What was so great about that Alexander guy, anyway?

When I teach ancient lit, I have to cram 3000 years worth of culture, history, storytelling, geography, politics, art, religion, and on and on--all into fourteen weeks, give or take. It's a big task, hampered by the fact that, anything my students know about any of the works in question is usually heavily layered with a big fat "who cares?"

Gilgamesh? Who cares? Homer's Odyssey or Iliad? I had to read that in high school and couldn't get through it, I was so bored. Shakespeare? Really? You expect us to read that guy? These are the kinds of looks I get at the beginning of the semester. It's my job to change that attitude. I have to make books and poems from 2500 years ago interesting, relevant, and worth giving a damn.

Two of the many tools I use are humor (because, let's face it, whether it's in Chaucer or Captain Underpants, farts and poop are hilarious), and analogies to contemporary life.

These are some of the same things Vicky Alvear Shecter uses in Alexander the Great Rocks the World, an emminently readable biography (and more) of Alexander the Great.

As a biography, it reads a little odd--Shecter uses a very conversational voice, filled with sarcasm and biting humor, to convey the story. She also lets you know what she thinks about these figures from ancient history. But here's why it works: she knows her stuff. She's very well read; the book is very well researched, and so you feel like your in strong and steady hands as she guides you through the details of history. And, because she's so up front about her views on how these figures played out, what history says about these events, and what scholarship is reliable or not, you as a reader feel like you're in a conversation with the author.

The art and spot illustrations are fun--kind of a Mad Magazine's Dick Berg or Jack Davis sensibility to them--but sometimes can make you wince. And, I'll be honest, there are spots where the writing tries too hard to be hip, rather than relevant. Of course, that's more due to the aging of certain phrases and expressions(it was published nearly five years ago) than any actual problems with the book or writing style.

Overall, an enjoyable biography that opens up whole worlds of knowledge about Alexander's context, the social, political, and religious standards of his day, and how he revolutionized it all. Like all great biographies, it feels both intimate (you get a good sense of what made the world-conqeror tick) and epic. This is what's great about a writer who knows their stuff and works hard to draw you into a dialogue with their subject--you become a more active reader, which means you have to figure out why the material is worth giving a damn.

Sopranos, Fantasy-style (or this isn't one of those vamp lover books, thank goodness)

My pal Gwenda Bond recently posted about Holly Black's new novel, WHITE CAT, and all the reasons why everyone needs to read it. We both thought it was perfect for GLW so here is her (slightly edited) post to persuade you to go find this one, posthaste:

"Here is what I love most about White Cat: It's filled with surprises.

This is, of course, the newest novel by Holly Black. Long time readers know how much I heart her books, and a new one is always, always a treat. And it's the first in a series, even better. I actually read it some time ago, and have been meaning to write about it ever since. It's a book that crawls around in your brain for weeks afterward--or it did mine anyway.

I'm sure you know the premise already, but just in case. White Cat features an alternate version of our world, close in many ways, but different in a major one: Magic is real, but only a small percentage of the population known as curse workers can do it. Cassel is from a family of curse workers, but isn't one. Curse work is akin to the mafia in our world, and it's accomplished through touch, which means bare hands are forbidden by society. This first in the series begins with Cassel waking up on a roof at the boarding school where he's been playing at normal, only running a light bookie racket. The implication is that he's being worked, and he finds himself obsessing over the memory of a murder, one he himself committed. The journey that follows is witty, sly, and complicated. True darkness waits in the shadows of this world, and the reader is riveted by the twin hope that Cassel will manage to both master that darkness and escape it.

Many Waters: L'Engle's forgotten Murry twins

The start of the teenage years also marks, often, the beginnings of a deeper exploration of religion. Institutionalized with bar mitzvahs and confirmation, it is part of a search to understand oneself as the definition of that self becomes less clear. So it’s no surprise that quite a number of works for this age group take religion as a jumping off point for adventures in rapidly changing worlds. Philip Pullman’s Golden Compass series is a fantasy Paradise Lost for beginners, as Lyra is swept up out of her own Eden into a rebellion against heaven.

