Exhalation: Stories

Chiang, Ted. Exhalation: Stories. New York: Knopf 2019. Print

First Sentences:

The story I have to tell is truly a strange one, and were the entirety to be tattooed at the corner of one's eye, the marvel of its presentation would not exceed that of the events recounted, for it is a warning to those who would be warned and a lesson to those who would learn.

Description:

I'll say right off the bat that I am a huge fan of Sci-Fi/Fantasy short story writer Ted Chiang and his mind-bending, exhilarating, and thought-provoking tales. His latest collection, Exhalation: Stories, continues his explorations into the world of the past, present and future in completely unexpected ways ranging from time travel to philosophy to alchemy to who knows what. Just plunge in to each story and hang on.

In "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate," an alchemist invents a time portal that, when one steps through it, travels exactly twenty years into the future. A common story, perhaps, but in Chiang's capable hands, the story keeps growing, re-shaping itself, bringing characters into completely different roles whether in the past, present, or future where they could possibly (or actually) influence the course of history. What would you do with such an invention? Sit back and find out, but it won't be what you expected.

"Dacey's Patent Automatic Nanny" describes the first automated child-raising robot, an experiment to provide all necessities to a baby to ensure the perfect upbringing. Of course, there are problems. But it is the calm, intellectual reasoning behind this story that separates if from a run-of-the-mill robot gone wrong tale.

Then there is a story, "The Great Silence" narrated by a parrot who wonders why mankind seeks intelligent life in the galaxy when he and his fellow sentient parrots are sitting right next to them, about to be made extinct before given the opportunity to talk with humans. Next, in the story "Omphalos," an anthropologist finds fossils (and a mummified man with no belly button) that prove Earth and all its inhabitants were created fully formed on a specific date, not evolved as is widely believed. How does mankind handle this sort of information? 

There's a description of a hand-held device that proves all actions in the world are already fated, not the result of free will. In one brilliant story, a man examines his own robotic brain to realize the human mind is gradually slowing down and their seemingly eternal life is very slowly dying.

Each story really makes readers concentrate, ask themselves questions, and try to understand implications of plots and actions that change the thinking of human since the world begin. Fantastic.

So buckle up and open you mind in every story to new directions and challenges to preconceived notions. Like his first collection, Stories of Your Life and Others (which contains "Story of Your Life" about extraterrestrial contact used as the basis for the Amy Adams film, Arrival). Highly recommended for all readers.

Happy reading. 

Fred

Other book recommendations
About The First Sentence Reader blog

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Chiang, Ted. Stories of Your Life and Others.   

Excellent, thought-provoking Sci-Fi stories involving alien landing on Earth, the construction of the tallest building in history that hits a previously-unknown solid ceiling enclosing the world, and many more exciting, fascinating stories.

The End of Your Life Book Club

Schwalbe, Will.The End of Your Life Book Club. New York: Knopf. 2012. Print

First Sentences:

We were nuts about the mocha in the waiting room at Memorial Sloan-Kettering's outpatient care center.

The coffee isn't so good, and the hot chocolate is worse. But if, as Mom and I discovered, you push the "mocha" button, you see how two not-very-good things can come together to make something quite delicious. The graham crackers aren't bad either.

Description:

Cancer-related books deeply affect me as someone who is three and a half years in remission from Stage 4 Large B-Cell Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Been there and done that. 

During that experience and currently, I read a lot of books about cancer and treatment as well as memoirs with personal stories written by fellow "combatants," (my term for any patient, doctor, family member or friend who has had to deal this disease first hand and continues to struggle against its possible return). 

Such writers detail, with humor and intelligence, their efforts to live life as a patient or care-giver without succumbing to the overwhelming sadness and helplessness brought on by this disease.

While these memoirs are fascinating to me as a cancer patient, I think they also are helpful to those living in "Wellville" (as Christopher Hitchens labels the non-afflicted populace in his brilliant cancer memoir, Mortality). These books gently and sometimes not so gently reveal to healthy people what we cancer patients experience, what we are thinking, and how we interact with friends and family. These memoirs reveal the long periods of uncertainty, of waiting, of hoping, and despairing with each new diagnosis and treatment. They describe the humor found in interactions with friends and medical environments alike. And they show the indomitable spirit of ordinary people.

