Review: My Man Jeeves

My Man Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse is one of those books that everyone says is funny, but I'm always suspicious that it actually is. So, get this - it is! My Man Jeeves is a collection of eight short stories by Wodehouse -- half feature the perfect* butler Jeeves and his employer, Bertie Wooster, while the others are about Reggie Pepper, an early prototype for Wooster. While I definitely preferred the Jeeves stories over the Pepper ones, the whole book is quite amusing. And short! Just the perfect thing to read between diaper changes and late night feedings, when your brain is too frazzled to read anything more serious. Or maybe that's just me.

Buy My Man Jeeves on Amazon or download free at Project Gutenberg.

*Edited for bad writing!

Short Story Reviews

I don't normally read short stories, but on a whim a while ago I bought two from one story after reading about it on She is Too Fond of Books. It took me a while to get around to reading them, too. I just don't think short stories are my thing. I'm always just left feeling like "that was it?" when I'm done. But I'll take a shot at writing a little about the two I read anyway. Just know that everything I say here should be read with a grain of salt. Short story buffs may feel totally differently.

Villanova: OR: How I Became a Former Professional Literary Agent by John Hodgman (One Story #1)

The basic story is that the narrator ("John Hodgman," one presumes) is a literary agent at some ghastly writing conference and a reclusive, crazy, science fiction writer superstar, who he decides to try to get as a client, is there as well.

I picked this one for a few reasons, none of which really have nothing to do with the actual story.
1) It was story #1 and I thought it might be cool to get the first one they published.
2) My best friend went to Villanova and I spent a lot of time there. Turns out, though, the story has nothing to do with the University and only very briefly mentions the town at all.
3) I think John Hodgman is funny on The Daily Show. And he is funny in the story, too, but I'm not sure how well that translated for me. Was this supposed to be tongue in cheek? It was hard to tell.

All in all, it was an interesting story but not great.

The Duck and the Dust Eye Decision by Shahan Sanossian (One Story #37)

I don't remember why I picked this one. The title just caught my eye, I guess. And then the first page pulled me in, so I bought it. This story is about a boy from an unhappy family that has a strange medical condition that makes the world look dusty. Are the unhappy because they see the world as brown and ugly? Or are they just unhappy people at heart? The boy may have the opportunity to travel for a cure, but that would mean leaving the insular, unhappy world his family has created.

This was a pretty unhappy story, I thought, but it was really thought-provoking. I thought it was different and interesting. I wish it wasn't so short, but that's a compliment to the author.

Wonderful Things at Tor.com

I visited Tor.com this weekend, which I'd never done before. I went to read a free short story written by John Scalzi, set in the Old Man's War universe, After the Coup. I poked around a bit, too, and came upon a most amazing little video that I just had to share with you: A Record Of Life from Owen Gatley and Luke Jinks on Vimeo.



This video makes me wish I could draw better. And compose music. Just wonderful!

Review: Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life

Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life by Roald Dahl is a collection of seven short stories written for adults, and originally published in magazines during the 40's. The stories are all centered on life in a country village, just after WWII, and follow the exploits of a small cast of characters. The star is Claud, a working class, good natured guy who is looking for an easy way to get ahead in life. Life in Dahl's stories can be sweet, but is just as frequently sour, and is always funny. If you've ever read Dahl's children's books to your kids and thought, This guy is weird and I love it, you'll get a kick out of Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life.

Buy Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life on Amazon.

Review: War by Candlelight

From the author’s website:

Something is happening around the globe: mass movements of peoples, dislocations of language and culture in the wake of war and economic crises —simply put, our world is changing.

As I previously mentioned, a neighbor of mine suggested that I read War by Candlelight, a book of short stories by Daniel Alarcón*. Actually, she suggested I read it about a year ago and lent me her copy. It fell to the bottom of my “to be read” pile and stayed there. I know it doesn’t really make sense, but I am always so apprehensive about reading a book that is recommended by a friend. And this was a book of short stories. I never read short stories.

The neighbor came over for dinner recently and I tried to give this book back to her, as I felt bad for keeping it for so long. When I told her that I had never gotten around to reading it, she grabbed the book out my hands and opened it to page 17, the first page of the story “city of clowns.” Read it tonight, she told me, you don’t even have to read the rest of the book, just read this story. Feeling chastised, after she left I sat down and read the story. Long story short, as you can guess, I loved the story. I finished it, and then flipped back to the first page of the book to read the rest of this collection.

As the quote at the top of this post alluded, and the title of the book more directly references, the overarching theme of this book is conflict. Much of it is real war, bloody and fought in jungles and streets. The rest is the quieter kind of crisis that takes place in our lives. I liked these stories more, to be honest. “City of clowns” is probably my favorite story in the book, though “third avenue suicide” and “a science for being alone” were also excellent, and quite moving. It’s the personal relationships that give these stories weight.

Globalization, movement and place are strings of themes that echo through these stories. It’s hard not to reference the author’s real life in light of this. As the biography and Q&A at the back of the book explain, Alarcón was born in Lima, Peru, raised in Birmingham, Alabama, educated many places, including Iowa, and now lives in Oakland, California. This is a man who knows what it is like to be new in town and to revisit a familiar town, only to find out it is no longer familiar.

Several of the stories suffered from what is a common complaint I have about short stories: too short! With such little space to write, these pieces felt like interesting sketches about a character or a place; they are evocative of mood but not much more. It will be interesting to read a longer work by the same author. Fortunately, Alarcón’s novel Lost City Radio was published in 2007, so we won’t have to wait.

Buy War By Candlelight on Amazon.

* In the interest of full disclosure, I need to share that I know Daniel Alarcón, albeit just in passing. He is also a neighbor of mine, though not one I have over for dinner. We’re more at the “say hello when we bump into each in the parking lot” level. But this review wasn’t spurred because of that. I didn’t have to review (or even finish) this book; I honestly liked it and wanted to share.