Book-A-Day 2010 # 71 (4/15) -- U Is For Undertow by Sue Grafton

Everybody wants more respect, especially these days. (Perhaps because there seems to be so little of it to go around.) And everyone seems to want whatever respect they don't already have -- musicians want to be actors, actors want to be musicians, popular writers want to be taken seriously.

And that brings us to Sue Grafton, who started one of the great mystery series of our time back in 1982 with A Is For Alibi, a novel with one of the best examples of the then-burgeoning cohort of female private detectives and which showed that Grafton had learned from Chandler and Macdonald, but was ready to write her own way into the PI-soaked Southern California landscape. Many excellent books followed, but, at some point in the last decade or so, Grafton apparently tired of just being one of the best mystery writers working and set her sights on The Novel. The last half-dozen alphabet mystery books have aspired to the quality of The Novel, some with more success than others. Grafton has kept her books centered on a mystery plot, thankfully, but that plot has been the launching point for various other writerly diversions, which have not always had all that much to do with the ostensible core of the book, and have not always been completely successful.

Undertow, the twenty-first novel in the series, focuses on the kidnapping and murder of a little girl twenty-one years earlier. However, since the alphabet mysteries have kept their own timeline since Alibi -- roughly two and a half books to a calendar year -- it's still 1988 in the coastal city of Santa Teresa, where Kinsey Milhone still pursues her investigations. So the frame story is twenty-ish years in our past, and the murder Milhone is investigating is twenty-some further years in her past. The deliberate anchoring of the alphabet mystery timeline hasn't consistently felt like a mistake, but it does so here -- the hippies and flower children that romp through the flashbacks of this novel are a good forty years in the past; they're artifacts from a world before I was even born, and the doubly-distanced narrative they're part of is clunky and old-fashioned.

Even worse, there are huge holes in this investigation -- there's a point at which Milhone causes something to be dug up (quite literally), and it's the completely wrong thing. She dances around an explanation, but the reader can see Grafton frantically juggling, and the explanation for the continued investigation doesn't make sense. Realistically, that was a dead end, and there's an even deader end close to the close of the book. From a writing point of view, it looks like Grafton wanted to do something elegant -- she has Milhone mention, on the first page, that this is first case she "ever managed to resolve without crossing paths with the bad guys" -- and that it didn't come off quite right, but Grafton didn't fix it, either.

Like the last few books, Undertow sees Milhone pursue a low-key investigation while a more interesting plot goes on elsewhere -- in this case, it mostly goes on back in the early and mid '60s, in an occasionally clumsy third-person voice (that intrudes into the present-day Milhone sections as well, when there's information that Grafton can't manage to have Milhone learn directly). The present-day plot is borderline dull, and retains interest mostly because of the reader's residual affection for Milhone and her milieu; the flashback sections are written professionally, but aren't nearly as compelling as Grafton wants them to be.

And so, in the end, Undertow is a long, meandering hybrid of a traditional PI novel and something like a family saga, without quite doing either one justice. The writing is also flat and obvious much of the time, particularly as Grafton drags out the old furniture of the series for one more go-round. There's still life in the alphabet mysteries, I hope, but, with this book, they're looking more and more like the genre-fiction Gasoline Alley.

Book-A-Day 2010: The Epic Index
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Listening to: Pink Floyd - Careful With That Axe, Eugene
via FoxyTunes
 

V Is For Vengeance by Sue Grafton

Titles don't have to mean anything. They often just function as markers, to indicate that a book is in a particular genre (Space Dragons of the Eternal Flame, for example, is a very soft SF novel, while Detroit DeathCrime is a particularly gritty thriller) or that it's the latest book in a series that a lot of people have been reading for thirty years.

Take V is for Vengeance, for example, which is the 22nd alphabetically-organized mystery from Sue Grafton. It begins with a scene set two years before the main action of the book -- 1986 and 1988, respectively; Grafton began this series with 1982's A is for Alibi, and she's kept her timeline anchored at the beginning, rather than the end like most series -- in which a young man is killed, and the reader settles in to expect a story of vengeance. We expect it to be vengeance for him, but any old vengeance would do, really.

But there's no vengeance to be found in V Is For Vengeance, and a reader may well suspect that Grafton is now just working from a list of Acceptable Mystery Title Words, and writing whatever book she feels like under that title. It's another story in which her series hero Kinsey Milhone wanders around, diligently investigating something, while a barely related plot goes on in scattered chapters from other points of view -- a style she's indulged for several books now, and which is working less and less well the more she works with it. (T is for Trespass -- see my review -- was quiet and mainstream-novel-esque, but still worked pretty well, while U is for Undertow -- my review is here -- had a half-baked twenty-years-ago Ross Macdonaldesque subplot that dragged the whole thing into family saga territory while managing to avoid the strengths of both that and the mystery novel.)

This book actually does have a murder in it -- not just the one in the opening chapter, I mean, but a real murder that Milhone investigates. But she doesn't know it's a murder until late in the book -- though the readers do, robbing ever more potential tension and deductive opportunities from our reading of the book -- and so has no sense of urgency. Grafton also crafts several dialogue scenes, particularly those of Milhone with her client (the man who hired her to investigate that neither-one-of-them-know-it's-a-murder-yet), so that she communicates primarily on an emotional level instead of presenting actual facts, thus allowing the plot to rumble forward blandly yet further.

There is a large criminal enterprise in V Is For Vengeance, but it's doubly disappointing. First, we have a number of chapters from the point of view of its overlord, who we see to be a decent man trying to do at least the sort-of right thing, making him feel like the love interest from a minor contemporary romance. And, from those chapters, we already know the scope of the criminal enterprise, which is bland and severely lacking in any of the thrills one hopes to find in organized crime.

At this point, I have to call Grafton's current style in the alphabet books a failure: she's pushing Milhone out of the center of her stories, losing tension and other core virtues of the mystery novel, and not gaining anything at all but bulk from her additional material. If she really wants to write a Milhone book from her heroine's POV and that of someone else, she really needs to create a villain -- and one that's actually doing something both fiendish and interesting -- and use that character for her third-person chapters the next time out. Using her third-person subplot chapters to delineate a massively sidebar late-in-life romance between a crimelord with a conscience and a bored, cuckolded [1] female socialite is a massive waste of novel space and her reader's time.

There is a character in this book who could be that villain, if she wants to use him the next time out. I hope she does: Grafton may have been stumbling in these last few books, but there's a strong history of excellent, gripping mystery novels behind those books, and she can easily get back to that mode if she wants to.


[1] Is it really "cuckolded" when the person cheated on is female? Or is there some other, more appropriate term, like "wife with a rich husband"?

T Is for Trespass by Sue Grafton

T Is for Trespass is a slower, quieter book than most detective novels -- it's even slow and deliberate by Grafton's Alphabet Mystery standard, and she's been keeping the pace controlled and the focus on characterization for many years now. After a few books touching on Grafton's heroine Kinsey Milhone's long-lost relatives and the workings of the fictional California town of Santa Theresa, this time Grafton moves closer to home.

Trespass, like many mysteries before it, follows two plotlines. Also as per tradition, one of these is a case that the detective is investigating, and one is focused on events in the detective's own life. But unlike most mysteries, neither of the plots in Trespass are set off by a murder. Kinsey Milhone is investigating a fender-bender for the insurance company of the young woman driver judged to be at fault (but who swears that the van that hit her was slowing down for a turn when she pulled out -- and then sped up to hit her). And the personal plot has an even lower-key start: Kinsey's neighbor, the irascible octogenarian Gus Vronsky, has a fall and suddenly needs care on a daily basis. His only relative, a great-grandniece, does visit from New York to set up his care and see that he's recovering, but she can't take care of him herself. So she hires a nurse, and then asks Kinsey to look into the background of the woman calling herself Solana Rojas. Kinsey's initial background check shows that "Solana Rojas" is a fine nurse and a devoted worker, so she gets the job.

The reader already knows Solana is not what she seems; in a break from the usual format of the Milhone series, Grafton opened with a chapter in the third person from "Solana's" point of view. So we know Solana is a sociopath with no normal human emotions, that she has taken the identity of another nurse, and that she has cared for a number of old people over the past decade or so. Once she moves into Gus's house, she moves to isolate him and make him dependent on her -- which both Kinsey and her landlord Henry notice and are worried by. And things then escalate as they try to see Gus more often, and Kinsey digs into Solana's background.

Solana's chapters continue irregularly throughout Trespass -- every fifty pages or so, we get dropped back into her head, to learn things about her life and actions that Kinsey doesn't know yet. These chapters do their job to keep the reader informed, and to add some tension to what would otherwise be a very quiet book, but they don't recurr often enough to really provide a counterpoint with Kinsey's chapters. There's no cat-and-mouse going on here, and, despite some of Kinsey's ominous warnings, things never really get that bad.

So the pleasures and strengths of Trespass are more those of a novel of character than of a thriller: it follows Kinsey through an ordinary investigation, one that leads to secrets and interesting characters, but not to murders or other large-scale crimes. The simmering confrontation with Solana only really flares in the last third of the novel, and, even there, it's more like a spat between neighbors. There is, of course, the usual helping of danger and mayhem at the climax, but even that happens quickly and ends abruptly.