Will Schwalbe's compassionate, humorous, and highly personal The End of Your Life Book Club is one of these great cancer combatant memoirs. In it, Schwalbe documents his relationship with his mother as she (and he) deal with her pancreatic cancer, usually a terminal form of the disease. Mother and son find themselves spending many hours in medical facilities waiting for appointments and treatments, passing the nervous minutes discussing any small matter, including the books each has recently read, to distract themselves. 

Seizing on their shared interest of reading, they form a two-person book club to insure that they read what the other is reading and can hold discussions that might take them away from the tedium of waiting. Through their comments about these books and the ensuing bantering talks, they slowly reveal details about their lives, their fears, and their hopes.

We learn that Mary Anne, Schwalbe's mother, is not merely a cancer patient, but a woman of wit and humor, of contemplation and intelligence. She is shown to be a complex, internationally-know humanitarian, the founder of the Women's Refugee Commission, a fundraiser for a new library in Afghanistan, director of admissions for major colleges, and a world traveler. And, of course, she is a voracious, opinionated reader. 

We also get to know Will Schwalbe and his struggles to cope with a family member facing terminal cancer. His worries and his hopes rise and fall with her treatments, revealed through the conversations between son and mother over books. The buoyancy and sadness these two experience with each diagnosis, pulls readers slowly and inexorably into their lives, their thoughts, and their emotions. Truly, these are two people you love getting to know.

While this may seem a depressing theme, the book is uplifting, funny, and introspective. Their dialog is witty and pointed as they argue over authors, chastise each other's book selection, and wander off-topic into areas that reveal their character.  

Each chapter focuses on a specific time period in her treatment and the book currently up for discussion. Schwalbe helpfully includes a bibliography at the end of the book listing all titles mentioned in their discussions, offering a plethora of reading temptations for any book lover.

The End of Your Life Book Club is highly recommended by one who has been there (me) as an accurate, sensitive portrayal of two individuals, one trying to maintain her wit and individuality while facing cancer treatments, and the other struggling with issues of care and support for a family member. Their relationship, their love of life, and their passion for books are inspiring, funny, and poignant. Please read this book.

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Mukherjee, Siddhartha. The Emperor of All Maladies.

Complete history of cancer from its first appearance and initial treatments to current efforts in the battle with this disease. Extremely readable and fascinating in its clear writing style, its depth of research, and its introduction of key milestones in cancer discoveries and treatments. 

Hitchens, Christopher. Mortality.

One man's personal thoughts on his battle with cancer. Very compelling reading to help readers understand what someone with this disease is feeling regarding his illness, how friends interact with him, care from his doctors, and his plans.

Diamond, John. Because Cowards Get Cancer Too: A Hypochondriac Confronts His Nemesis.

Thoughtful, personal, and humorous account of John Diamond's long struggle with cancer as originally told through his column in the Times of London. Highly recommended along with the Hitchens' book for anyone who wants to know what having cancer is like. His words ring true to me as a fellow cancer patient.

Halpern, Susan. The Etiquette of Illness: What to Say When You Can't Find the Words.

Excellent suggestions and practical applications for talking (or not talking) to people with illness: how to say what you want without causing offense or embarrassment, what they want you to say, when to just remain silent. Very valuable examples and advice for well-intentioned friends and family of patients of all ages and illnesses.

My Life in Prison

Lowrie, Donald. My Life in Prison. New York: Mitchell Kinnerley. 1912. Print

First Sentences:

I was broke. I had not eaten in three days. 

I had walked the streets for three nights. Every fibre of my being, every precept of my home training protested against and would not permit my begging.

I saw persons all about me spending money for trifles or luxuries. I envied the ragged street urchin as he took a nickel in exchange for a newspaper and ran expectantly to the next pedestrian. But I was broke and utterly miserable.

Have you ever been broke?