Pullman’s trilogy was pre-dated by Madeleine L’Engle’s Wrinkle in Time series, which approaches its religiosity at a more general level as a quest for order and against darkness. If the world were a just place, movie theaters would be packed with Team Sandy and Team Dennys tee-shirts, but it’s not and they’ve always been the neglected Murry siblings, strangely normal against the misfit and more-written-about siblings Meg and Charles Wallace.

Chilling Truth

Well, after I decided to review Stasiland this month, I read another book I wanted to recommend: The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates. It's about two guys from Baltimore, both named Wes Moore. One wrote the book, and was a Rhodes Scholar (a prestigious academic award). The other Wes is in prison for life with no possibility of parole. The author wrote to, and visited with him, before deciding to tell their stories.
For the writer, getting to know the other Wes Moore revealed some striking similarities: raised in fatherless families in poor African-American neighborhoods, both felt the lure of making money from selling drugs. The author got away from the criminal life, but the other Wes did not. Why? The author's mother and grandparents sent him away to military school. Obviously, that's not the whole story.

Dystopia, but NOT Fiction

I know that a lot of the GuysLitWire target audience is too young to remember the Cold War. The Soviet Union and its East European allies have been gone for twenty years or so. But when I read Stasiland: True Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall, I knew I had to tell you about it. In the mid-1990s, soon after East Germany had abandoned the dictatorship, Australian journalist Anna Funder went there to talk with people about life under that regime.

"The Stasi was the internal army by which the government kept control. Its job was to know everything about everyone, using any means it chose. It knew who your visitors were, it knew whom you telephoned, and it knew if your wife slept around. It was a bureaucracy metastasised through East German society: overt or covert, there was someone reporting to the Stasi on their fellows and friends in every school, every factory, every apartment block, every pub. Obsessed with detail, the Stasi entirely failed to predict the end of Communism, and with it the end of the country. Between 1989 and 1990 it was turned inside out: Stalinist spy unit one day, museum the next. In its forty years, 'the Firm' generated the equivalent of all records in German history since the middle ages. Laid out upright and end to end, the files the Stasi kept on their countrymen and women would form a line 180 kilometers long." (That's almost 112 miles.)

Fantastic Four Volume 1 by Jonathan Hickman

The Fantastic Four really haven't gotten a fair shake in the 2000s. Some might say that their basic premise, that of an oddball adventuring family, is simply out of date and way behind the times. I disagree. Clearly, very few writers have been able to handle the FF in the modern age of comics. John Byrne was one. Heck, Byrne is one of the main reasons why I read comics at all. His efforts on the Fantastic Four in the 80s were dead on perfect and unfortunately over before they should have been (blame creative differences - always the bane of Mr. Byrne).

There have been glimmers of hope since then, of course. Alan Davis tried, but didn't stick with the FF long enough. Mark Waid and Mike Wieringo (R.I.P.) had a spectacular run focusing on the four as imaginauts, but again it wasn't nearly long enough to re-establish the Fantastic Four as the preeminent team in the Marvel Universe (thank Marvel's ever-destructive editorial policies for that one).

And then there were the movies. Yeah...hmmmm....best leave it at that.

In recent years the Fantastic Four have been vehicles for Marvel's so-called "event" books, but the team and its core humanity has taken a back seat to plot-driven crossovers. My friends, that time is over. The FF are back and better than they have ever been, and it's all because of Jonathan Hickman.

If you're unfamiliar with Hickman's writing credentials, you've got some great reading to catch up on. One of his major projects before turning his attention to Marvel was Pax Romana, about the Catholic church sending a group back in time to right the wrongs of the church throughout history. Hickman is also systematically rewriting the Marvel Universe with his audacious S.H.I.E.L.D. series. But his Fantastic Four work is truly inspired and is a welcome return to the real meat of the series and the characters at the heart of it.

Volume one of Hickman's work has recently been released and I encourage anyone who once loved, still loves or possibly could love the Fantastic Four to read it. This arc primarily involves Reed Richards' attempts to solve every problem imaginable, which brings him into contact with a cohort of like-minded individuals. The ideas are big - monstrously big - but Hickman grounds them in an understanding of the characters that honestly has not been seen since Byrne or Waid. The focus of the series is now on family, first and foremost, and while that may seem cheesy and cornball to some, read the book before you make so many snap judgments. The FF has ALWAYS been about a dysfunctional, yet loving, family, albeit with superpowers. By drawing on that inspiration, Hickman has crafted a book that is thought-provoking and darn fun to read. I can't remember when I've enjoyed reading a comic book story as much as this.

