Columbine, by Dave Cullen

I just finished listening to the audio version of Columbine, by Dave Cullen, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Previously, people had believed certain myths about the tragedy, primarily, that Harris and Klebold were outsiders who attacked because they had been bullied and persecuted. In this work, Cullen debunks that myth and others, in part because he has had access to the crucial primary sources: the boys' diaries; the "basement tapes" in which they videotaped themselves in the weeks leading to the shootings; interviews with their friends and other students, and several survivors. The book thus presents an excellent, sad portrait of Eric's and Dylan's mental states as they worked themselves up to the act of committing mass murder. The boys, it seemed, were driven primarily by Eric, whom Cullen diagnoses (following the lead of FBI profilers and analysts) as a budding psychopath; Dylan was more prone, it seems, to suicide than mass murder, but he got swept along with Eric. The thing that was most powerful to me was how impossible it is to know anyone--even one's own children. Klebold's parents in particular (who have talked more to sources) appear as very kind, good people who were totally shocked and overwhelmed by their son's actions, and in the Harris family, Cullen traces a long series of diary entries from Eric's father that indicate the various disciplinary strategies and ideas they were implementing with him. Furthermore, the boys had had contact with various mental health and legal professionals. They should have been caught and stopped beforehand--this book definitely shows that--but I just don't think anyone (and Cullen shows this) was actually able to believe that these kids would really do what they did.

The book also traces the stories of several survivors and their parents; these tales are poignant as well because they demonstrate the complex relationship between grieving and anger, and also describe very convincingly just how hard it is to recover from trauma.

The reader of the audiobook, Don Leslie, has a commanding bass voice and he does a good job of rendering teen anger and angst and speech patterns. As always seems to happen with male readers, his voices for women sometimes climb into the falsetto and thus become grating, but Leslie is definitely a talented reader, and he made the audiobook quite compelling.

In conclusion, I'd just like to say, FIFTEEN GRAND SLAMS LOOKS GOOD ON YOU, ROGER:

Reminder: David Sedaris Reading is Tomorrow!

Bestselling author David Sedaris will read from his latest book, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, at 7 p.m. on Saturday, June 20 (tomorrow!) at the University Bookstore. He will sign copies of all his titles after the reading. Come early to get a good seat and enjoy music and stand-up comedy beginning at 2:30 p.m. For more information, contact the store at 472-7300.

From what I've heard, the plan is to issue numbers to customers as they arrive and the number will correspond to a seat. I'd suggest getting there early!

Frank Tallis, A Death in Vienna

I just read Frank Tallis's A Death in Vienna, and I really liked it.

Detectives: Max Liebermann (a psychotherapist/doctor) and Oskar Rheinhardt, a police detective

Type of series: The series (there are three books so far, I believe) is set in Vienna in the early 1900s around the time of the birth of psychoanalysis and before World War I. I'd probably characterize it as detailed and gritty historical fiction; the focus is on police procedure and on therapeutic procedure, although the characterization is also quite nicely done.

Sigmund Freud was living in Vienna at this time, and Liebermann talks to him once or twice in A Death in Vienna. Anti-Semitism was alive and well in Vienna as well, and the book hints at the emergence of the nostalgic Germanic groups that would give way, later, to Nazism.

The author: Frank Tallis is, the author description tells me, a "practicing clinical psychologist and an expert on obsessional states." In a "dossier" after the novel, he gives an excellent description of how the tasks of psychoanalysis and detective/police work dovetail. This reminded me of a work I read in graduate school wherein Jacques Lacan (a postFreudian psychoanalyst literary theorists were into at the time) did a similar thing in a reading of Poe's story "The Purloined Letter" (Poe's detective story that features C. Auguste Dupin). I like the arguments that Tallis/Lacan have made and think it is fascinating to consider the links between psychoanalysis (solving problems about the mind/character through clues) and crime fiction.

Oh yes, and a word on the book: A Death in Vienna provides great descriptions of the food, music, architecture, clothing, and manners in upper middle-class (I think) Vienna at the time. It also highlights the struggles that the emerging field of psychoanalysis was causing for the medical profession: this gets played out in an argument in the book on the best way to treat women with hysteria.

The mystery--well, I enjoyed it, but it was less compelling to me than the characters and the descriptions. There are many gorgeous passages about elaborate Austrian pastries; I long to try one of these some day.

Ariana Franklin, Mistress of the Art of Death series

Mistress of the Art of Death
The Serpent's Tale
Grave Goods


Have just read the three books in Ariana Franklin's "Mistress of the Art of Death" series; they are a lot of fun. The series takes place in the early 1100s in England. The main character, Adelia Aguilar, is a medical examiner of sorts--she went to school to learn to do autopsies and to be a medical doctor in Salerno, Italy, where women were seen as the intellectual equals of men. At the behest of Henry Plantagenet (King Henry II), Adelia is sent to England to help solve a murder, and as the series progresses, she ends up working on several cases. She has a companion, an Arab named Mansour, who is a eunuch. She becomes romantically involved with someone else in the course of the series, but I don't want to tell too much here so I won't mention who it is.

What I love about these books:
1. They feature a strong, well-rounded female character with both strengths and flaws. Adelia is passionate, smart, and bad-tempered; she tends to yell a lot and is frequently incensed by the backward habits of the English.
2. Henry II is a very interesting character; the author spends lots of time discussing how various reforms he introduced in England made things better for the common people.
3. The crimes are pretty horrifying and very interesting.
4. The books are feminist in nature--they point out (the many, many, oh god) instances of gender inequity both in the Catholic church and in English society in general in the 1100s. They also portray working class people as human and smart. The specific issues facing women of all classes are highlighted.