Have you ever been hungry and miserable, not knowing when or where you were going to get your next meal, nor where you were going to spend your next night?

Description:

I recently went through a period when I was drawn to prison books that describe life behind bars, particularly accounts written at the turn of the 20th century. It was fascinating to read these eye-witness accounts of men, prison life, guards, food, solitary, parole hearings, and, for some, eventual release into the world. 

While you may not be immediately attracted to this subject, let me tell you these memoirs have all the elements in spades for great reads: interesting characters, unusual plot, and high-quality writing. These books prove that, in the hands of an observant, sensitive, and skilled writer, any topic can be gripping and moving to read. To avoid them is to miss an opportunity to see a world and its inhabitants invisible to most people but, of course, well-known to criminals.

One of the best historical prison memoirs, in my opinion, is My Life in Prison by Donald Lowrie. In the early 1900s, Lowrie, ravenously hungry, steals a watch and purse (together worth about $100), is apprehended and sentenced to the maximum 15 years in San Quentin prison. Sentences were meant to be punitive in those days, as was every minute of the time spent behind bars.

Through his careful descriptions, readers immediately recognize that Lowrie, the narrator, is neither a low-life habitual criminal nor a violent, evil man. His words, descriptions, and reasoning shows an intelligent, sensitive observer of the men around him, his world of incarceration, and of himself. Step by step he calmly describes his short trial, sentencing, and initial walk into his new home where he is to be locked up for 15 years -- seemingly forever.

His first impressions are about the small details of his prison life, one of "long days and nights of chloride, of lime, [and] the carbonized atmosphere of jail."

Disinfectants are typical of jail; they are responsible for the "jail smell"; they are the mute apologies for a paucity of soap and water and the absence of God's sunshine....Jail atmosphere is always several degrees lower than that of the outside world -- it is always cellar-like. 

He describes the men he lives with who have committed minor as well as major crimes. Through their conversations and Lowrie's thoughts, these men do not appear as animals with untamed violence that must be treated with harsh means. These are men, like Lowrie, who faced challenges in their lives and responded quickly to steal, break, or harm something or someone. And they have been caught and given very long sentences as was the manner in those days. Their lives are now in the prison where they work in the jute mill, live in cells, and eat silently with others who also watch the days pass. 

In this era, there are no gangs, drugs, or rapes that have come to represent prison life in modern-day writings. This is a group of ordinary men who live an incredibly restricted existence of silence, punishment, and complete lack of opportunities to make any choices whatsoever: food, activities, conversations, clothes, hair, exercise, etc. It is this lack of self-direction that weighs the heaviest on them.

Of course, there are shocking occurrences related by Lowrie, including the punishment of wearing a special strait-jacket that trusses up the entire body from head to foot like a mummy. The man being punished is left for hours and sometimes even days encased in this jacket without the ability to move anything. It's a punishment that did drive men to insanity -- all for a small prison infraction. Lowrie calmly, intelligently details the bad food, riots, and other run-ins with guards and wardens. He also describes the silence that occurs in the evening before a court-decreed execution, and the policy where the dead man's clothes, if fairly new, are reassigned to a new prisoner, an action that disgusts Lowrie:

There was something unspeakably horrible about it. You smile! ... How would you like to be compelled to wear such clothing? How would you like to have your son, or brother, or father compelled to wear it?

What there is in these pages are friendships, stories of previous lives both in and out of prisons, and the sad and (sometimes) lighter daily life of these people that make this memoir so deeply affecting. The power of this book is the careful observations and conversations with inmates, guards, and the warden. Lowrie reveals their individual strengths and weaknesses, as well as their fears and sorrows. 

My Life in Prison is a challenging book which exposes readers to the realities of people experiencing prison life. It can be shocking, but overall there are never gratuitous descriptions of violence or horrors. Lowrie tells what he sees and hears, honestly, compassionately, and often sadly. That is all, and that is good enough for me. I loved it.

