Where I bought this book: The Book Loft, Columbus, Ohio

• Why I bought this book: King is my favorite writer 

*******

    As the title hints, this is the final book in the Button Box trilogy. It's only the second I have read; I skipped the middle one because King wasn't involved.

 

    And make no mistake, this is a King story. I am not quite as familiar with Chizmar, but all the King trademarks are there: the strong if ordinary characters put in an extraordinary situation, the fate of good versus evil played out in the plot, and the references to the King universe -- including the city of Castle Rock, Maine, which plays a prominent role.  

    Heck, even the men in the yellow coats make an appearance.

    I don't think I missed anything in the second book because it's not a complicated story, and this one quickly brings you up to date.

    In short: When she was 12, a stranger gave Gwendy Peterson a special box to watch over. It looked like a normal box with buttons and switches, but it had extraordinary powers. In Book One, Gwendy's Button Box, she finds out what those powers can do.

    Now, U.S. Sen. Gwendy Peterson, D-Maine, a successful writer and politician, has another visit from Richard Farris. He again gives her the box, this time with another message: Get rid of it.

    How she does so -- and why some people are committed to stopping her and grabbing the box for themselves -- is her final task.

    The writing here is compelling, as it brings you into the story, easily explains what background is necessary for the tale, and gently carries you to the end. The characters are people we know, if a bit exaggerated  -- the good senator from Maine is a bit too thoughtful and concerned, and the businessman is so dramatically evil you expect him to wear a top hat and twirl his mustache.

    At times, the dues ex machina is flagrantly used, and the writers employ other tropes such as excessively helpful characters, to move the plot along. 

    It's a King-driven story, meaning that supernatural or superhelpful things happen at the right time. But it works. It's a good story, well told.

Book Review: Later

Later, by Stephen King

    You read Stephen King for the writing, of course. His is elegantly simple, using a working class language of good, useful words and descriptive phrases. It's not a style in which you pause and savor every word, but it gets the job done.

    And you read King's books for the stories, and the plots. Sure, sometimes he repeats anecdotes or plays with different perspectives of the tale, but it's always a story where he pulls you along and has you eager to get to the end. 

    King is typecast as a horror writer, but that has rarely been true. And now that he's often switching genres -- he's really gotten into detective and mystery tales recently -- it's even less true. He is, as one critic wrote, just a guy who puts ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances -- usually with a twist of the supernatural, or tearing a hole in reality to show another dimension.

    But mostly, you read King for the characters. One never tires of, or forgets, King's characters. Sometimes, they come back.

    I won't deny he uses tropes -- the magical Negro, the disabled child with mental superpowers. But he has has a cast of characters that often look like America -- and he is getting better at that. He shows strong people who are good, and evil people who are bad. Mostly, though, you can identify with his characters because you know them. They are based on regular people, with their thoughts and fears and biases

    And sometimes those ordinary people have a mystical or supernatural power. It's a King thing, OK?

    Which gets us to Later. It's about a boy who sees -- and can hear and talk to -- dead people. We first meet Jamie Conklin as a young child, but it is his older self telling the story. He introduces us to his mother, Tia Conklin -- a white woman of privilege and single mother who had fallen on hard times. We also meet her lover, Elizabeth "Liz" Dutton, a police officer with questionable ethics.

    This being King, we can probably tell what is going to happen -- someone will want to exploit Jamie's abilities. But that's something King can tell us, better than I could, and better than most writers.

    It's a short book for King, clocking in at less than 250 pages. 

    So pick it up and enjoy. You know you will.

Book Review: Flight or Fright

Flight or Fright, edited by Stephen King and Bev Vincent

    In 1963, the Twilight Zone aired an episode, "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet," in which an airplane passenger, played by William Shatner, saw a gremlin tearing off part of the wing. Some 20 years later,  Twilight Zone: The Movie remade the episode, this time starring John Lithgow as the passenger.

    Flash forward to TV 16 years later, when Lithgow was starring in "Third Rock From the Sun," a show about an alien visiting earth. In one episode, his boss, The Big Giant Head, played by Shatner, came to visit, thus rendering one of the best inside jokes ever on the networks.

    The Big Giant Head was asked how his trip went. His response: "Horrifying at first. I looked out the window and I saw something on the side of the plane." To which Lithgow's character responded in horror, "The same thing happened to me!"