The timescale of Trespass is a bit vague; it begins in December of 1987 and covers at least several months -- how many, exactly, wasn't clear to me. It could have used a bit more placement in time, for my taste. Without the focusing lens of a mystery plot, some elements wander away from Grafton -- such as the conclusion to the car-accident plot, which fizzles out rather than snaps. But Grafton is still a fine writer, and even a novel like Trespass, which is about as far from the typical genre mystery as any series writer can go, is a muscular novel full of activity and careful depiction of character.

Other Books Read in January, Part Two

Continuing the epic journey...

• S Is For Silence by Sue Grafton
  Another solid outing from the always dependable Grafton. Think that's faint praise? It's really hard to write good, meaty mysteries year after year, and she's been doing it for twenty years now. When other mystery series gather dust on my shelf -- I'm three books behind on Sara Paretsky, for example -- Grafton's books leap into my hands and get read. I hope that will continue; I was reading this during my Week of Intestinal Distress and I wonder if that will color my memories of the series. (I was reading Ted Heller's Funnymen -- a nice fake oral history of a not-Martin and not-Lewis comedy team -- when I went into the hospital in '02 with my heart trouble, and I had to get rid of that book because it reminded me of Roosevelt Hospital. I don't think Heller's had a book since then, but I have to admit I also haven't wanted to look.)
• The Legend of Grimjack, Vol. 4 by Ostrander, Truman, and others
  This volume has the big finish to the "Trade War" plotline, which was running as a sub-plot in the previous volume. Unfortunately, the middle of this book is also the point Truman left art chores on Grimjack and Tom Sutton took over. The transition issues, frankly, have rotten artwork. As I recall, Sutton later got into a groove on the series -- his art is nothing like Truman's, but it has a sort of appealing ugliness that works for the character and setting. But the end of this book, sadly, is not his best work.
• The Underground Economist by Tim Harford
  If this one had it's own blog post, the title would be Oh, Look! There's a Nail! And Another One, and Another One. My, There Sure Are A Lot of Nails, Aren't There? Tim Harford is a man with a hammer; his hammer is fairly conventional but slightly right-wing economics. He does some interesting things with the hammer, and the book is worth reading (especially for those of us who liked Freakonomics and wanted to keep thinking about the world through economic lenses), but it has a huge blind spot when it comes to situations in which a screwdriver or a wrench would be useful.
• Murder Among Children by Tucker Coe
  Coe is a pseudonym for Donald E. Westlake, one of the greatest writers in the known universe. This is the second in a late-60s series focusing on an ex-cop (he was off having an affair when his partner got killed, which is the source for much angst), and isn't much like anything Westlake did under his own name. It's very much of its time (the "children" of the title are all in their mid-20s and opening a coffee shop in the West Village), but it's a solid PI novel with an appealingly damaged main character. I wonder if Larry Block was influenced by this series when he started writing the Scudder novels a few years later?
• That Book...of Perfectly Useless Information by Mitchell Symons
  A quite adequate bathroom book. A few years ago, I was reading big poetry anthologies on the loo, until one of them (somebody-or-other's fat historical survey of English poetry, I think) was so full of unreadable treacle that I cast it into outer darkness. Since then, it's been books of odd facts, though I find I now know enough to debunk an awful lot of the things in those books.
• The Big Book of Porn by Seth Grahame-Smith
  From Quirk, who do odd guides to various activities. It's breezy and nice for those who like that sort of thing, but it doesn't go into much depth at all. (I learned the names of some '70s movies, but nothing else.) The most interesting thing, to me, was that a guy with that name turns out to be from Pennsylvania -- I would have sworn he was Home Counties all the way.
• Karavans by Jennifer Roberson
  Read it for the SFBC; bought it for same. Nice fantasy novel and the first in a series. It's the only Roberson I've ever read, and I thought she jumped around between viewpoints a little too much for my taste, but I otherwise enjoyed it.
• The Ultimate Collection by Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell
  Big collection of art. I've been saying for the past few years that I thought Boris's recent stuff was too stiff and posed (and that Julie was doing wonderful stuff; she got really good really fast). This book didn't change my mind on the second point, but not all of Boris's recent paintings do look too posed: some of it is as good as he ever was. I still think he's gotten into a style slightly too photo-realistic for his own good, but it's his art, and he'll do it his way. This book covers both of their careers, and would be a good first choice if someone was interested in their art, or in contemporary commercial fantasy art in general.
• Cinnamon Kiss by Walter Mosley
  The latest Easy Rawlins novel, from another one of those mystery writers who always impress me with his use of language. The racial politics in this series sometimes bug me (of course, I am a white guy born after the events of these novels, and on the other side of the country to boot), but this one -- set in 1967 -- sees the world, and Easy's view of the world, shifting somewhat. Anyway, if you read mysteries at all, you need to read Mosley. He's simply essential.
• Ghost World by Daniel Clowes
  I'd seen the movie a week or two before, and developed an intense desire to re-read the original (and an equally intense desire not to drag my old Eighball issues out from various comics boxes under other junk in the basement). So I bought it. The movie works better as a single story, but the comic has more depth. And I was surprised that my memory was false: the comic, like the movie, was clearly Enid's story; I'd vaguely remembered that the two girls were somewhat co-equal in the comic, and that's not true.
• A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby
  Hornby writes immensely readable novels with great voices. This one is a multiple first-person book (so it plays to his strengths), told by a group of very different people who all arrived separately at the top of the same building in London to kill themselves on New Year's Eve. It's not depressing, and it doesn't come to any easy Hallmark answers, either. It's somewhat sentimental, but not so much as to be a problem (for me, anyway).
• The Unofficial Guide to Disneyland 2006 by Bob Sehlinger
  For a while, The Wife and I were planning to take Thing 1 and Thing 2 on a trip to Disneyland (and probably Legoland first, since that's where Thing 1 is really dying to go) before and during Worldcon this summer. So I bought this book to work things out. Well, the airfares are just too high, so it will be just me in Anaheim this summer. But now I'm thinking I might want to spend a day at Disneyland in the middle of the con. (Anyone going to LA Con IV and want to play hooky one day?)
• Farthing by Jo Walton
  I've blogged about this a bit already, but it's an excellent novel that should interest both mystery and alternate history readers. From Tor in hardcover this August.
• How To Be a Villain by Neil Zawacki
  Ellen gave me this for Christmas, and I hope to put it into action very soon. Look for my death ray looming over the city sometime this spring.

So that was last month. (For those of you scoring at home, I did read a book a day, but that included several books for the SFBC that I read large chunks of but didn't actually, y'know, finish. That probably is cheating, but I write a book down in my notebook when I finish or permanently abandon it.) Now maybe I can get back to the gigantic graphic novel post that's been cooling its heels for a week or so.

Due Back at the Library Imminently: A Reading Series

The stack of books at the corner of my desk is getting taller, and I'm still not writing about them. But this has happened before, many times over the nine (!) years I've been typing here, so I'm not worried. Eventually, I'll either take the time to write "real" posts about them, or just dump them into some cursory round-up.

Like this one, for example!

These are all books I need to return to the library today, so this is my last chance to type something quickly about them while they're still in front of me.

We Are Pirates by Daniel Handler

Daniel Handler is almost two writers -- his work as Lemony Snicket for younger readers relates to his books under his own name, but there are differences. Snicket and Handler are both sly writers, in love with language, but Snicket is more honest and straightforward; Handler delights in tricks and stratagems and complications in his structures.

This is a Handler novel, for adults, more or less his fifth. (That depends on how you count Why We Broke Up, a Handler book for teens, and Adverbs, a collection of loosely linked stories.) It's also an interesting bookend to his first book, The Basic Eight, which also sees a teenage girl spit on her hands, hoist the black flag, and start slitting throats. (And not entirely in metaphor, in both cases.) Since it's a Handler book rather than a Snicket, it's more opaque and writerly -- it starts in the middle and its two-tracked plots are only loosely connected and not driven by incident so much as character.

Phil Needle is a minor producer of non-fiction radio programs (and more commercial stuff to pay the bills, but it's the former he cares about) on the verge of a big deal, for which he flies down to LA from his native San Francisco, with his new young female assistant, to meet with his larger-than-life agent. At the same time, his daughter Gwen is unhappy with her teenage life and looking for a big break.

We Are Pirates is tricksy and slippery, sliding back and from from Phil to Gwen with verve and confidence, telling their stories with deep understanding but not pausing to catch the reader up with every hop. In other words, a Daniel Handler novel. I found it very slightly disappointing -- it has a deflating ending rather than a bang -- but it is bright and crisp and dangerous, like a day sailing in pirate-infested waters.

Texts from Jane Eyre by Mallory Ortberg

Ortberg is the main force behind the website The Toast, which is feminist in a default way -- focused on women and their thoughts like most of the rest of the media is aimed the other way -- and smart in at least a dozen ways. She's an interesting writer who has read and thought about a lot of wildly disparate things, which makes for quirky, fizzy pieces.