[Spoiler alert: In Lowrie's second book, My Life Out of Prison, we learn he was paroled after serving 10 years in San Quentin. In this second book, he describes his struggles with adapting to the outside world and his eventual success creating a position where he can assist former prisoners adapt to the outside world. He becomes a renown prison reform speaker and advocate for prisoners' rights. Equally well-written it is definitely worth reading as a follow-up to Lowrie's fascinating life and work.]

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Lowrie, Donald. My Life Out of Prison 

Followup to My Life in Prison that details Lowrie's life after being released, working and lecturing for prison reform. An excellent read about a fascinating life and commitment to change.

Number 1500. Life in Sing-Sing 

A man voluntarily goes undercover and is committed to Sing-Sing prison in the early 1900s to reveal what life behind bars is really like. Fantastic glimpse into early prison life and the men who populate and oversee these prisons.

Bates, Laura. Shakespeare Saved My Life 

Modern, true account of an English teacher who works with prisoners who have lived long terms in solitary confinement. Together, she and the prisoners discuss passages and plays from their cells that prevent them from seeing either the teacher or the others in their own cells. Riveting. (Previously reviewed here.)

Earley, Pete. The Hot House: Life inside Leavenworth Prison 

Reporter Earley spent almost two years interviewing prisoners deemed the most dangerous and incarcerate to long terms in the worst federal prison in the US. Similarity in revelations with My Life in Prison, but this shows a contemporary prison of 1987-1989 with deplorable conditions and prisoners much more violent and hardened than Lowrie or Number 1500 portrayed.

Denfeld, Rene The Enchanted

The "enchanted place" is a prison where the unnamed author writes from his death row cell. This fictionalized tale of life without names, without hope, with difficult lives and motivations, is sad, tragic, and anonymous. Yet there is a possible future through a woman and a priest who work with these men to have their cases re-examined and possibly change their sentencing. But not every prisoner, as we find out, want to stay his execution.

The Apprentice

Pepin, Jacques. The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen. New York: Houghton Mifflin 2003. Print.

First Sentences:

My mother made it sound like a great adventure.

Description:

Although I know next to nothing about food and its preparation, I still can appreciate quality writing and interesting, real-life stories from someone at the very top of this profession. Therefore, I highly recommend Jacques Pepin's autobiography, The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen for a glimpse into the world of kitchens, training, restaurants, and innovation by a renowned chef.

Pepin's mother opened a simple restaurant, Le Pelican, in rural France with a few recipes, no business experience, and certainly no restaurant training. Here Pepin and his brother Roland learned how to cook, clean, wait tables, and all other roles necessary to a professional enterprise. And where he learned to love cooking and restaurante, although his brother hated that life.

Pepin left school at 13 for Paris, boldly getting a position at Le Grand Hotel de l'Europe. More on-the-job training, growth, and then moving on to other restaurants. He climbs from being a gopher called "P'tit" [Kid] to tending a stove, an honor recognized when the chef finally drops the nickname and calls him by his real name, "Jacques." He moves up to be the commis [chef assistant] and finally head chef. Pepin brings readers into each kitchen and their head chefs, carefully describing the environment of a first-class restaurant and the tasks necessary to produce the highest quality food. 

There are humorous stories as well, as when the very young Pepin was sent by the head chef to several restaurants to pick up their "machine a dessosser les poulets [chicken-boning machine] from another restaurant. Each location had an excuse for not having that machine and sent him along to another location, over and over until Pepin returned sadly empty-handed to his chef. Only then did he realize there was no such machine and he had passed an initiation into the restaurant family. In another story, Pepin's love of juicy pears is tested as he sneaks one of the chef's "des poires avocat" [avocado pears], biting into the leathery skin and hard seed of an avocado for the first time.

Later, Pepin travels to New York and contrasts the restaurant standards and chefs with those from France. His experiences lead him in the 1960s to, of all places, Howard Johnson's restaurants to help them upgrade the quality of their food and make it consistent in all their one thousand restaurants, a unique concept at the time. Instead of cooking for only a few restaurant patrons, Pepin now learned how to prepare clam chowder, a HoJo specialty, in stockpots of 500 or 1000 gallons.