    You can read that original story, first published in 1961 by Richard Matheson, in this uneven anthology of airplane horror stories. It ranges from a brief 19th Century story by Ambrose Bierce, to a tale of envisioned "Air Jungles" above 30,000 feet written in 1913 by Sir Arther Conan Doyle (yes, the Sherlock Holmes writer) to a 2018 tale of being on an airplane when the world ends, by Joe Hill.

    I know many people dislike short stories, but I think they hold a place of honor. A good one is hard to write -- with a few words and fewer character, a writer must tell a tale with a grab-you-by-the-neck beginning, a now-sit-there-and-listen middle, and a see-I-told-you ending. This book has some of those, but a fair amount of WTF stories that leave you empty, and a couple of tales that never get off the ground.

    There are some out-and-out horror tales, some that are more wild imaginings, and a couple of hang-on-for-dear-life adventures. One of the best is a simple detective story, with an opening that pulls you in, a middle that keeps you wondering, and an ending that is satisfying and believable. It doesn't lead you around in circles, but tell the story and gets to the point like a good short story should.

    As an added bonus, you get to read a new tale by Stephen King, a good one that reaches into the supernatural heights, but makes you wonder just how much of what he writes is true.

Book Review: If it Bleeds

 If It Bleeds, by Stephen King

    OK. This is a Stephen King book. So you know it's going to have good writting, lively characters with distinct personalities, and a story that moves along in time and space.

    This collection of four novellas is all of that. Except for the stories. They are predictable, well-worn tales. Ideas that King dusted off and liked, possibly thinking they were good enough the first time around, so why not use them again. 

    I couldn't find a single plot device in this grouping that isn't a King trope.

    He's explored a tender relationship between a teenager and an older person. He's examined a writer who is haunted by his characters and his work. He's done apocalyptic events, using them for many purposes, including making it a simple tale about the end of the world. Almost all of his tales about children and teenagers show their being bullied or the bullies. In King's work, children's memories always come back to haunt them. And to top it off, he has to bring back a popular character to relive her torment.

    Really, Constant Writer, what should we Constant Readers have expected to happen when you put a cell phone in someone's coffin? Isn't that a bit mundane? Something that, perhaps, a lesser writer and storyteller would have come up with? When putting that one down on paper, and editing your work, did you really sit back, reflect on the idea, and think, "Awesome! Wow!"?

    Clearly, this is not King's best, most original work. 

    But despite all that, I enjoyed the collection. It was a quick read. If it isn't King's best work, it certainly isn't his worst. The characters are memorable, and for the most part, they are good, honest, salt-of-the-earth Yankees. The writing is compelling. It moves along.

    But Constant Writer has done a lot better.

Book Review: Full Throttle

Full Trottle, by Joe Hill

Let me start by saying the introduction to the book, in which Hill talks about having a famous father, is wonderful. Also, I liked two of the stories -- Late Returns, and You Are Released. The former is based on the idea of not wanting to die in the middle of reading a book, and involves a curious display of time travel. The latter is set on an airplane when a nuclear war breaks out. It's told from the variety of perspectives of the people on the plane, and it works well.

The rest, well -- let's just say they are the bad and the ugly of Sergio Leone's trilogy.

Usually, I enjoy Hill's writing, especially his  novels. A couple of tales in this short story collection might have been better had they been given more room to grow. And the title story, which he wrote with his father, Stephen King, has been published before.

Some of the others, though, are bad. Meandering, pointless, and, quite frankly, boring.

Take By the Silver Water of Lake Champlain, for instance. It's a tale about two children finding a dinosaur body along the waters of the lake between Vermont and New York, which takes on the legend of Champy, the lake's resident "monster." But the tale is dull, and it focuses more on the children and their siblings arguing with each other. The ending is confusing.

In the Tall Grass, which also credits King as a co-author, seems to be little more than a grotesque version of King's 1977 short story, Children of the Corn. Thumbprint had some interesting characters, but a weak story to bring them together. Mums, about a fanatical right-wing family and their son, is  more a rant against the alt-right movement to overthrow the government than anything else.