And this is her first book: a collection of the text messages that a variety of people -- mostly fictional, and mostly from famous novels -- might have sent each other, if they were as smart and well-read and feminist as Ortberg herself. There's a lot of buried literary criticism here, but it's also incredibly funny on a surface level. And Ortberg isn't all high-culture, not by a long shot: the book is arranged roughly chronologically, and the "modern" last section leads off with Sweet Valley High before wandering through Harry Potter and William Carlos Williams and Nancy Drew indiscriminately.

I might be making this sound heavy going, but it's not: it's quick and easy and funny on every page. But it's also informed by a deeper, more critical eye -- Ortberg is not going to let all of those tormented Byronic heroes get away with their angst and casually women-destroying ways. And that's all good, top to bottom.

Between You & Me by Mary Norris

Norris is a copy editor for The New Yorker, where she's worked since 1977. This is not yet another memoir of that odd workplace, though: it's something like Eats, Shoots, and Leaves for punctuation.

There have been many books on good writing and clean style and proper punctuation over the years -- I've read more of them than most people -- and Norris has an extensive bibliography in the back to show that she's quite aware of all of that. She's mildly descriptive, which is only slightly ironic given how heavily prescriptive the New Yorker is.

If you care about commas and apostrophes and clean, understandable writing, this is a good book. Norris does this kind of thing for a living, and she writes about it here clearly in a no-nonsense style and with good instincts: always follow sense and clarity rather than rules. Writers could do a lot worse than to follow her guidance.

W is for Wasted by Sue Grafton

The Alphabet mysteries have been declining and fading into the West for some time now -- at least the last three books (Vengeance, Undertow, and Trespass) have aspired to the quality of Serious Novel at the expense of telling a good mystery story and making their main character interesting and useful. And this one continues the streak: as is now usual, Grafton carefully drains her mysteries of all tension in occasional third-person chapters about a more colorful character, while series heroine Kinsey Milhone wanders about detecting and ruminating on things in a way presumably meant to be entertaining.

I don't feel like picking apart the ways this book is disappointing, particularly since it's disappointing in the same ways the last few books have been, and I wrote extensively about them. Wasted is readable in that I've-been-a-bestseller-for-thirty-years way, and it's nice to check back in on Kinsey's life, in her rapidly receding 1988.

I think I'm just reading these out of inertia, and possibly out of hope that Grafton will pull something big out of her hat for Z. And it does seem a shame to give up on a series when it's so close to the end -- I know exactly how those people hate-reading Spider-Man for most of the past decade must feel.

Reading Into the Past: Week of 7/30

I rolled two dice this week and got a 5, so these are the books that I was reading this week in 2001:

• Sue Grafton, "P" Is For Peril (7/23)
  I always enjoy these books while I'm reading them -- Grafton is one of the better mystery writers working today -- but I can't remember which one was which five years later. The titles certainly don't help.
  
• Dave Sim & Gerhard, Church & State, Vol. 1 (7/4)
  Over the past decade, I've tried to catch up on the comic Cerebus several times; each time, I start at the beginning, gain speed through the really good years (High Society, this volume, most of the second half of Church & State, and particularly Jaka's Story), and then hit the brick wall that is Reads. I have five of the collections after Reads (though not the last two), and I'm afraid that I'll never get to them. Perhaps I'll try again one day, and that time actually blast through the Sucky Barrier of Self-Indulgent Wankery. Anyway, this is really good, but it's one half of a giant comics novel, and doesn't stand on its own. High Society and Jaka's Story do, though -- try leafing through them in a store and see what grabs you.
  
• John Edward Dell, editor, Visions of Adventure: N.C. Wyeth and the Brandywine Artists (7/25)
  I think I got this as a remainder, because I keep thinking those old adventure-story illustrators are probably right up my alley. I didn't absolutely love it, butt it does have a lot of good art in it.
  
• Joe Gores, Cons, Scams & Grifts (7/26)
  One of the DKA novels, a series notable mostly because it's about a realistic private detective agency (lots of people, lots of paperwork, no crusading, no solving of murders, no hard-boiled redheaded dames) doing mostly realistic PI work (a lot of car repo'ing). By this book, the realism had slipped a bit, since there's a band of almost preternaturally-skilled-at-car-thievery Gypsies running around, but Gores is still mostly trying to ground this in the real world. The earlier books were better, but this was still OK.
  
• Lemony Snicket, A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Ersatz Elevator (7/27)
  I don't know if it's fair to call this the point where the series got really dark -- since, of course, the whole thing started with a pretty depressing set-up and continued on as the Platonic ideal of Goth pre-teen misery -- but I still remember the climb up the elevator shaft, and that was an awfully powerful scene, especially for a kids' book. This series is sneaky and nasty and subversive in all the right ways; I can't wait until the final book this fall, and I hope the ending is as horrible as I suspect it will be.
  
• Terry Pratchett, The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents (7/28)
  The first of the Discworld books to be officially a "YA" novel, which meant that it had chapters and didn't use the word "Discworld" anywhere. I think the discipline of chapters does good things for Pratchett, since the YA Discworld books are probably his best recent work.
  
• Bob Mankoff, editor, The New Yorker 75th Anniversary Cartoon Collection (7/29)
  A gigantic book of witty cartoons, created for the urban literatti of the past three generations. I enjoyed it; I really like the New Yorker cartoon style.
  
• Gilles Neret, editor, Taschen Icons: Erotica, 19th Century (7/30)
  A small-format book, part of a large series of art books (not all porn, I think, but containing, as usual for Taschen, a whole lot of porn). Other people's porn can be a very weird thing, especially if those other people have been dead a hundred years and can't hide their stash or explain themselves. This stuff also vibrates (sometimes uncomfortably) between "fine art" and "porn," which makes it doubly interesting, Plus, y'know, boobies.
  
• Daniel Handler, Watch Your Mouth (7/31)
  You know that Handler is the real name of the guy who writes as Lemony Snicket, right? This is his second novel, which does have a fantasy element which I will not spoil here. It's also a novel in large part about sex, providing us a double-theme for this week's reading. Watch Your Mouth isn't quite as successful as Handler's sublime first novel The Basic Eight, a modern masterpiece of unreliable narration, but it's very good.
  
• Vernor Vinge, The Collected Stories of Vernor Vinge (7/31)
  Vinge's stuff tends to leave me cold for some reason, and I'm not sure why. I particularly disliked "Fast Times at Fairmont High," the new novella here, which seemed to be dedicated to the dystopian idea that only the very smartest, fastest, sneakiest, luckiest, and best-connected few people will have any work at all to do in the near future (and that this is a wonderful thing, because we're following those stuck-up dweebs). I don't know what it is, but I just don't seem to connect with Vinge's stories; I probably need to try his novels and see if they work better for me.
  

Well, I managed to get this done before the week was over, which is an improvement.

The Utterly Fantabulous Seventh Anniversary Hoe-Down!

Seven years ago today yesterday, Antick Musings shambled into existence, a training blog to get me in shape to write the official SFBC blog, which I then expected to start very soon thereafter. That official blog didn't start up as quickly as expected, and ended abruptly -- among other things that ended abruptly at exactly the same time -- but Antick Musings soldiers on, if much changed and altered over the years.

For the first few years, especially when I was working for the SFBC and, later, had hopes of getting back into the SFF field, I insisted that Antick Musings wasn't a book-review blog, and didn't post anything critical of any of the SFF books I read. (Of course, as we've seen, even things I think are positive are sometimes taken otherwise by some writers -- writers are of necessity thin-skinned, so I should have anticipated that.) Once it was clear that I was out, and not getting back in, Antick Musings slid in the other direction -- particularly during and after the year-long stint of Book-A-Day in 2010-2011 -- and became almost entirely a book-review blog.

None of that is what I intended or expected, but a blog -- like life -- is what actually happens day-to-day, not what anyone plans or controls. And so I don't want to say what Antick Musings will become, since I simply don't know: it becomes whatever it becomes because of what I think and write, and because of what happens to me in the meantime.

Before I go any further in my navel-gazing, let me give you the inevitable links back to prior anniversary posts: one, two, three, four, six. (Yes, I missed the only milestone anniversary this blog has had so far, which very well illustrates the way I operate: lots of thought and energy and activity, inevitably directed in an unproductive way.)