Story after story are simply told as if Pepin is sitting next to you recalling his life. He has a charming writing style that fully reveal the picture he is painting:

Then there was [the chef's] look, a look that will recur in my nightmares as long as I live, not so much a look of anger as one of disdain, a gaze that lasted but a fraction of a second, yet made it clear that your pathetic little error was far beneath the level of his contempt. 

From cooking for Charles de Gaulle to working with Julia Child and every other great chef, from writing the classic book on the exacting techniques of preparing and cooking to traveling the world conducting cooking workshops and television shows, Pepin shows he is a giant in the kitchen and the world of cooking. Highly recommended for lovers of food, kitchen life,and fine writing.

Happy reading. 

Fred

(See more recommended books)
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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Fechtor, Jessica. Stir: My Broken Brain and the Meals That Brought Me Home. 

After a chef suffers an unexpected aneurysm, she rediscovers her love of cooking and eating. The book is filled with beautiful writing, recipes, and stories of the joy and struggles in her life. (previously reviewed here) 

Gaffingan, Jim. Food: A Love Story

The opposite end of the food spectrum. Stand-up comedian Gaffigan is a self-proclaimed "Eatie," who will eat and enjoy simple items like hamburgers. He reviews food choices in the United State and some international cuisines, as well as comments on several restaurants both ordinary and pretentious. Very funny. (previously reviewed here)

Nothing To Do But Stay

Young, Carrie. Nothing To Do But Stay. Iowa City: University of Iowa.1991. Print

First Sentences:

My pioneer mother was wild for education.

She fervently believed that young people given enough schooling and using the brains they were born with could rise above themselves as far as they wanted to go, the sky the limit. She herself, with no formal education of any kind, had managed to live a life characterized from end to end with vision and courage.

Description:

This winter has been pretty cold for most of us living in the United States, dipping to minus temperatures from the Midwest to the east coast and even the south, with wind chill in double digit minus degrees. Schools were closed, businesses shut down, food shelves picked bare, and most of us hunkered down underneath blankets in our homes to wait it out.

Now picture yourself around the turn of the century, living alone in a one-room shack on your undeveloped 160 acres on the North Dakota plains facing a real winter. You must live there for six months to qualify to purchase the land. Now imagine you are a young woman with little education, no knowledge of farming, and whose nearest neighbor is miles away, leaving you alone ... alone in the cold. And then the temperatures dip even further below already impossibly cold temperatures, with high drifts of snow blocking all roads and even paths to the barn and the responsibilities of farm animals. 

Now that is a hard winter, one experienced every year by Carrie Gafkjen, Norwegian settler and pioneer in the early 1900s in North Dakota. Nothing To Do But Stay by Carrie Young tells the stories of her mother and family pursuing their homestead dreams in the early 1900s in North Dakota when thousands of acres were unclaimed, ready to be improved by early intrepid settlers. 

Having worked as a cook and housekeeper in Minneapolis for ten years, saving all her earnings, Carrie Gafkjen set off in the late 1890s for North Dakota at age 25 along with other Norwegian immigrants with the determination to settle her own land. If she could live in her hastily-erected one room shack for six months, break a portion of the land with a plow, and bar the door against the wolves that came around every night, the government would allow her to purchase the land. 

The prospects were daunting. Some women had come to these prairie lands with new husbands, men who had been desperate to convince someone to help with housekeeping and companionship in the vast loneliness of the prairie. Most of these women had packed everything, left their homes, and traveled far from civilization by train and wagon to this isolated territory. Now, facing this foreign treeless land, their new ramshackle "home," sensing the isolation from friends and family, but realizing the impossibility of return, they decided that whether they liked it or not, there was nothing to do but stay. 

But Carrie Gafkjen knew what she was in for, what she had worked and saved for, and she never looked back. After "proving up" (qualifying) to purchase her land, for the next eight years she spent the winters working in another household before returning in spring to her property and hiring herself out as cook for a local threshing crew. She continued to cook for the men even after she married one of the threshers (who also happened to be from Norway), and raised six children.