 The Devil on the Staircase pages

I liked that Hill took liberties with style and structure in two stories. One, The Devil on the Staircase, was written in a typography that resembles flights of stairs. A second, Twittering From the Circus of the Dead, is what the story implies -- a young girl's tweets from a mysterious circus in a small, isolated town. In both cases, the experimental typography and format worked better than the story.

This Year in Books: 2019 Edition

My Best Books of 2019

I like to begin the year reading a favorite story about one of the greatest baseball players of all time. Roberto Clemente died New Year's Eve 1972 when he boarded a plane to take supplies to Nicaragua, which had been recently devastated by an earthquake. The plane crashed, killing the 38-year-old Clemente, the pilot, and three others.

Fifteen years later, writer W.P. Kinsella, working off the idea that Clemente's body had never been found, wrote "Searching for January," in which a tourist sees Clemente coming ashore in 1987. In a touch of magical realism, they discuss what happened and what might have been.

Ready for breakfast and the yearly reading of Kinsella's work.

OK, that's a long intro/aside to my first Year in Review blog post, featuring the best books I have read this year. According to my Goodreads profile, I read a book a week, which, according to one estimate I have seen, means I read about 50 pages a day. Sounds about right.

Anyway, of those, I have selected eight as my books of the year. Why eight, you ask? Why not, I respond.

So here were go.

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek, by Kim Michele Robinson. This novel, about a WPA project that paid women to ride mules into the hollers of Eastern Kentucky, became one of my favorite of all time. The writing is extraordinary, vivid, and sensitive. Richardson reaches perfection in her use of dialect -- just the right amount to give flavor to the speech of the people, but never too much. In addition to her keen ear, Richardson has a keen heart and mind in creating and letting her characters live their lives. Full review.

The Bees, by Laline Paull. Paull gives us a hive of honeybees that are feminist, pro-labor, and loyal, and presents them to tell a story of love, hope, and commitment. It's a book not about bees, but about us. It's about how we are locked into a caste at birth and struggle mightily to escape. Full review.

Washington Black, by Esi Edugyan. With powerful and explosive writing, Edugyan tells the tale of George Washington Black, who begins life as a field slave on a plantation in Barbados in the 19th Century. From that beginning, she follows Wash through the United States, Canada, and England, as he tries to escape slavery and live the life of a freeman. But melancholy and a haunted, hunted existence follows him. Full review.

The Testaments, by Margaret Atwood. This is today's story of what happens in the years of The Handmaid's Tale and its government of Gilead. It is told in various voices, from a top aunt in the organization to members of the resistance. They include children, who only know Gilead after the revolution, as they are taught little about the previous life. It's an inspiring tale from a top-notch writer. Full review.

Elevation, by Stephen King. This is an unusually short Stephen King book, but it's also the ultimate Stephen King book. It has great characters in a great story that's well written, with a little supernatural sprinkled in. It's a short novel packed with intensity and issues. Full review.

Unsheltered, by Barbara Kingsolver. Kingsolver melds past and present into a sentimental yet unsparing tale, exploring how our present determines our future and influences interpretations of the past. In her literate prose, with a gift for the narrative of empathy and understanding, Kingsolver touches on what moves us all -- our family, our homes, our beliefs, and our hopes for the futures. Full review

Night Boat to Tangier, by Kevin Barry. In the long, extraordinary history of great Irish writers, Barry is finding himself among the elite. Night Boat tells about  two old Irish drug dealers and wanderers, who have made it good, then lost most of it. As they wait in a Spanish port for one character's daughter, Barry tells their story in writing that is ravishingly beautiful. He makes every word count, and causes you to use your five senses to take it all in. Full review.

Music Love Drugs War, by Geraldine Quigley. Quigley introduces us to a group of young friends and acquaintances in Derry, Northern Ireland, at the start of the 1980s. Most of them are in their late teens and on the cusp of adulthood, but unsure of their futures. They live in a city where jobs are scarce, the violence can be thick, and the hope can be slim. Their pleasures lie in drugs, music, and each other. Their fears and realities lie in the violent struggle that has engulfed Ireland for 400 years. Full review.

Book Review: The Institute

The Institute, By Stephen King

The beginning of this book is wonderful, if a bit drawn out. It's the backstory of a guy who will return later in the tale, and you just know he's gonna be a good guy.