Post quantity dropped precipitously during Book-A-Day, and hasn't recovered since -- partially because I launched another blog, Editorial Explanations, immediately after Book-A-Day ended, and partially because I seem to have stopped writing lots of short posts the way I used to. I could also try to blame that drop in post count here on my increased Twitter presence -- except I post only sporadically there -- or the Hornswogglets Tumblr, except that's practically a ghost town, with just a few stray posts and lots of roaming tumbleweeds. Whatever the reasons, here are the numbers:

• 2011-2012 -- 332 posts
• 2010-2011 -- 445 posts
• 2009-2010 -- 711 posts
• 2008-2009 -- 880 posts
• 2007-2008 -- 834 posts
• 2006-2007 -- 841 posts
• 2005-2006 -- 809 posts

Since Antick Musings has turned into primarily a book-review blog, I should link to some of the ones I thought were most successful. This year, though, I'm going to do it with quotes, allowing me to quote myself, which is nearly as disreputable, and precisely as pleasant, as it sounds:

• "Some books need more explanation than others." -- Getting Off by Lawrence Block
• "I'm never entirely sure of my own motives, and instinctively distrust anyone who claims to completely know himself." -- The Pillars of Hercules by Paul Theroux
• "As usual with a mysterious, hidden leader, there are factions that would be quite happy to replace him with a more visible face of Muscovy -- themselves, for example." -- Dancing With Bears by Michael Swanwick
• "Words are tricky, complicated things -- even the seemingly simple ones." -- Snuff by Terry Pratchett
• "And, when a songwriter comes to write a novel, you'd expect it to be precisely written, shining an intense spotlight on a few moments, a few people, a few carefully-chosen actions." -- Bright's Passage by Josh Ritter
• "It's not a memoir, exactly -- but it's not not a memoir, either, and that deeply Blockian ambivalence to the clean, straight, obvious answer makes this a wonderful book for Block fans." -- Afterthoughts by Lawrence Block
• "It's common to make excuses for the past, to assume that people who lived and died before we did are therefore lesser, limited beings, stunted by not having been born in the obvious high point of all civilization." -- Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse: Race to Death Valley by Floyd Gottfredson
• "A serious story tries not to damage the known laws of physics too seriously; a frivolous one postulates whatever it needs to in order to keep moving forward." -- The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi
• "The magic in these books has the danger and threat of old fairy tales and worse: touching it once marks a person for life." -- Circle of Enemies by Harry Connolly
• "But there's no vengeance to be found in V Is For Vengeance, and a reader may well suspect that Grafton is now just working from a list of Acceptable Mystery Title Words, and writing whatever book she feels like under that title." -- V Is For Vengeance by Sue Grafton
• "Perhaps, like my father-in-law -- and like a million other fathers-in-law across this fine nation of ours -- O'Rourke has become one of those men with whom one must never discuss politics." -- Holidays in Heck by P.J. O'Rourke
• "So Boomerang is a quite entertaining, lively little book. But it's also very much like the story of a rape investigation that spends its entire time detailing the minutia of the victim's clothing and behavior on the night of the crime -- it is entirely beside the point." -- Boomerang by Michael Lewis
• "By my own lights, I'm still reading Peter Ackroyd's gigantic mosaic history London -- I have a bookmark in it and everything -- although I haven't touched that book for several years, so my "reading" it is mostly theoretical at this point." -- London Under by Peter Ackroyd
• "You actually are at risk of learning something from an Oatmeal cartoon, which is not the case for most webcomics." -- 5 Very Good Reasons to Punch a Dolphin in the Mouth by The Oatmeal
• "At times, I had the uneasy sense that not only did I know more about Internet porn than these authors, but that I knew more about romance novels than they did." -- A Billion Wicked Thoughts by Sai Gaddam and Ogi Ogas
• "And unhappy families breed unhappy people, who again fall into types -- the sullen teenage boy, the cold and controlling mother, the quietly alcoholic father, the introverted anorexic daughter." -- Lucille by Ludovic Debeurme
• "One could say all of those things and more." -- Joe the Barbarian by Grant Morrison and Sean Murphy
• "Continuity, these days, is just the name of another dead comics company -- Marvel and DC tell you what the past is today, and they'll tell you differently tomorrow, and if you don't like it, well, where else can you get your stories of Superman and Spider-Man?" -- Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow? by Alan Moore and various artists
• "They grow up, they live their individual lives -- long or short, as it happens -- they make their ways in the world and think about what they want and need and feel." -- One Soul by Ray Fawkes
• "But don't we all have to provide some value to other people, whatever it is we do for a living?" -- A Voyage Long and Strange by Tony Horwitz
• "Into every life some frivolity must come, or else we would slit our wrists at the sheer horror of it all." -- Love Among the Chickens by P.G. Wodehouse
• "But if anything could make a Clowes fictional world better, it wouldn't be a Clowes world -- and that is what Andy must learn, like all of Clowes's characters: nothing ever gets better, and the world is a passage of misery and pain, full of jerks, losers, criminals, and creeps." -- The Death-Ray by Dan Clowes
• "Mauldin was systematically dismantling all of his good will and success from the war years by doing the one thing an editorial cartoonist must: fearlessly telling the truth as he sees it, afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted." -- Willie & Joe: Back Home by Bill Mauldin
• "That theory is amusing, and would be even more amusing at about 2 AM in some convention party, anytime in the past forty years." -- Redshirts by John Scalzi (which also spawned A Helpful Note) 
• "Fiction that aims at art bends events to fit its conceptions, but pulp doesn't have that luxury: pulp thrives on speed of production and speed of comprehension, so a pulp story can't be too specific or idiosyncratic; it needs to tell the story that the reader expects, and get out of the way." -- Strange Embrace/69 Barrow Street by Lawrence Block
• "But it is possible, even within the boyish, flashy confines of historical fantasy, to write about real women leading period-appropriate lives -- and, even more importantly, to have those women both be true to themselves and show their real strength to modern readers." -- Glamour in Glass by Mary Robinette Kowal
• "It is thoroughly enjoyable and entirely wonderful, and should under no circumstances be left only for teenagers to read." -- Flora's Fury by Ysabeau S. Wilce
• "The greatest test of a travel book is how much it makes the reader want to share that experience, and Theroux -- no matter how much he focuses on the grime, the delays, the petty bureaucratic annoyances, the horrible schedules, the often grinding boredom, the sheer waste of time -- still makes his travels into a hopeful journey of discovery." -- Ghost Train to the Evening Star by Paul Theroux
• "The working world, and the world in general, is not a wonderful, special place full of love and light and happiness, but work -- often unpleasant and always directed by someone else -- full of people that we don't get to choose." -- Freeway by Mark Kalesniko

My love-hate relationship with the status of Antick Musings as a book review blog was the undertone of much of what I wrote this year. (Yes, I do realize it -- it is that obvious.) Probably the most -- possibly only -- interesting bit of that was What a Pile of Books Demanding to Be Reviewed Looks Like.

I used to write about movies here -- hell, I used to see movies regularly, but I've been too busy or anxious or whatever to do more than one a month for a good year now -- but the only real remnant of that this past year is a lone Movie Log post called Catching Up Once Again.

At the end of 2011, as is now traditional, I picked the best books I'd read each month that year, as a pseudo-Top Ten of the year. It's a weird format, but I like weird formats.

Speaking of particular days of the year, I also continued my tradition of rounding up the very particular news announced on the first day of April.

I blogged about music intermittently, talking up songs by The Airborne Toxic Event, Local H, Fountains of Wayne, Mieka Pauley, Cloud Cult, Sleigh Bells, and The Indelicates.

I caved into peer pressure more than once, with such memes as Less Exciting Book Titles and The Weird Questionnaire. I also -- clearly misunderstanding how memes work, and why people do them -- tried to start my own, with the too complicated and smells-like-work Five Quotes.

In the aftermath of last year's flood, I wrote something closer to a real essay than I usually manage: What We Lose, What We Save. I'm still reasonably proud of it.

Every Monday, I had a Reviewing the Mail post to examine -- and, often, to supposedly-humorously interrogate -- the books that had arrived in the prior week's mail.

If you're concerned about your personal brand, I have some words for you. Many of them are unprintable.

I blogged about the various tempests-in-teapots of publishing much less this past year -- perhaps because they all start to look the same, after a while -- but I did write about What Publishers Don't Do, Street Dates and Sales Velocity, Amazon Drops a Big Shoe, Barry Eisler Continues to Shill for Amazon, Stating the Obvious,

I review comics, though I don't do much of the chin-scratching (or hair-tearing, or forked-tonguing) kind of blogging about comics that defines the form on the Internet. This year, my major think-piece in that area was The Myth of the Comics Creator,

Have I mentioned that I hate consultants? Let me point you towards In Which a Lying Liar Lies.

As my sons have grown up, I've spent much less time blogging about the cute little things they do -- partially because tweens don't do cute little things -- but I did actually put up a picture to go along with my thoughts about My Alarmingly Large and Increasingly Grown-Up Son. 

And those are the kinds of things I blogged about this past year -- plus lots and lots more posts listing books, whining about the books that were destroyed, and reviewing books I had semi-recently read. It's a rut, I admit it. And maybe admitting it will let me find a new rut to trample down for a while.

I hope you'll stick around for Year Eight.

Reading Into the Past: Week of June 10, 1991

The RNG sent me to one end of my chosen time period (2007) last week, and, this week, it sends me to the other end. It makes me think something is wrong, but it works, for now, so I'll go with it. And so here's what I was reading this week, way back in 1991.

But first, a technical note. I started my notebook at the beginning of December 1990, and kept track of what I read each week (including magazines, listed by total number of pages as if I got points for weight) through the end of September 1991. After that I settled down to a normal, reasonable list of books finished or abandoned by date. So this list is actually "Week Ending 6/15/91," and it gives a picture of how deep I was into how many books that I gave up on not too long afterward.

I also neglected to include author's first names, so I may have to do a little reconstruction.