And what a life she made for herself. Cooking for a ravenous, 40-man threshing group involved her preparing breakfast for the entire crew at 4:30am (eggs, pancakes, coffee); mid-morning meal (pies, sandwiches, doughnuts, coffee); noon dinner (mashed potatoes, beefsteak, creamed carrots and peas, fresh-baked bread, pie); mid-afternoon lunch at 4pm (more pies, doughnuts, coffee); and finally a cold supper (fried potatoes, cold pork, macaroni, pickles, and cake). The men often did not leave her house until dark, with the author's oldest sisters doing dishes until past midnight. And she did this every single day. 

Author Young recalls many vivid stories about her own life on her parents' small farm as well. Particularly vivid are stories of cold, with snows so heavy that she and her sister have to live in their school house for weeks at a time because the roads are blocks. Not so bad, you might think. But when the wild mustangs come each night to bump up against the thin walls to seek protection from the wind and bitter cold, the noise is definitely frightening to very young school children on their own.

There are struggles during the desperate years of drought in the 1930's, excursions into turkey-raising, the secret Christmas tree for the church decorated by two bachelor farmers, and pooling funds to pay for brothers and sisters to attend college.

And the food she cooks. Author Young lovingly describes the luscious Norwegian cookies, the elaborate feasts at Thanksgiving and Christmas, potato salad, lefse (potato pancake), rommegrot ("the Norwegian national porridge whose recipe reportedly has been handed down from generation to generation"), three-day buns, cakes, pies, and the unbelievably delicious ice cream fresh-churned on Christmas and the Fourth of July. 

The ice cream is made by two men who open their ice house to their neighbors for the annual Fourth of July feast. The local woman create the mix and the children take turns churning fresh ice cream from noon to dark. It would be their last ice cream until Christmas, so is enjoyed in huge quantities. As people leave the celebration absolutely stuffed with ice cream and many other plates and bowls of food, the ice house men yell, "Do you call this eating ice cream? Come back this evening and we'll show you some real eating!"

I loved these people, these settlers and their families who could do whatever it took to survive and proper in this harsh prairie land. Their experiences, from schooling to farming, from social gatherings to private traditions, are wonderful to real and experience vicariously. They live without complaints, tolerating the bad luck and differences in others quietly, and supporting each other in their families. It is just what people do in that place during those times, a matter-of-fact way of life that is so admirable in its purposefulness and personal satisfaction in doing a job well.   

While this well-written, captivating depiction of a wide variety of people, it is the adult women like Carrie Gafkjen who takes the spotlight. It is the women who make this inhospitable world manageable for their men and children.

...most of these women had an inner strength that seldom failed them. They could cry like babies at christenings and weddings, sniffling into their hemstitched handkerchiefs, but when the chips were down they were dry-eyed and fearless as lions. They could seize a garden hoe and cut a snake to ribbons who was approaching a baby on the grass,. They could stand beside their husbands and beat off prairie fires with wet rugs. They could climb a seventy-foot windmill tower to bring down a terrified child. They could lance infected wounds. They didn't know what taking a vacation was.

These are the women of our history. Nothing To Do But Stay is one of my favorite books to recommend to anyone interested in personable writing about quality people and their lives of perseverance, tradition, and family life.

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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If this book interests you, be sure to check out:

Young, Carrie. The Wedding Dress

More wonderful recollections about the people and life in the small farming community on the North Dakota plains. (previously reviewed here)

Rich, Louise Dickinson. We Took to the Woods

Memoirs of her isolated life in the backwoods of Maine with family and friends, working as a guide, facing daily trials humorously, and lovingly depicting the beauty of the wild nature around her. (previously reviewed here) 

Special Post - My Old Reliable Authors Who Always Satisfy

It pains me when friends tell me they just read a book they hated. They finished it anyway, gritting their teeth, because they couldn't think of anything else to read. Even worse, they say they now have no idea what title to pursue next.