Then we hear about the Institute, a dark and shadowy (we never really learn) ... company? ... government entity? ... military operation? ... that kidnaps children for its own nefarious reasons. And we meet Luke Ellis, a 12-year-old genius from the Twin Cities, who is about to start attending MIT in Cambridge and nearby Emerson College in Boston to pursue separate degrees simultaneously. In a rare trope reversal, Luke is emotionally well adjusted and has perfect vision, without the need for dorky glasses. But Luke does have one outstanding characteristic -- a mild form of telekinesis, which means he sometimes can move things around by thinking about it. He's not great at it, but that could change.

Luke is kidnapped and taken to the Institute, where he meets and befriends the kids -- Kalisha, Nick, George, Iris, and others -- already there, who fill him in as best they can on what is going down. All of them are subjected to various physical and mental tests -- Stasi Lights, shots for dots, the kids call some of them -- for unknown reasons. Sometimes, the kids disappear to the Back Half of the building, but we are told little about that.

But about halfway through, things start to get thrillery, as the good guys and the bad guys run and chase the other. Kings displays some great writing, as usual, even when you feel a need to roll your eyes at some of the plot twists. He also depends on stereotypes -- even as he delights in pointing out some of his anti-stereotypes.

Slotting The Institute in the final place
 on the bottom shelf of my SK bookcase.

For instance, during a gun battle in a small southern town, residents come out of their houses, all carrying guns, and they know how to use them. "This is the South," they said.

And this King story continues to dabble in various conspiracy theories about the government, businesses, and the people -- although no one knows exactly who they are -- who are really running the country and controlling the world.

All in all, it's a basic King book. Not his best, and far from his worst. It has good writing -- if a bit overdone. It has decent characters, if a bit lazily developed. And it has a fine story -- even if you have sneaking suspicion that King wrote parts of it for his other books.

This Week in Books, 8th Ed.

Rambling through a bookstore

One of the joys of wandering among the shelves of an old bookstore is a lack of people. Oh, perhaps you see the occasional fellow book fiend studying the titles, but for the most part you are alone with your thoughts and your fictional friends.

Then there is the Book Loft of German Village, a rambling independent bookstore in neighborhood near downtown Columbus, Ohio.

The entrance to the Book Loft

The stacks of fiction
 along a narrow hallway

A staircase lined
 with promotional photos

Most bookstores are large and airy, inside one large room. This one is not.

Many bookstores -- especially those of the chain variety -- are enclosed in modern glass and steel. This one does not fit that description.

They are in suburban shopping malls, surrounded by large parking lots. Usually, you'll find similar stores in similar buildings nearby -- a Panera, an office supply store, and most likely a Starbucks.

But the Book Loft is tucked away in an urban neighborhood. The entrance is a garden, and the store itself resembles a bunch of older homes that were renovated and smashed together. Yes, there is a coffee shop next door, which is part of a small, local chain, Stauf's Coffee.

The Book Loft boasts 32 rooms. Outside are tables full of books on sale, along with the racks of remainders. I arrived with my daughter in the early afternoon on a sunny weekend, when the Ohio State Buckeyes were thankfully playing out of town -- the university and the 100,000-seat stadium is about five miles away along city streets.

So after a vegan lunch, we made our way over, entered through the garden gate, and strolled up the walk.  It's a wonderful place, with surprises up every flight of stairs and around every corner. Each room has a theme, but you are likely to find random stacks of books in random places, so you have to meander all over the place, just in case you might miss something.

The fiction section takes up several rooms, and arranged along narrow hallways lined with bookcases. I found several novels that just came out, one that isn't scheduled to come out until next month (I said nothing, and bought it), and a sports book I've been seeking for a while.

Last Night in Montreal, by Emily St. John Mandel. Because I read Station Eleven and loved it.

The Immortalists, by Chloe Benjamin. It asks the question, how would you live if you knew the day you would die. Sounded intriguing.

On the Come Up, by Angie Thomas. The story of a young black girl who really wants -- needs -- to become a rap star. It's been on the TBR list for a while.

After the Miracle: The Lasting Brotherhood of the '69 Mets, by Art Shamsky. The Mets. 1969. 'nuff said.

The Testaments, by Margaret Atwood. Doesn't everyone want to read this?

Akin, by Emma Donaghue. Another of my favorite writers, and I mistakenly thought it wasn't due out until next month, so it was a bonus when I saw it.