Marcia Muller, Ask the Cards a Question

This is the second Sharon McCone novel; the first was Edwin of the Iron Shoes, and I'm not sure when I read that. (I did read Muller's The Shape of Dread in early May, and it was newish then, so maybe I read the one I could find and then jumped back to the older ones the Mystery Guild had available.) I liked catching up to this series a lot, and I enjoyed reading along with it for at least the first half of the '90s: I found that it bogged down with a too-large cast, all centering around the law firm (or legal-aid group? something like that) where McCone worked. It eventually turned into too much ongoing soap opera and not enough mystery from this book for me, but the first roughly dozen books were solidly to my taste.

I don't seem to have covered any Muller books read at the time on this blog; I apparently gave up on her before 2007. 

Robert Parker, The Widening Gyre

This is the tenth Spenser book, from 1983. I was reading them out of order, since I'd hit Looking for Rachel Wallace (#7, 1980) the same week as the Muller. I did keep reading this series into the Days of the Blog, so you can find a couple of Parker books covered and some other thoughts in my archives. My memory is that this book was early enough that Parker was still writing relatively normal mystery novels, in which his hero actually went places and did things, instead of just standing around talking to Hawk and Susan about how awesome the three of them are, and waiting for the plot to resolve itself around the force of their awesomeness. (I may be exaggerating.)

Sue Grafton, "G" Is For Gumshoe

This was the then-book book in the series, published the year before. I'd also just read the first one ("A" Is For Alibi) during that same early-May week I was reading Muller and Parker. My pattern of binging on mysteries for seven days at a time was already solidly established, and I think I filled in the missing books over the next year or so. In memory, this series started well, got stronger through about this book, and then kept a steady peak to somewhere around M. I've only written anything about the books from S on, and I've been in mostly this-is-OK-but mode for them.

Bill Pronzini, Jackpot

This was the then-new book in the series, but I'd been reading Pronzini for a while at that point. (My mystery tastes were formed by Chandler and ran forward at first entirely in that vein: Ross Macdonald and then a bunch of more derivative male writers of relatively tough male PIs. Working for the book clubs taught me a lot of things, but one of the first things I learned, from then-Mystery Guild editor Maryann Eccles, was that women also wrote mysteries, and many of them were much better at it. You wouldn't think a guy who went to Vassar would need that lesson, but oh well.) I don't remember almost anything about any of the Nameless Detective books, which is probably why I stopped reading them: he felt pretty blank to me, a random PI who liked pulps and had the usual murder cases.

The Pronzini books I do keep coming back to are Gun in Cheek and Son of Gun in Cheek, collections of "differently good" mystery writing - they are wonderful, perfectly chosen and presented by Pronzini as an editor.

Joseph Hansen, Early Graves

Another mystery - the 1988 entry in the Dave Brandstetter series. Brandstetter was an insurance investigator, making him on of the few series heroes with a good reason to actually investigate crimes and strange occurrences. He was also gay, which seemed like a much bigger deal in the '80s. I liked these a lot at the time: Brandstetter had a real life and his job actually made sense and the mystery plots were strong and well-organized. But the series seems to have fallen entirely out of print and been forgotten.

Joan D. Vinge, Heaven Chronicles (typescript)

I note here that it became a November 91 Selection. Since it was a fixup of short fiction published as a mass-market paperback by Warner Questar (no shade thrown, but they had a small budget and had a hard time competing with bigger fish in those days), my guess is that we were in one of our periodic "where the hell is all the decent SF?" frenzies. I don't remember it well, but I liked it then, and Vinge has been dependably good before and since.

Various Periodicals

1127 pages of them! Well, let's remember that I was commuting, and that this was the fat days of magazines, when ad pages ran without stopping through the tundra of an ecosystem that never dreamed it could crash. But, yes, I was keeping track of pages read every week - it was my big metric to show productivity during my unemployment from Dec of 1990 through April of 1991, and I kept it up as long as I was tracking reading by week.

Chris Claremont, Grounded! (galleys, began)

This is the sequel to FirstFlight, and I finished reading it the next week - the two books became the SFBC omnibus High Frontier, a Featured Alternate in December 1991. They were nearish future SF about a tough woman space pilot who seemed to be a gender-swapped Chuck Yeager in Space! I had forgotten that they existed at all, or that Claremont (the comics writer, the guy who did X-Men for a million years and made them the biggest thing in the world) ever wrote novels at all.

Michael McCollum, The Clouds of Saturn (galleys, began)

I note here that I read 56 pages and that the SFBC rejected it. I don't think I've read anything else by McCollum since, so I don't have an appreciable opinion on his work. 

James Lee Burke, Black Cherry Blues (began)

Back to the mysteries! This was the third in the Dave Robicheaux series, published in 1989. I don't know if "alcoholic" was shorthand for "serious PI novel," but Dave also had a drinking problem (among other problems; I don't think he was actually seeing ghosts in this book, but that and other things would come later), much like Lawrence Block's Matt Scudder, whose novels were magnificent things up to this period. So maybe I thought "alcoholic male detective" equaled "classy serious mystery." I was young; let's blame me. This is a series I stopped reading for no reason: I liked all of the books I read, and thought he was a great writer (I even read some of his literary stuff along the way; he's also a college professor). I think I had several of these on the shelf at the time of my flood, and just never started rebuilding: I bet a lot of my reading life has a dividing line like that.

Peter Nicholls, The Science Fiction Encyclopedia (continue)

I read 181 pages of the 1979 edition this week, having read 129 pages the week before. I'd read 206 the week after, skip it entirely the week ending 6/29, and get the last 156 pages in the first week of July.

And, yes, I was reading an encyclopedia straight through: I think I also did that for other genre reference books over the next few years. (The '95 second edition of this book, not so much. I did get a copy, and did read a hell of a lot of it, but never tried to plow right through that brick.)

Under the entries for that week, I did the totals, as I always did in those days: 3003 pages, 429/day. Remembering that a third of that was magazines, and half or more of magazine pages were ads in those days, it means less than it could. Also remembering that even the books were a mixture of encyclopedia, paperback, hardcover, typescript, and unbound galley pages, it was a completely useless metric unattached to anything in the real world...which is why I soon gave it up.

Reading into the Past: Week of 1/17

I used to do this, back in the dim misty days of the beginnings of Antick Musings, and I've intermittently said since then that I want to do it more regularly. I'm not promising anything, but let's hope it becomes a weekly occurrence.

But what is "this," you ask? Well, I've kept up a reading notebook now for just over twenty years (since the beginning of December, 1990), and "Reading Into the Past" involves my using a high-tech randomization device (some dice) to pick a year in that span, and then writing about whatever books I was reading this very week, that many years ago.

The dice this time gave me an 18, so please return with me to the amazing year 1993, when we were all younger and prettier:

2/17/93: Linda Barnes, Steel Guitar -- the then-new book in the Carlotta Carlyle mystery series, about a Boston cabbie (who was also, if I remember correctly, a tall leggy redhead -- though the fact that is precisely my type really shouldn't apply in a first-person novel) who was also a PI. I'm horrible at remembering mystery plots from series books, so I can't tell you what happened in this one. But it was a fun series, part of a general flourishing of tough female PIs in the early '90s after Marcia Muller, Sue Grafton, and Sara Paretsky.

2/18/93, Karen Kijewski, Copy Kat -- Speaking of female PIs, this was another series in the same area, slightly more gimmicky. The heroine's name was Kat something-or-other, and she operated out of some city out West -- I want to say Denver -- with cases that, in my mind, had lots of women-and-kids-in-jeopardy scenes. Kijewski wrote nine books in this series in just about a decade and hasn't been heard from since; it's a not-uncommon career for a mid-lister.

2/19/93: Joseph Hansen, A Country of Old Men -- The last of the Dave Brandstetter mystery novels, a series notable for being told in real time (Brandstetter got a year older every year, unlike most mystery heroes), for the fact that Brandstetter was an insurance investigator, so he had a reason to poke around the edges of murder cases, and for the fact that Brandstetter was happily gay and not at all stereotyped about it. It's one of the best of a strong series of books, and I hope Hansen isn't forgotten over in the mystery world these days; he had a near-Ross-Macdonaldish scope and power at his best.

2/20/93: Poul Anderson, Harvest of Stars -- Anderson wrote a bunch of linked books in the mid-90s with confusing titles -- some of the others are The Stars Are Also Fire, Harvest the Fire, and The Fleet of Stars -- and I can't remember precisely what happened in any of them. I vaguely remember that they were longer than they should have been, and slightly too libertarian for their own good. Anderson wrote at least a dozen better books, which you should read before you look for these.

2/22/93: Michael Whelan, Wonderworks -- In those days, Whelan was by far the biggest, most important artist in the SF field -- his work was on what seemed like most of the biggest books each year in the field, and he was an inventive painter of gorgeous, technically accomplished and tightly rendered works. (Something like what Donato is now, only even more popular.) He was so popular, in fact, that publishers not only published a couple of books of his art -- SF art books have always been an uncertain market, since it relies on the overlap of two interests -- but gave them nearly identical titles: this one and the later, larger Works of Wonder. This one is smaller and older, Whelan's first collection, and it has a lot of his most famous works. It's not in print -- art books don't stay in print long, being expensive to make -- but its worth looking at, at least, if you ever come across it.