Judging books and accepting/rejecting them based on their first sentences eliminates this wasting of time on unworthy books. However, when I am stuck to find a quality read, I turn to my "Old Reliable" authors, familiar men and women who deliver their style, great content, and characters that never fail to entertain me. They always make me put aside any thoughts of other books, household chores, or even sleep. 

My Old Reliables thankfully have written multiple books which feature the same characters I love with new adventures that lure me in like a comforting cup of hot chocolate on a rainy night.  

As a kid, I enjoyed the Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan books, reading all 26 titles in the series, then starting them over again and then starting over again until my parents told me I had to read something else. Of course, the Hardy Boys and Chip Hilton fed my mystery and sports needs, while Isaac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke made me dream of the future, space travel, and cool technology. As an adult, I have discovered other writers to turn to.

Below are some of my Old Reliable authors and the first books in their series along with the first sentences and the book jackets should you wish to judge by a cover. Maybe you can find something that will prevent your "nothing to read" blues or find a holiday present for some lucky reader.

Feel free to add your favorite Old Reliable authors in the Comments link below if you have a similar go-to relationship with certain authors and want to share.

Happy reading. 

Fred

www.firstsentencereader.blogspot.com

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Robot short stories - Isaac Asimov

Ninety-eight -- Ninety-nine -- one hundred. Gloria withdrew her chubby little forearm from before her eyes and stood for a moment, wrinkling her nose and blinking in the sunlight. Then, trying to watch in all directions at once, she withdrew a few cautious steps from the tree against which she had been leaning.

          - from "Robbie" short story in I, Robot

Description:

The fictionalized stories about the history of robots, from early personal nanny units to one that runs for president, but will not divulge whether he is a man or a robot - and what difference it might make. Great stories, great science, and plenty to challenge one's moral and sociological reasoning.

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John Dortmunder and his gang of small time criminals - Donald Westlake

"Yes," Dortmunder said. "You can reserve all this, for yourself and your family, for simply a ten-dollar deposit."

         - from The Bank Shot (The first book, The Hot Rock was previously reviewed here)

Description:

Clever, humorous, complex, and totally satisfying reads about a small time group of criminals, planning and executing interesting crimes, and being thwarted along the way by unforeseen circumstances. Each caper is completely different and beguiling in its own way. Very, very funny and satisfying on every level.

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Bookman crime series - John Dunning

Slater wasn't my kind of cop. Even in the old days when we were both working the right side of the good-and-evil beat, I had been well able to take Mr. Slater or leave him alone. 

         - from Bookman's Wake (The first book, Booked to Die, was previously reviewed here)

Description:

Cliff Janeway, former cop turned rare book dealer after an altercation with his department, loves books - rare, pristine, and full of great words from the masters. Much of Dunning's mysteries explore the pre-Internet world of book dealing, searching for and discovering the perfect edition sitting on the two dollar shelf at a Goodwill or on the shelves of another collector. But there is a darker side to these books, one that pulls at a reluctant Janeway: murder. No graphic violence to speak of here, and the plots, writing, and characters are superb. And as a bonus there is much insider information about rare books, so who could want for more?

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Jeeves and More - P.G. Wodehouse

Archibald Mealing was one of those golfers in whom desire outruns performance. 

          - from "Archibald's Benefit" in The Golf Omnibus

Description:

Wodehouse is one of my ideal writers (with Donald Westlake). Clever, always original, funny, and biting on a wide variety of topics. Whether poking fun at the idle wealthy via hapless Bertie Wooster and his highly competent servant Jeeves, or simply watching R. Psmith, Uncle Fred, or a host of other characters toddle through life, Wodehouse never fails to make me laugh and take a gleeful pleasure in the originality of his stories and wit.

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Kinsey Millhone alphabet mysteries - Sue Grafton

My name is Kinsey Millhone. I'm a private investigator licensed by the state of California. I'm thirty-two years old, twice divorced, no kids. The day before yesterday I killed someone and the fact weighs heavily on my mind.

          - from A Is for Alibi

Description:

Small town private investigator Kinsey Millhone explores and solves local crimes. While this may sound trivial, the characters, writing and plots are very strong and compelling. Not sure what it is about these books, but they pull me in from the first pages and hold me right up to the end. Don't knock them until you've tried them.

