Monday, October 13, 2008
books
James McBride: Song Yet Sung (2008)
A story of slavery on Maryland's Eastern shore, 80 miles from freedom. Some large plantations, but also culture of small farm & fisherman slave owners we never hear about much, where a single slave may determine a white family's economic survival, & economic failure may mean being sold deeper south. A mystery of the code used to arrange escapes north. Not saying nearly enough about the novel.
Carl Hiassen: Native Tongue (1991)
Howard Frank Mosher: On Kingdom Mountain (2007)
Entertaining novel of Vermont's Northeast Kingdom in the 1920's. The admirable main character, an eccentric, 50-year old spinster, doesn't have enough hours in the day to do all she does & know all she knows. I'm not certain this occurred to the author. So what.
James Lee Burke: Pegasus Descending
Richard A. Thompson: Fiddle Game
A rare violin as bail collateral, a murder, a bail bondsman on the run.
Karen Armstrong: The Bible: A Biography
I'm more than inclined to agree with many of her opinions, but the subject is so large, the book so short, skims over or omits so much, that it's not always clear how she arrived at some of those opinions. She sells lots of books. Most enlightening in how the "Old Testament" came together. Most refreshing in that Armstrong doesn't treat The Bible as a project of supernatural literary asemblage, but neither is she trying to diminish it as a book of faith.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
A story of slavery on Maryland's Eastern shore, 80 miles from freedom. Some large plantations, but also culture of small farm & fisherman slave owners we never hear about much, where a single slave may determine a white family's economic survival, & economic failure may mean being sold deeper south. A mystery of the code used to arrange escapes north. Not saying nearly enough about the novel.
Carl Hiassen: Native Tongue (1991)
Howard Frank Mosher: On Kingdom Mountain (2007)
Entertaining novel of Vermont's Northeast Kingdom in the 1920's. The admirable main character, an eccentric, 50-year old spinster, doesn't have enough hours in the day to do all she does & know all she knows. I'm not certain this occurred to the author. So what.
James Lee Burke: Pegasus Descending
Richard A. Thompson: Fiddle Game
A rare violin as bail collateral, a murder, a bail bondsman on the run.
Karen Armstrong: The Bible: A Biography
I'm more than inclined to agree with many of her opinions, but the subject is so large, the book so short, skims over or omits so much, that it's not always clear how she arrived at some of those opinions. She sells lots of books. Most enlightening in how the "Old Testament" came together. Most refreshing in that Armstrong doesn't treat The Bible as a project of supernatural literary asemblage, but neither is she trying to diminish it as a book of faith.
Labels: what I'm reading