The Institute, by Stephen King. He has his own bookcase -- not just a mere bookshelf -- in my library.

Book Review: Middlegame

Middlegame, by Seanan McGuire

At the start of this strange and wonderful book, Roger Middleton, then a young boy who already is a language expert, refers to the word play in a novel as a "meet-a-for." He explains to his new friend, "It's using a thing that's not true to talk about things that are."

Such is a good description for this novel, a combination of science fiction, fantasy, and perhaps a bit of horror thrown in. It also alludes to a vast array of myths, legends, literature, and science, from the Wizard of Oz to quantum entanglement.

The premise of the book is complicated. A fellow by the name of James Reed -- who leads a band of modern alchemists -- wants to bring out the humanity of something called he Doctrine. What the Doctrine is, or is meant to be, is unclear, although it appears to be a perfection of society.

But in bringing it about, Reed needs a perfect pair of siblings. So he creates several sets of twins, then splits them apart. And by create, I mean literally -- he takes parts of various people to form another human. By doing this, he hopes the twins will manifest into one, and become the embodiment of the doctrine.

One of the twins, in this case, Roger, is a language expert. The second -- Dodger Cheswich -- is a math wizard. (And yes, the names of the twins, dubbed as "cuckoos," always rhyme. Almost.) Together, they represent order and chaos.

The math children will die to defend the language children. Many of them have. Most of them will have no capacity for defending themselves. It isn't part of what they are made of -- and Leigh knows very well what they're made of. She was one of the people who did the making, after all.

McGuire, who sadly was unknown to me before this book,  has had a long and varied career as a writer, artist, and singer. She puts it all to use here.

Often, I found that she mimics the best of Stephen King, one of my favorite authors. This is neither a knock or a comparison. But what I like about King, I enjoyed about this book. McGuire creates a few, solid major characters who are unique and well developed. These characters are the sun of the story, the epicenter of which the rest of the system revolves.

She also describes various secondary and tertiary characters, who despite their lesser story arcs are well defined, complete, and fulfill their roles as either good and evil -- or possibly both, and sometimes changing between the two. Other times, a character is introduced to set part of the story in motion, but she is also given a full life and description.

McGuire is clearly a star in her own right, and an author who I plan to read more of going forward.

This week in Books 6th Ed.

TBR's Stephen King
bookcase

So, I finally persuaded my daughter to give Stephen King a shot. She doesn't like horror. I kept telling her King is much more than a horror writer

We have shared books since she was in her late teens. When she comes home now, we often go straight to my library, where I offer some suggestions, and she can browse for more. At times, she'll recommend a book for me. It works for us.

She's a runner (a good one, I might add; a Boston qualifier). So I gave her Elevation, telling her it had a running story arc that was well done. It's one of King's shorter works, so it's a quick read. Here is my review.

She liked, it. No, she loved it. I am happy, although not surprised. It is a good read.

The best description of King is that he puts regular people in abnormal situations. I think King's strength as as writer is simple: He writes well, has great characters, and tells a helluva story. What more could you want? Despite his reputation, he's not solely a writer of horror, which I've always seen as bloody, slasher stuff. Instead, he's a writer of the supernatural -- the paranormal, if you will.

Anyway, now I have to decide what King work to suggest next. Perhaps one of his earlier works -- perhaps Dead Zone, which could be appropriate in the current political climate? Or perhaps a later work, Sleeping Beauties, which he co-wrote with his son, Owen King? It hits the high points of a King book, and I credit Owen King with taking out some of King's flaws, particularly his weakness in crafting a credible ending.

As for the TBR stack: It's getting bigger after a trip to a local bookstore this past week. I found three books that weren't even on the horizon:

The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek tells the fictionalized tale of the first travelling library in Kentucky (my home), and how one of the (real-to-life) blue people of Kentucky was its librarian. They Said it Couldn't be Done is about a time I remember well from growing up in New York City in the summer and fall of '69, when man landed on the moon and the Mets won the World Series. Fifty years later, I cannot read enough about the latter. And Washington Black continues my excursion into books by and about people of color. This one tells the story of an 11-year-old field slave who becomes his master's brother's servant, and their ever-changing relationship. It was nominated in 2018 for the Man Booker prize, always a great place to find a good read.