2/23/93: Sara Paretsky, Guardian Angel -- You might have noticed that I was on a bit of a mystery kick at the time -- the Anderson was read for work -- which is something I did several times a year back in the '90s. I'd read mysteries for two or three weeks straight, and I generally had time to finish a novel each working day, what with commuting and lunch and maybe a little time at night. Paretsky's first five or so novels are among the very best American mystery series ever written -- I'd stack her Blood Shot up against anybody's mystery novels -- but, around the time of Guardian Angel, Paretsky was sinking into shrill polemics, as her politics started to overwhelm her stories. (And I say this even though I was generally in sympathy to the axes she was grinding.) I'm several books behind on her now, so I don't know if she's still digging that hole, or if she's changed course. If you only have time for one Paretsky, it's Blood Shot you want.

2/23/93: Betty Ballantine, editor, The Fantastic Art of Frank Frazetta, Book One -- From the '70s Ballantine series (which eventually had four books of Frazetta art), this and its companions has been superseded by the later Underwood Books trilogy of Frazetta collections. (Which are absolutely gorgeous, and which I recommend; the first is Legacy.) But this was just fine for its day, and had a good mix of color and black & white work.

2/24/93: William Poundstone, The Ultimate -- Poundstone is a sold writer of nonfiction whom I've been reading for about two decades now; he's not flashy, but he does good research and consistently writes about interesting things. This one was a bit less substantial than most of his books; the idea was that it settled "the great armchair debates" once and for all -- such as the scariest amusement park ride, toughest tongue twister, and so on. It was a pleasant book, and one designed to sit near a cash register, but it's probably severely out-of-date now.

2/24/93: Betty Ballantine, editor, The Fantastic Art of Frank Frazetta, Book Two -- See above; this was the second in the series. (And I read Three and Four the next day.)

And that's what I was reading this week eighteen years ago. As always, I'm in awe of the sheer volume of print that '90s Me was able to put away. It's almost like he didn't do anything else but read!

Read in April

Book-A-Day continued this month, which means that there won't be any capsule reviews below -- but there will be more links to longer reviews than there was for most of last year.

(I generally consider these posts to be mostly indices, which is why I bury them in the middle of the night.)

• Gilbert Hernandez, The Troublemakers (4/1)
  
• James Kochalka, American Elf, Book Three (4/1)
  
• Gene Wolfe, The Sorcerer's House (4/2)
  
• Mike Mignola and Duncan Fegredo, Hellboy, Vol. 9: The Wild Hunt (4/2)
  
• Stephenie Meyer; art and adaptation by Young Kim, Twilight: The Graphic Novel, Vol. 1 (4/5)
  Look for my review in the August issue of Realms of Fantasy.
  
• Megan Kelso, Artichoke Tales (4/6)
  Look for my review in the August issue of Realms of Fantasy.
  
• Darwyn Cooke with Dave Stewart, DC: The New Frontier, Vol. 2 (4/7)
  
• Gene Luen Yang, Prime Baby (4/8)
  
• Eric Liberge, On the Odd Hours (4/9)
  
• Denis Kitchen & Paul Buhle, The Art of Harvey Kurtzman: The Mad Genius of Comics (4/10)
  
• Sue Grafton, U Is For Undertow (4/11)
  
• Svetlana Chmakova, Nightschool: The Weirn Books, Vol. 3 (4/12)
  
• George O'Connonr, Athena: Grey-Eyed Goddess (4/13)
  
• Yoshihiro Tatsumi, Black Blizzard (4/14)
  
• Carla Jablonski and Leland Purvis, Resistance, Book 1 (4/15)
  
• Susan Kim, Laurence Klavan, and Pascal Dizin, City of Spies (4/16)
  
• Jim Butcher, Changes (4/16)
  
• Jeff Smith, Rasl, Vol. 1: The Drift (4/18)
  
• Masashi Kishimoto, Naruto, Vol. 45 (4/19)
  
• Roger Langridge, The Muppet Show Comic Book: The Treasure of Peg-Leg Wilson (4/20)
  
• Masashi Kishimoto, Naruto, Vol. 46 (4/21)
  
• John Lanchester, I.O.U.: Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay (4/21)
  
• Max Estes, Hello, Again (4/22)
  
• Stephen Fry in America (4/22)
  
• Masashi Kishimoto, Naruto, Vol. 47 (4/23)
  
• Joann Sfar, Lewis Trondheim, Kerascoet & Obion, Dungeon: Twilight, Vol. 3: The New Centurions (4/26)
  
• George O'Connor, Zeus: King of the Gods (4/27)
  
• Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba, The Umbrella Academy, Vol. 2: Dallas (4/28)
  
• Ian Tregillis, Bitter Seeds (4/28)
  
• Gene Luen Yang, Animal Crackers (4/29)
• Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith, adapted by Tony Lee, illustrated by Cliff Richard, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Graphic Novel (4/30)
• Robert B. Parker, The Professional (4/30)
  

The first serious test of Book-A-Day is coming this next week, as I jet off to a week of meetings down in Florida for Wiley's annual Sales Conference -- I'm going to be taking enough reading material (as I always do), but finding time to get to it and write about it might be difficult.

Book-A-Day 2010: The Epic Index

Since Book-A-Day 2010 has been chugging along for almost three months, I think it's now old enough to have an index of its very own, just like its older brother. I'm not sure if anyone but me actually uses these, but creating indices soothes and comforts me, so I'll do it anyway.

First, the obligatory links backward:
Index to the original (2006-2007) Book-A-Day.
A Post-Mortem for the 2006-2007 Book-A-Day.
The theoretical basis for the project: How to Read a Book a Day.

And now, for the first time anywhere, Book-A-Day 2010!