After Civil Wars, Final Crises and every kind of Blackest Night you could imagine, it's refreshing to read a comic that inspires this much awe and wonder.

Prospero is a magician ("not the one you think" the narrator assures us) who battles a number of phobias. At the opening of John Bellairs The Face in the Frost, he is afraid of his own basement. This is a somewhat unusual condition even for Prospero, and to be fair, Prospero's house, "a huge, doodad-coveted, trash filled, two-story horror of a house," has a basement scarier than most. Prospero can't shake the feeling that something is wrong, and that he is being watched. In this he turns out to be right. His friend and fellow magician, Roger Bacon, also plagued by feelings of unease, has, practicing a regular habit of his, sneak up on Prospero and his house to observe. Once the two wizards are together within the house and set about investigating, they discover that they are surrounded by dark and malevolent beings. They plan a wizardly escape, but not before a good night's sleep and a hearty breakfast.

The Cardturner -- Louis Sachar

Alton Richards has just finished his junior year of high school. His girlfriend has dumped him and started dating his best friend. He has no job. (And no money.) His car just... stops working sometimes. And then he takes this phone call from his great-uncle, who is elderly, blind, and very, very rich:

"Do you know the difference between a king and a jack?" asked a gruff voice that did not belong to Mrs. Mahoney.

"Uh, yes, sir," I said.

My mother's eyes widened when she realized to whom I was talking. "Tell him he's your favorite uncle," she urged.

"Do you know how to play bridge?" asked my uncle.

I didn't, but thought that maybe I could fake it.

"Tell him you love him," said my mother.

"No," I said to my uncle (and to my mother).

"Good!" barked my uncle. "It's better that way!"

So begins Alton's summer of being Lester Trapp's eyes at the bridge table. Alton tries to keep his mind as empty as Trapp believes it to be, but it isn't long before he's fascinated by the game. And then, it isn't long before he's fascinated by Tori Castaneda, a girl who -- according to his mother -- belongs to a family that is not only certifiably crazy, but out to inherit Lester Trapp's fortune.

The Line by Teri Hall

The Line by Teri Hall
"An invisible, uncrossable physical barrier encloses the Unified States. The Line is the part of the border that lopped off part of the country, dooming the inhabitants to an unknown fate when the enemy used a banned weapon. It’s said that bizarre creatures and superhumans live on the other side, in Away. Nobody except tough old Ms. Moore would ever live next to the Line.

Nobody but Rachel and her mother, who went to live there after Rachel’s dad died in the last war. It’s a safe, quiet life. Until Rachel finds a mysterious recorded message that can only have come from Away. The voice is asking for help.

Who sent the message? Why is her mother so protective? And to what lengths is Rachel willing to go in order to do what she thinks is right?"- summary from Amazon

It took me a little while to get into this book. The beginning, with the world building, was a bit too infodump-y for me and I started to get bored. But the book did eventually pick up and it got more suspenseful, and I loved when a new secret was revealed.

Rachel is a wonderful character that is strong, but has doubts and reservations about what she's doing, and the character is written really well. When the ending comes, she knows what she has to do and realizes what it will entail. She's led a sheltered life and is now having to branch out on her own. It's a great scene at the end as she has to shed her kid self who's codependent toward her mother and step into her adult life and into the unknown.

So despite the shaky start, this is a really good novel that brings up a lot of issues, which dystopian novels tend to do, of the way our world could be going. And despite the female protagonist, I do still think guys would enjoy this book. I'm excited for the sequel which will be out next year.

Saved By Rock 'n' Roll: Fat Kid Rules the World

As K. L. Goings’s Fat Kid Rules the World begins, Troy, narrator and eponymous fat kid, has his life—like The Velvet Underground’s Jenny—saved by rock ‘n’ roll. Here, rock ‘n’ roll arrives in the guise of Curt, semi-homeless, semi-drop out, and musical legend around Troy’s school.