'Heyday' is a 'Rush' of a Tale

Review of HEYDAY (BBC Audiobooks 2007)
By guest blogger Star Lawrence
Author, Kurt Anderson; read by Charles Leggett

You think 1968 was a memorable year? How about 1848? HEYDAY is a sprawling epic of 1848-1849, starting with revolutionary riots in the streets of Paris and finally zeroing in on four unlikely friends as they crash through interesting times.

Ben Knowles is a refined Englishman on holiday with a friend in Paris. He encounters a wild-eyed girl dashing through the streets in a mob and in the melee (which involves a stab with the beak of a taxidermied penguin he is carrying) he gets separated from his friend and later sees the man under a pile of bodies shot by the French soldiers.

Bereft, Ben journeys to America to make a new start and on his first night sees a bewitching blond actress (and part-time prostitute) dining in his hotel. They meet later, naturally, and he also becomes friends with her brother Duff, a tortured soul who has basically tossed his moral compass at 22 and amidst babbling his rosary over and over, commits all sorts of poorly thought-out crimes. The fourth friend is Timothy Skaggs, who is older, a newspaper reporter, photographer, astronomer, wit and raconteur.

Spoilers will ensue if I explain more, but eventually, the four set off across the American continent, eventually ending up as gold panners in the hills around Sutter’s Mill (1848—Gold Rush—remember from school?).

Unfortunately, the French policeman whose brother was shot in the wake of the penguin beak stabbing, has a long memory and is a couple of thousand miles behind them, but coming up fast.

I will leave it there and you can fetch the 22 disks. The narrator Charles Leggett is very listenable, keeps the voices straight without weirding out, and makes HEYDAY as rousing an adventure as any TV show.

You just supply the pictures yourself. Simple.

Star Lawrence owns Health’s Ass, a health humor site, at http://healthsass.blogspot.com. Anyone out there want to print her audio reviews? She can be reached at jkellaw@aol.com.

Return or Renew Those Books--Promptly (Or Else)

Man, I know penalties for failing to return a library book on time can add up. But this lady should have just bitten the bullet and paid the fine.

This is what you get for trying to evade--the library cop! Remember that episode of Seinfeld, in which he hadn't returned TROPIC OF CANCER (or was it TROPIC OF CAPRICORN?) since high school? The woman in this case checked the book out only last April, but she never returned it and was apparently unreachable. Complications followed. The lesson to take away: renew or return your library books in a timely manner--and don't disappear and pretend nothing's happened if you fail to do so.

Psychedelic Sunrise, Singleton Hippie Art

(c) Singleton 2009SOLDA technicolor nightdraped in never seen before colors...Magic laughter,the new music,playing to our souls...And in the morning,this...a psychedelic sunrise...painted on a Universal sky11 by 11 collage on cardstock. Skyground is swirls of watercolors and markers, sunrise face markers and ink, cheeks are snippets of abandoned original work. Sunrays are collaged from prints of

So Many Books . . . Part Four

Okay, I know there's certain reading many of us consider essential, but this is getting ridiculous (via Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind).

Savoring 'Three Cups of Tea'

Review of THREE CUPS OF TEA (Penguin Books 2007)
Authors, Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin

Few books tell a story so inspiring in such a beautiful way that they simply leave me at a loss for words. This is one of them, but I will try to say a few words, anyway.

THREE CUPS OF TEA tells the true story of Greg Mortenson, a mountain climber whose life took a more-than-slightly interesting turn after he made a failed attempt to climb K2. Mortenson, who got separated from his fellow climbers on the way down, took a wrong turn and ended up in Korphe, a small Pakistani village, after spending an inhospitable night on the mountainside. While he recuperated in Korphe, Mortenson got to know the people and took an interest in them. When he saw that their children lacked schools and had to learn their lessons outside, with the barest minimum (to put it generously) of school supplies, Mortenson promised the village elder he would see that a school would be built there.

Mortenson kept his promise--after a massive letter-writing campaign that yielded one check, living a penurious existence (while saving up money for his venture on a nurse's salary in the Bay Area) and other persistent efforts. He eventually found financial backing from fellow mountaineer and wealthy entrepreneur Dr. Jean Hoerni. With the money to buy supplies and labor, Mortenson headed back to Korphe to build a school. Only to realize that before he could build the school, they'd have to build a bridge--across a chasm that separated Korphe from the materials Mortenson was bringing.

This is just one early (and, believe it or not, comparatively small) example of the many obstacles Mortenson faced in trying to build this and other schools in the remote villages of Pakistan and, later, Afghanistan. We follow Mortenson through all his early missteps, misfortunes (financially, romantically, personally, politically) and misadventures until he finally gets (not necessarily in this order) the money, the girl, a job as head of the created-for-him Central Asia Institute and the respect of peers, politicians, Muslim clerics, Taliban leaders and citizens from all walks of life in Pakistan and Afghanistan. And he managed not only to build schools, but to address other infrastructure problems villagers faced. Mortenson's accomplishments and what he went through to achieve them are so stunning, they took my breath away. David Oliver Relin (who chronicled Mortenson's efforts) is a deft story-teller and the book reads like a well-plotted work of fiction.

Three observations: First, to say this story is inspirational is simply not saying enough. The story is nothing short of astonishing, amazing . . . again, these words seem trite given the magnitude of Mortenson's accomplishments. At the risk of gushing (further, some might say), it's a real-life example of how one person, with persistence and fortitude, can truly make a difference.

Second, Mortenson may have been motivated by his love and concern for the children in the tiny villages of Central Asia, but as you'll see from the book, what he has achieved goes even farther. Through his efforts, Mortenson learned about the wonderful qualities of the Muslim people of that region, and he has served as a good will ambassador for Americans (something we could sorely use, there and in general).

Finally, the story shows how taking one wrong fork in the road can lead to the most amazing places. I say Mortenson took the "wrong fork." But was it wrong? Or was it written?

Whether due to fate or happenstance, I think if you read this book, you'll agree it turned out to be a wonderful thing.

The Change, Singleton Hippie Art 2009

Obama for Peace(c) Singleton 2009"And there was a noise,a whisperin' the wind,and it grewand grewand grew...Until it could be heard...The Change...." Colored markers, pencils, sharpies and the belief that Change is here...now...Peace and Love....

So Many Books . . . Part Three (and Counting)

If you look on the Readers Advisor Online blog and scroll down a bit, you'll see a post with a mind-boggling list of "best books" of 2008. (I tried to get into a permalink for it; I couldn't.) I haven't checked each one (nor do I intend to), but I wonder who would have the time to do so and how much overlap (if any) there is between those lists.

I say this knowing that, while I'm not a pokey reader, I'm not nearly speedy enough to read 462 books in one year. Sarah Weinman, you have me beat there--and, I suspect, you always will.

So it's conceivable that someone out there can actually read all the books on those lists. But that person won't be me.

Right now, I have a list of TBR books (readers, you know what TBR means, right?) that I probably won't be able to finish in my lifetime. And people keep writing even more books. Further, those lists are based on highly subjective judgments. And many good books never make the cut. What's a reader (of average speed) to do?

All I can do is try to choose wisely and keep on reading. And, while I may not gulp my books down at record speed, I'd like to think I'm savoring them, thus getting more from the experience. What I lack in quantity will hopefully be offset by the quality of what I read.

How about you? How do you keep up with all the books you'd like to read? Are you going for quantity or quality in your reading experience? Do you think one must be sacrificed to get the other? Do you focus on one genre or do you like to sample a variety of books? (I tend to like variety, though I gravitate for many reasons toward crime fiction.)