1: Superfeakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
2: You'll Never Know by C. Tyler
3: Cake Wrecks by Jen Yates
4: Sundome, Vol. 6 by Kazuto Okada
5: Awesome 2: Awesomer edited by Charlito and Mr. Phil
6: Dungeon Parade, Vol. 1 by Sfar, Trondheim, and Larcenet
7: Maintenance, Vol. 3 by Massey and Rodriguez
8: Path of the Assassin, Vol. 15 by Koike and Kojima
9: Who Is Mark Twain? by Mark Twain
10: Fables, Vol. 12 by Willimgham, Buckingham, et. al.
11: B.P.R.D., Vol. 11 by Mignola, Arcudi, and Davis
12: Ex Machina, Vol. 8 by Vaughan and Harris
13: The Book of William by Paul Collins
14: The Salon by Nick Bertozzi
15: A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge by Josh Neufeld
16: Naruto, Vols. 42-44 by Masashi Kishimoto
17: Point Omega by Don DeLillo
18: Amulet: The Stonekeeper's Curse by Kazu Kibuishi
19: The Year of Loving Dangerously by Rall and Callejo
20: Mother, Come Home by Paul Hornschemeier
21: Manhood for Amateurs by Michael Chabon
22: Stick to Drawing Comics, Monkey Brain! by Scott Adams
23: Grandville by Bryan Talbot
24: Powers Vol. 10: Cosmic by Bendis and Oeming
25: Astro City: The Dark Age, Book 1 by Busiek and Anderson
26: Remember by Benjamin
27: Brain Thief by Alexander Jablokov
28: What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell
29: Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl
30: Not Less Than Gods by Kage Baker
31: Little Nothings, Vol. 3: Uneasy Happiness by Lewis Trondheim
32: West Coast Blues by Jacques Tardi
33: Our Hero: Superman on Earth by Tom DeHaven
34: Happyface by Stephen Emond
35: Iorich by Steven Brust
36: Hicksville by Dylan Horrocks
37: Map of My Heart by John Porcellino
38: The Squirrel Machine by Hans Rickheit
39: Captain Freedom by G. Xavier Robillard
40: Crogan's March by Chris Schweizer
41: Cyanide & Happiness by Kris, Rob, Matt, & Dave
42: Market Day by James Sturm
43: Hespira by Matthew Hughes
44: The Splendid Magic of Penny Arcade by Krahulic and Holkins
45: Kimmie66 by Aaron Alexovich
46: Captain Britain and MI13, Vol. 1 by Cornell and Kirk
47: Empowered 3 by Adam Warren
48: Empowered 4 by Adam Warren
49: Sexually, I'm More of a Switzerland edited by David Rose
50: Box Office Poison by Alex Robinson
51: Rough Work by Frank Frazetta
52: The Boys, Vol. 1 by Ennis and Robertson
53: Copper by Kazu Kibuishi
54: The Perry Bible Fellowship Almanack by Nicholas Gurewitch
55: Cat Paradise, Vol. 2 by Yuji Iwahara
56: Pearls Sells Out by Stephan Pastis
57: Deadman Wonderland, Vol. 1 by Kataoka and Kondou
58: Panic X Panic, Vol. 1 by Mika Kawamura
59: Batman: Year 100 by Paul Pope
60: A Home for Mr. Easter by Brooke A. Allen
61: American Elf, Book Three by James Kochalka
62: Horns by Joe Hill
63: The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris
64: The Troublemakers by Gilbert Hernandez
65: Hellboy, Vol. 9: The Wild Hunt by Mignola and Fegredo
66: DC: The New Frontier by Darwyn Cooke with Dave Stewart
67: Prime Baby by Gene Luen Yang
68: On the Odd Hours by Eric Liberge
69: Move Under Ground by Nick Mamatas
70: The Art of Harvey Kurtzman by Kitchen and Buhle
71: U Is For Undertow by Sue Grafton
72: Athena: Grey-Eyed Goddess by George O'Connor
73: Nightschool: The Wein Books, Vol. 3 by Svetlana Chmakova
74: Black Blizard by Yoshihiro Tatsumi
75: Resistance, Book 1 by Jablonski and Purvis
76: Changes by Jim Butcher
77: The Sorcerer's House by Gene Wolfe
78: City of Spies by Kim, Klavan and Dizin
79: Rasl, Vol. 1: The Drift by Jeff Smith
80: The Muppet Show Comic Book: The Treasure of Peg-Leg Wilson by Roger Langridge
81: Hello, Again by Max Estes
82: Naruto, Vols. 45-47 by Masashi Kishimoto
83: Stephen Fry in America by Stephen Fry
84: I.O.U. by John Lanchester
85: Dungeon: Twilight, Vol. 3: The New Centurions by Sfar, Trondheim, Kerascoet & Obion
86: Zeus: King of the Gods by George O'Connor
87: The Umbrella Academy, Vol. 2: Dallas by Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba
88: Animal Crackers by Gene Luen Yang
89: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Graphic Novel by Austen, Grahame-Smith, Lee & Richards
90: The Professional by Robert B. Parker
91: Bitter Seeds by Ian Tregillis
92: Causing a Scene by Charlie Todd and Alex Scordelis
93: Meow, Baby! by Jason
94: Tell Me Something by Jason
95: You Can't Get There from Here by Jason
96: Nil: A Land Beyond Belief by James Turner
97: 90 Classic Books for People in a Hurry by Henrik Lange
98: Night Fisher by R. Kikuo Johnson
99: Batman & Robin: Batman Reborn by Morrison, Quitely and Tan
100: Mercury by Hope Larson
101: Can't Get No by Rick Veitch
102: The Unwritten, Book 1 by Carey & Gross
103: Solomon's Thieves by Mechner, LeUyen, and Puvilland
104: The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande
105: Britten and Brulightly by Hannah Berry
106: Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded by John Scalzi
107: Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld
108: The Amazing Cynicalman by Matt Feazell
109: B.P.R.D.: War on Frogs by Mignola, Arcudi, and various artists
110: Where Bold Stars Go To Die by Arlanzandro C. Esmena and Gerry Alanguilan
111: Elmer by Gerry Alanguilan
112: Trese: Mass Murders by Tan and Baldismo
113: 12 by Manix Abrera
114: Neil Gaiman Presents the Philippine Graphic/Fiction Awards Comics Anthology
115: Underpass (and Komikero Komiks #3)
116: The Stuff of Legend, Book 1: The Dark by Raicht, Smitth, & Wilson
117: Sir Edward Grey, Witchfinder: In the Service of Angels by Mike Mignola and Ben Stenbeck
118: If Ignorance Is Bliss, Why Aren't There More Happy People? edited by Lloyd and Mitchinson
119: Dear Undercover Economist by Tim Harford
120: How Math Can Save Your Life by James D. Stein
121: The Big Short by Michael Lewis
122: Charley's War, Vol. 1 by Mills and Colquoun
123: Festering Romance by Renee Lott
124: Scarlett Takes Manhattan by Molly Crabapple and John Leavitt
125: The Muppet Show Comic Book: On the Road by Langridge with Paroline
126: Super Spy: The Lost Dossiers by Matt Kindt
127: Calamity Jack by Shannon & Dean Hale and Nathan Hale
128: The Corpse Wore Pasties by Jonny Porkpie
129: The Great Fables Crossover by Willingham, Sturges, and a host of artists
130: The Best of Helmut Newton
131: Tropical Blend by Bruno Poinsard
132: GrimJack: The Manx Cat by Ostrander and Truman
133: House of Mystery, Vol. 1: Room & Boredom by Sturges, Willingham, & Rossi
134: The Ferrari in the Bedroom by Jean Shepherd
135: The Complete Peanuts, 1969 to 1970 by Charles M. Schulz
136: Wilson by Daniel Clowes
137: High Soft Lisp by Gilbert Hernandez
138: Goats: Showcase Showdown by Jonathan Rosenberg
139: Doctor Gorpon by Marc Hansen
140: The Lost Colony, Book 3: Last Rights by Grady Klein
141: Peter & Max by Bill Willingham
142: Solar by Ian McEwan
143: Lost at Sea by Bryan Lee O'Malley
144: The Book Shopper by Murray Browne
145: Gentleman Jim by Raymond Briggs
146: Powers: Secret Identity by Bendis & Oeming
147: The God Engines by John Scalzi
148: Gogo Monster by Taiyo Matsumoto
149: Spectrum 16 edited by Cathy and Arnie Fenner
150: Monkey Food by Ellen Forney
151: First Time by Sibylline and various artists
152: Octopus Pie by Meredith Gran
153: Nancy, Vol. 1 by John Stanley (and Dan Gormley)
154: Meanwhile by Jason Shiga
155: Treasury of the Lost Litter Box by Darby Conley
156: Priceless by William Poundstone
157: Imperial Bedrooms by Bret Easton Ellis
158: Grendel: Behold the Devil by Matt Wagner
159: The Story of O by Guido Crepax
160: The World of P.G. Wodehouse by Herbert Warren Wind
161: We Are Paper Toys! by Louis Bou
162: Bookhunter by Jason Shiga
163: BodyWorld by Dash Shaw
164: Hellboy, Vol. 10 by Mignola, Corben, and others
165: Obsolete by Anna Jane Grossman
166: The Complete Peanuts, 1973 to 1974 by Charles M. Schulz
167: Wet Moon, Book 4 by Ross Campbell
168: Penny Arcade, Vol. 6 by Holkins & Krahulik
169: Stephen King's The Stand: Soul Survivors by Aguirre-Sacasa and Perkins
170: Flight, Vol. 7 edited by Kazu Kibuishi
171: Kick-Ass by Millar and Romita
172: Tricked by Alex Robinson
173: Moomin, Vol. 4 by Tove Jansson
174: Grendel: God and the Devil by Matt Wagner and Various Artists
175: Legion of Super-Heroes Archives, Vol. 11
176: 2 Sisters by Matt Kindt
177: Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour by Bryan Lee O'Malley
178: Spice & Wolf, Vol. 1 by Hasekua, Koume, & Ayakura
179: Tokyo Days, Bangkok Nights by Vankin Fisher Camuncoli Martinbrough
180: Backing Into Forward by Jules Feiffer
181: King of RPGs, Vol. 1 by Jason Thompson & Victor Hao
182: Footnotes in Gaza by Joe Sacco
183: Fifty Years of Playboy Cartoons by Gahan Wilson
184: Swords & Dark Magic edited by Jonathan Strahan and Lou Anders
185: 3 Story: The Secret History of the Giant Man by Matt Kindt
186: Speed Bump: Cartoons for Idea People by Dave Coverly
187: Brain Camp by Susan Kim, Laurence Klavan, and Faith Erin Hicks
188: Code:Breaker, Vol. 1 by Akiminie Kamijyo
189: Hanako and the Terror of Allegory, Vol. 1 by Sakae Esuno
