Category Archives: Books

Dark Age Ruminations (Hurricane Sandy Inspired)

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Let’s think seriously about “apocalypse.” Stay with me. This will be brief. The dictionary definition is:

“noun, the complete final destruction of the world, esp. as described in the biblical book of Revelation; an event involving destruction or damage on an awesome or catastrophic scale: a stock market apocalypse / an era of ecological apocalypse.”

However, I’m not thinking of “apocalypse” in the biblical sense; or in the nuclear-annihilation sense.

Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Hurricane Sandy this past week provided us with a  vivid picture of how the apocalypse of modern civilization might go. The suffering of the people of New Orleans, New Jersey, and New York could be widespread in the not-too-distant future. (Any city or state with “New” in its name has reason to be frightened.)

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Finished Reading ‘The Casual Vacancy’ — Now The Hard Part

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Stayed up way late last night (nothing unusual about that) and finished “The Casual Vacancy.” I reached that point where you’re so close to the end, you don’t dare put it down.

Adventure stories have a chase scene near the end, to step up the tempo and raise the suspense.

Mysteries have a detective following the evidence, piecing it together, closer and closer, the danger mounting, until . . .

J.K. Rowling’s wounded and wounding humans wander in circles, running away, crossing paths, reversing direction . . . not seeing the obvious until it’s too late . . . the sirens come . . . bringing them all together, sort of, . . . and they find themselves . . . and each other . . . or not.

Whew! A great novel. Now all I have to do is find time to write a review that’s worthy of the author, the book, and the characters.

— John

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So Many Books, So Little Time

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I haven’t forgotten about my unfinished review of J.K. Rowling’s “The Casual Vacancy.”  I’m on p. 448. The pace of the story is picking up as I near the end @ p. 503. It’s a wonderful book tracing an intricate web of human interactions, hypocrisy and deceit. I haven’t written another interim installment of the review (the first part is here) partly because I hardly know where to begin.

And partly because I’ve been busy with so many other projects, like trying to become a photographer and to improve this blog. Hard to believe I’ve written 12 posts on other subjects in the intervening days. Casual Vacancy, despite its length, is a book I would easily finish in two days (and enjoy more) if only I could sit down and read it straight through.    Continue reading →

J.K. Rowling’s “Casual Vacancy” Zooms to Top of Lists

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The book was published the last week of September, and already “The Casual Vacancy” has hit No. 1 on bestseller lists.

J.K. Rowling’s first novel for adults is No. 1 on the New York Times lists for hardback fiction, combined fiction and nonfiction, and eBook fiction. The three “Fifty Shades of Grey” books have been pushed down to second, third and fourth places  on the lists.

Casual Vacancy also is listed first for in-store hardback sales at Barnes & Knoble. Surprisingly, the book is only No. 8 on B&N’s list for Nook eBooks.

On Amazon, Casual Vacancy is listed No. 3, behind something called “The Mark of Athena” by Rick Riordan, and “Killing Kennedy: The End of Camelot,” by Bill O’Reilly.

On USA Today’s bestseller list, Casual Vacancy is No. 1. The book is also at the top of fiction bestseller lists in the United Kingdom.

— John Hayden

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J.K. Rowling’s “Casual Vacancy,” Book Review, Take 1

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“The Casual Vacancy”  is instantly notorious because it’s J.K. Rowling’s first novel for adults. It comes with a prominent black “X” on the cover, fair warning that between these covers you’ll find a subject that’s TABOO in America.

The subject is class warfare and classism. Ms. Rowling’s story takes place in England, and you have to remember that the British and Europeans are not as squeamish about class issues as we Americans. Until recently, we’ve been in full denial.

(If you’d like to read my preview of Casual Vacancy before you start the review, see J.K. Rowling’s “The Casual Vacancy — Prices Slashed.)

Ms. Rowling takes the micro approach to class warfare, focusing on the lives, relationships, and foibles of the individual men, women and children of one small town in England. The macro alternative would be a “God’s-eye view,” examining society from a distance. Rowling understands that you need to get up close and personal to understand classism and class warfare.

In the first 100 pages of Casual Vacancy, Rowling introduces an average of one new character every two pages.

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“Casual Vacancy” Note No. 1

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“CASUAL VACANCY” NOTE NO. 1  I’ve read the first 97 pages of J.K. Rowling’s “Casual Vacancy.”  It’s going to be one heck of a story! More complicated than I expected. Many characters, introduced rapid-fire. I do believe Ms. Rowling is going to dissect contemporary social mores and put the whole bloody mess under a high-powered microscope. Probably not for the faint-hearted. I’ll start on the review as soon as my head stops spinning.  — John

“Casual Vacancy” Selling Fast

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Walmart’s free-standing display for J.K. Rowling’s “Casual Vacancy” has room for 12 hardbacks. Early Sunday evening, only two copies were left.  Don’t know when it was last restocked, but the book is selling briskly. I’ve been so busy I haven’t had time to even start reading it. But I promise, a first installment on the review will appear here shortly.

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J.K. Rowling’s “The Casual Vacancy” — Prices Slashed

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Got it! A first-edition hardback of “The Casual Vacancy,”  by J.K. Rowling, published in the U.S. and Great Britain this week. The 503-page tome comes with a cover price of $35 ($36.99 in Canada), but Walmart has it on deep discount at $24.50.

The Casual Vacancy may signal a turnaround for quality in popular fiction. Where can it go but up, after “Hunger Games“ and “Fifty Shades of Grey?”  Talk about your lowest common denominator!

I plan to do one of my serialized book reviews for Casual Vacancy, with updates posted every few days, as I read.

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Anne Tyler’s Excellent Paragraph(s)

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ANNE TYLER

I know, I know. I’ve bogged down in two treacherous subjects. Politics (boring) and economics (more so).  This political-economic obsession can only lead to dystopia, which is a particularly virulent strain of paranoia. Dystopia-paranoia flu is spreading quickly. Scientists worry about a pandemic.

There’s no known cure, but a good novel about human beings and their foibles couldn’t hurt. (You might also try a bowl of chicken soup.) If it’s foibles you want, Anne Tyler is the leading specialist. As Exhibit A, I submit the following paragraph from her latest book, The Beginner’s Goodbye.

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