This Week in Books, 1st Edition

Apparently, this is a thing with book bloggers: You write about what books you've just read, are reading, and what you plan to read next. I'm not always that scheduled -- often I just go to my TBR stack and grab what looks interested.

But hey, I'll play along. Maybe I'll make this a permanent feature.

My week in books. 

First off, as one can tell by my latest review, I have just finished, for the second time, Stephen's King's Elevation. As Lawrence Welk would say, "It's wunnerful, wunnerful."

On my current reading list are two books. One is the Pulitzer-prize winning, All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr. It's a book set in and before World War II, and contrasts the growing up of a blind French girl and a orphan German boy with a knack for electronics. So far, so good. The second is a Gulf War memoir, Wine in the Sand, by a buddy of mine, Jim White. It's as wild as the war (apparently) was.

As for what comes next, I'm not sure. It might be Music Love Drugs War, by Geraldine Quigly, a novel about growing up in Northern Ireland during the heart of the Troubles in 1980. Or is might be Jasper Fforde's latest, Early Riser, about a human society that hibernates in winter. Bonus for me: I am going to see Fforde speak and sign my book at Left Bank Books in St. Louis next week. Yippee!!

Book Review: Elevation

Elevation, by Stephen King

I read this book last year, but I never got around to writing a review of it. Which is a shame, because I liked it so much. So I figured I'd write a review now.

So, of course, I had to read it again.

Right? I mean that would be only fair. Right?

It is even better the second time around.

This is an unusual Stephen King book, yet it's the ultimate Stephen King book. Great characters in a great story, with a little supernatural sprinkled in, as a cook throws in a few handfuls of salt to enhance the food. As The Washington Post put it, King writes "about real people tested by unreal situations."

Yet, except for the main character's unexplained weight loss, the book explores all-too-real situations: Prejudice in its classic form, privilege in not recognizing that prejudice, and understanding and overcoming that prejudice and privilege.

And for a writer whose books often top 1,000 pages, this is a shorty -- weighing in at a mere 146 pages.

It deals with a middle-aged white guy -- Scott Carey, a web designer -- who is unexpectedly dropping weight. He lives in Castle Rock, Maine, a setting of several of King's novels. In addition, Carey -- and the town -- is dealing with his new neighbors, a lesbian couple who opened a vegetarian restaurant. Carey has not gotten off to a good start with the women, who have not gotten off to a good start in the small, conservative town.

For a short novel, it's packed with  characters and issues.

As an added attraction for me, it's also about the glories and benefits of running. Indeed, I could go so far as to say it's a book that elevates running to a spirituality that allows us to explore the beauty and structure in the world.

A key part of the book occurs during the running of a 12K Thanksgiving race. I won't say more to avoid spoilers, but suffice to say that King goes into a lot of detail about a runner's thought process during a race. And he gets it right: The anticipation at the start, the camaraderie of the runners, the excitement of taking off and running alone while surrounded by like-minded people, the torture of the hills, the strategic battles in your head, and the exhilaration of reaching beyond yourself, embracing the suck, and accepting the joy of the run.

"Scott thought of how he'd felt running down Hunter's Hill, when he'd gotten his second wind and the whole world had stood revealed in the usually hidden glory of ordinary things -- the leaden, lowering sky, the bunting flapping from the downtown buildings, every precious pebble and cigarette butt and beer can discarded by the side of the road. His own body for once working at top capacity, every cell loaded with oxygen."

Did I mention that King is my favorite writer?  He's one of the best. The above paragraph, along with many others, is a reason this has become one of my favorite Stephen King books.

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 right. 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: Gwendy's Button Box

Gwendy's Button Box, by Stephen King and Richard Chizmar

Yes, this book is credited with two authors. I have never read Chizmar. But I am quite familiar with King. And make no mistake: This is a Stephen King book, from the idea to the characters to the writing.

All the hallmarks are there -- the young, innocent protagonist put into a situation not of her making. The mysterious man who appears from nowhere to set the story in motion. The evil antagonist who shows up from time to time. The strange artifact not from this world that gets handed down. The philosophical questions about how one would use magical powers if magically granted those powers.

The story moves along quickly, following Gwendy through her teenage years into early adulthood. It's a short book; she is the central character whom the book revolves around, and others are described through her. It's well done, and an easy read.

I know Stephen King's work. Here is my King bookshelf