Downsides?
1. Henry II is lionized. I get that he was great, but this sometimes verges on hagiography.
2. Social issues arise with a vengeance in the pages of this series and perhaps sometimes feel anachronistic. Tally thus far includes: homophobia, racism, classism, rape.

But the downsides don't bother me a bit, to be honest. I am loving this series. I actually listened to the audiobooks: the first is done by Roslyn Landor; two and three are by Kate Reading. Both women are excellent readers, and the books were a lot of fun to listen to.

In conclusion, congrats to Roger Federer for his win at Roland Garros!

2008 Independent Publisher of the Year: University of Nebraska Press

From the Independent Publisher of the Year 2008 Awards speech by Victoria Sutherland, Publisher, ForeWord Magazine:

. . . And that’s the reason why we’re here, isn’t it. Because editors and publishers know how to make choices. Of course different editors will make different choices, but there still remains that responsibility for the acquisition, subjective as it may be, and the care of the manuscript. There is monitoring for quality. And ultimately, there is the accumulation of a house’s taste—call it cultural heritage—through backlist.

This is where independent publishers can and do differ from the conglomerates. When an independent chooses to publish an author, it’s because they truly believe that the author’s work contributes to the press’s “cultural heritage.” Independents don’t have the luxury of throwing authors up against walls to see what will stick.

Luxury is probably—is definitely—the wrong word. It isn’t luxury to publish thousands of titles a year, It’s glut. It’s flood. It’s content chaos. It’s what editors and publishers are supposed to prevent.

So, we’d like to honor today a publisher that excelled in its role of keeper of the cultural heritage. A university publisher that has deliberately made a place for itself in the world of trade as the curator of consistently wonderful books in several special markets. This university press not only publishes scholarly work, fine translation, classic reprints, and regional fiction and poetry, but it has made a name for itself in the categories of memoir, combined with history and travel, and in sports.

This publisher fulfills its roles of editor and curator in a way that makes them indispensable in libraries and bookstores. Whomever or whatever they choose to look at, to listen to, to get to the bottom of, is important or beautiful or entertaining, and always, always enduring. At ForeWord, we are always excited to receive a new catalog from them because we’ve discovered over the years that if they’ve chosen to publish a book, then it is surely a contribution to the world library, not just another wet noodle.

Please join us in recognizing the University of Nebraska Press as the 2008 ForeWord Magazine Independent Publisher of the Year.

In addition, The Wide Open: Prose, Poetry, and Photographs of the Prairie, edited by Annick Smith and Susan O'Connor, won the Gold Award in the anthology category; and Good Neighbors, Bad Times: Echoes of My Father's German Village, by Mimi Schwartz, won the Bronze Award in the autobiography and memoir category.

Here's a link to a little local coverage of the award.

Three cheers for UNP!

Catching Up: Three Books I Finished Recently

Three quick reads, all enjoyable. Especially the one by Elinor Lipman, who is new to me (via Laura Lippman).

Picture Perfect by Jodi Picoult
ebook 1-4295-3335-8
iPod Touch, eReader Pro
copyright 1995

As Picture Perfect begins, it is daybreak in downtown L.A. A woman suffering from amnesia is taken in by an officer new to the L.A. police force, after he finds her wandering aimlessly near a graveyard. Days later, when her husband comes to claim her at the police station, no one is more stunned than Cassie Barrett to learn that not only is she a renowned anthropologist, but she is married to Hollywood's leading man, Alex Rivers.

A Date You Can't Refuse by Harley Jane Kozak
ebook 978-0-307-58871-5
iPod Touch, eReader Pro
copyright 2009

Wollie Shelley isn't happy about taking the job as a "social coach" at MediaRex, but the FBI makes her an offer she can't refuse. If she agrees to infiltrate the company, they'll guarantee that her schizophrenic brother will have a home at the federally subsidized halfway house he's come to love.

So Wollie launches into teaching three foreign celebrities how to cope with the customs of Beverly Hills, improve their English, and become Oprah-ready. And when a coyote-chewed corpse appears in the MediaRex compound, Wollie realizes that her colleagues are concealing some serious secrets of their own.

The Dearly Departed by Elinor Lipman
ebook 1-58836-013-x
iPod Touch, eReader Pro
copyright 2001

With her latest work, Elinor Lipman expertly serves up her usual delicious dish of entertainment. When the story opens, the not-so-sunny Sunny Batten has just received news that causes her to be even more morose than usual: her mother, Margaret Batten, has died in a freak accident with Margaret’s alleged fiancé, Miles Finn. Thus Sunny returns to the small New Hampshire town of King George and to the charity bungalow on the edge of the country club’s golf course where Margaret raised Sunny by herself. While at the funeral, Sunny catches her first glimpse of the brash Fletcher Finn, Miles Finn’s son and self-described possessor of “a heart of plutonium.” And who can’t help but notice, as they sit together at the graveside, the resemblance between Sunny and Fletcher, “the flagrant display, wherever one looked, of Miles Finn’s genes” [p. 79]?

David Sedaris Update 3

This just in:

Bestselling author David Sedaris will read from his latest book, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, at 7 p.m. June 20 at the University Bookstore. He will sign copies of all his titles after the reading. Come early to get a good seat, and enjoy the stand-up comedy of Scott Muilenburg, Cody Hustak, Ryan Cownie, Joe Choi and Christian Stokes. Comedy begins at 2:30 p.m. For more information contact the store at 472-7300.

Link to NYTimes review of When You Are Engulfed in Flames