190: Extra Lives by Tom Bissell
191: The Fuller Memorandum by Charles Stross
192: Beyond Disney by Bob Sehlinger and Grant Rafter
193: An Education by Lynn Barber
194: Smile by Raina Telgemeier
195: What Women Want by Paco Underhill
196: Amelia Rules!: The Tweenage Guide to Not Being Unpopular by Jimmy Gownley
197: Lego: A Love Story by Jonathan Bender
198: Ratman, Vol. 1 by Inui Sekihiko
199: Only One Wish by Mia Ikumi
200: Free-Range Chickens by Simon Rich
201: Mister O by Lewis Trondheim
202: B.P.R.D.: 1947 by Mignola, Dysart, Ba, & Moon
203: The Playwright by Eddie Campbell and Daren White
204: The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman
205: How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu
206: Low Moon by Jason
207: Weathercraft by Jim Woodring
208: Desperate Times by Chris Eliopoulos
209: Ex Machina, Vol. 9: Ring Out the Old by Brian K. Vaughan, Tony Harris, et. al.
210: Nexus: Space Opera by Mike Baron & Steve Rude
211: Lucky in Love by George Chieffet & Stephen DeStefano
212: The Terrible Axe-Man of New Orleans by Rick Geary
213: Boneyard, Vol. 7 by Richard Moore
214: Two Guides to Walt Disney World
215: The Unsinkable Walker Bean by Aaron Renier
216: All and Sundry by Paul Hornschemeier
217: The Nobody by Jeff Lemire
218: The Dog Dialed 911 by the Editors of The Smoking Gun
219: Gallimaufry by Michael Quinion
220: Beast of Burden: Animal Rites by Dorkin and Thompson
221: Koko Be Good by Jen Wang
222: Memory by Donald E. Westlake
223: Elephant Man #1 by Greg Houston
224: Two More Books About Orlando
225: PvP, Vol. 6: Silent But Deadly by Scott Kurtz
226: Red Hot Chili Samurai, Vol. 1 by Yoshitsugu Katagiri
227: Alice in the Country of Hearts, Vol. 1 by Soumei Hoshino & Quinrose
228: Tena on S-String, Vol. 1 by Sesuna Mikabe
229: StarCraft: Ghost Academy, Vol. 1 by DeCandido & Furukawa
230: Mikansei No. 1, Vol. 1 by Majiko!
231: College in a Nutskull by Anders Henriksson
232: Two Smurfy Books by Peyo
233: Miss Don't Touch Me by Hubert & Kerascoet
234: 7 Billion Needles, Vol. 1 by Nobuaki Tadano
235: Ice Cream & Sadness by Kris, Rob, Matt, & Dave
236: The Playboy by Chester Brown
237: Game of Cages by Harry Connolly
238: Lucky by Gabrielle Bell
239: Cat Getting Out of a Bag by Jeffrey Brown
240: Walt Disney World Guides, Take Three
241: I'm With Stupid by Weinstein & Barreca
242: Wally Gropius by Tim Hensley
243: Gray Horses by Hope Larson
244: The Adventures of Sock Monkey by Tony Millionaire
245: Second Thoughts by Niklas Asker
246: Male Call by Milton Caniff
247: Sundome, Vol. 7 by Kazuto Okada
248: Me Write Book by Graham Roumieu
249: De:Tales by Fabio Moon & Gabriel Ba
250: Too Soon? by Drew Friedman
251: Alligator by I*n Fl*ming
252: Batwoman: Elegy by Rucka & Williams
253: Omega the Unknown by Lethem, Rusnak, Dalrymple, & Hornschemeier
254: Shooting War by Lappe & Goldman
255: Moving Pictures by Kathryn & Stuart Immonen
256: Drinking at the Movies by Julia Wertz
257: Kraken by China Mieville
258: Supreme: The Story of the Year by Alan Moore and various artists
259: The Good Neighbors, Book 2: Kith by Black and Naifeh
260: Odd Is On Our Side by Koontz, Van Lente, & Chen
261: Kitty Raises Hell by Carrie Vaughn
262: 120 Days of Simon by Simon Gardenfors
263: Werewolves of Montpellier by Jason
264: Richard Stark's Parker: The Outfit by Darwyn Cooke
265: Stories edited by Gaiman and Sarrantonio
266: Tonoharu, Part Two by Lars Martinson
267: Two Unofficial Guides to Walt Disney World by Sehlinger and Testa
268: X'ed Out by Charles Burns
269: Fated by S.G. Browne
270: Hellboy: Masks and Monsters by Mignola, Robinson, Benefiel, & Rodriguez
271: Strange Tales by a whole bunch of people
272: Will Eisner's The Spirit Archives, Vol. 1
273: The Fun Never Stops! by Drew Friedman
274: How Shall I Tell the Dog? by Miles Kington
275: The Amazing Screw-On Head and Other Curious Objects by Mike Mignola
276: Revolver by Matt Kindt
277: Cinderella: From Fabletown With Love by Roberson & McManus
278: Mister I by Lewis Trondheim
279: Will Eisner's The Spirit Archives, Vol. 3
280: Miki Falls, Vol. 3: Autumn by Mark Crilley
281: Fingerprints by Will Dinski
282: Jack of Fables, Vol. 7 by Willingham Sturges Roberson Braun Akins Marzan Pepoy
283: The Sweeter Side of R. Crumb
284: Superf*ckers by James Kochalka
285: The Cartoon History of the Modenr World, Part II by Larry Gonick
286: A Cynic Looks at Life by Ambrose Bierce
287: 7 Billion Needles, Vol. 2 by Nobuaki Tadano
288: Miki Falls, Vol. 4: Winter by Mark Crilley
289: Dungeon: Monstres, Vol. 3: Heartbreaker by Sfar Trondheim Nine Killoffer
290: Hey Princess by Mats Jonsson
291: Stage-Land by Jerome K. Jerome
292: The Bird of the River by Kage Baker
293: The Alchemist by Coelho
294: Top Shelf Asks the Big Questions
295: Pluto, Vol. 1 by Naoki Urasawa with Takashi Nagasaki
296: The Book of Genesis, Illustrated by R. Crumb
297: Penguin 75 edited by Paul Buckley
298: The Complete Peanuts, 1975 to 1976 by Charles M. Schulz
299: Love and Rockets: New Stories, No. 3 by The Hernandez Brothers
300: Transition by Iain M. Banks
301: This Crooked Way by James Enge
302: Demo by Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan
303: B.P.R.D.: King of Fear by Mignola, Arcudi, & Davis
304: Luna Park by Kevin Baker & Danijel Zazelj
305: Grandville Mon Amour by Bryan Talbot
306: I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett
207: The Complete Peanuts, 1977 to 1978 by Charles M. Schulz
308: Manga Claus: The Blade of Kringle by Marunas & Craddock
309: Denys Wortman's New York
310: Pride of Bagdad by Vaughan and Henrichon
311: All-Star Superman, Vol. 1 by Morrison & Quitely
312: The Zabime Sisters by Aristophane
313: Sophie Crumb: Evolution of a Crazy Artist
314: The Storm in the Barn by Matt Phelan
315: Dark Entries by Rankin and Dell'edera
316: War Is Boring by David Axe and Matt Bors
317: Cairo by G. Willow Wilson & M.K. Perker
318: At Home by Bill Bryson
319: Dawn Land by Bruchac and Davis
320: Forget Sorrow by Belle Yang
321: Mouse Guard: Winter 1152 by David Petersen
322: The Broadcast by Hobbs and Tuazon
323: American Elf, Book Two by James Kochalka
324: Amelia Rules!: True Things (Adults Don't Want Kids to Know) by Jimmy Gownley
325: Castle Waiting, Vol. II by Linda Medley
326: Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld
327: How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less by Sarah Glidden
328: The Muppet Show Comic Book: Family Reunion by Langridge and Mebberson
329: Ayako by Osamu Tezuka
330: Reid Fleming, World's Toughest Milkman, Volume One by David Boswell
331: Spectrum 17 edited by Cathy & Arnie Fenner
332: The ACME Novelty Library, No. 20 by Chris Ware
333: Alec: "The Years Have Pants" by Eddie Campbell
334: Local by Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly
335: Salvatore, Vol. 1 by Nicolas De Crecy
336: The Story of Lee by Wilson and Kutsuwada
337: Miss Don't Touch Me, Vol. 2 by Hubert & Kerascoet
338: Side Jobs by Jim Butcher
339: Motel Art Improvement Service by Jason Little
340: Sundome, Vol. 8 by Kazuto Okada
341: Popeye, Vol. 2: "Well, Blow Me Down!" by E.C. Segar
342: American Vampire, Vol. 1 by Snyder, Albuquerque, & King
343: The Good Neighbors, Book 3: Kind by Black & Naifeh
344: Ghostopolis by Doug Ten Napel
345: Cryoburn by Lois McMaster Bujold
346: Ex Machina, Vol. 10: Term Limits by Vaughan, Harris, & Mettler
347: The King by Rich Koslowski
348: Salt Water Taffy: The Truth About Dr. True by Matthew Loux
349: I Love You, I Hate You, I'm Hungry by Bruce Eric Kaplan
350: Poisoned Pens edited by Gary Dexter
351: Ayn Rand's Anthem: The Graphic Novel by Santino and Staton
352: The Five Fists of Science by Fraction and Sanders
353: Odds & Ends by R. Crumb
354: Wanted by Millar and Jones
355: The Ring of Solomon by Jonathan Stroud
356: AX: Alternative Manga, Vol. One edited by Sean Michael Wilson
357: Zombies Calling by Faith Erin Hicks
358: Polly and the Pirates, Vol. 1 by Ted Naifeh
359: SideScrollers by Matthew Loux
360: Dominion by Michael Alan Nelson and Tim Hamilton
361: An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin
362: Harvey by Herve Bouchard and Janice Nadeau
363: It Was the War of the Trenches by Jacques Tardi
364: M by Jon J. Muth
365: We Are On Our Own by Miriam Katin


Update: I've moved the date & time of this post to keep it from falling into the middle of the list. I considered shoving this up into the future, but I don't want it to come up first on the blog for the next however-long I do Book-A-Day. So I think I'll leapfrog it forward on weekends when it feels like it's getting too far into the past, and then do a final update whenever I decide Book-A-Day is done.

Further Update: This is moving forward on a basically monthly basis, as I catch up with that month's postings. And it will continue to be updated until February 3rd, 2011, which will be day 365.

Penultimate Update: The list is now updated through Day 330; I expect to update this one final time to bring it up to Day 365 and the end of Book-A-Day.