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Swedish Police crime - Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo

At a quarter to three the sun rose.

          - from The Man on the Balcony (The first book, Roseanna was previously reviewed here)

Description:

Swedish husband and wife authors created this dark, 10-book police procedural series of Martin Beck and his Swedish homicide squad. Their characters are ordinary people, slowly, intelligently, unravelling murder cases using a methodical process that is gripping as it is original in content and writing. 

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Life in the Maine Backwoods - Louise Dickinson Rich

During most of my adolescence -- specifically, between the time when I gave up wanting to be a brakeman on a freight train and the time when I definitely decided to become an English teacher -- I said, when asked what I was going to do with my life, that I was going to live alone in a cabin in the Maine woods and write.   

It seemed to me that this was a romantic notion, and I was insufferably smug over the own originality.

          - from We Took to the Woods

Description:

Author Rich cleverly, humorously, and engagingly tells stories of her life and family living in the backwoods of Maine, from preparing meals when snowed in for the winter, to keeping a pet skunk, to watching the ice break up and the timber log rushing down the river. Absolutely the best books to curl up with on a cold winter night.

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Three Men in a Boat series - Jerome K. Jerome 

There were four of us - George, and William Samuel Harris, and myself, and Montmeremcy. We were sitting in my room smoking, and talking about how bad we were -- bad from a medical point of view I mean, of course.

- from Three Men in a Boat

Description:

These are wry, unbelievably hilarious novels of three men and one dog who set out to sail a small boat down the river in England. The fact that they have no previous boating experience, continually make cutting comments about each other, and generally are completely hapless in all aspects of water transportation (and life) adds to the fun.

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North Dakota homesteading - Carrie Young

My pioneer mother was wild for education. She fervently believed that young people given enough schooling and using the brains they were born with could rise above themselves as far as they wanted to go, the sky the limit. She herself, with no formal education of any kind, had managed to live a life characterized from end to end with vision and courage.

          - from Nothing to Do But Stay

Description:

Quiet, honest, and warmly captivating true stories about life on the North Dakota plains by an intrepid woman trying to survive and hold onto her home alone with her children in the early 1900s. Lovely books written by the main character's daughter - these are great, great reads.

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Man vs. obstacles humor - Tony Hawks

You know, your problem is that you're in denial.  

No I'm not. 

I rest my case. 

          - from Playing the Moldovans at Tennis. (His first book, Round Ireland with a Fridge was previously reviewed here)

Description:

I just love Hawks' ridiculousness, from hitch-hiking around Ireland toting a portable refrigerator to challenging the entire Maldovian national soccer team players to tennis matches, Hawks never fails to entertain and make me laugh.

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Hatchet survival series - Gary Paulsen

Brian Robeson stared out the window of the small plane at the endless green northern wilderness below. It was a small plane -- a Cessna 406 -- a bush plane -- and the engine was so loud, so roaring and consuming and loud that it ruined any chance for conversation. Not that he had much to say.

          - from Hatchet

Description:

Although technically young adult fiction, I love the survival tales of Brian who finds himself stranded alone in the Canadian wilderness who must now survive by his own wits. Hatchet and Brian's Winter are my favorites and worthy gifts for any young person (or adult) to whom you can read these adventure stories or can read by themselves.

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Jack Reacher crime series - Lee Child

I was arrested in Eno's diner. At twelve o'clock. I was eating eggs and drinking coffee. A late breakfast, not lunch. I was wet and tired after a long walk in heavy rain.

          - from The Killing Floor

Description:

OK, a secret vice of mine. Jack Reacher, ex-military MP, a tough guy's tough guy, drifts around the country with nothing but the clothes on his back, reluctantly being sucked into situations where he faces incredibly bad, violent people. He is a gripping figure, one who thinks and acts clearly and swiftly for the right cause. Not sure I want to actually be him, but I admire his confidence, skills, mental powers, and his commitment to see things through. Caution: each book contains some graphic violence.

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Wit and Relationships - Jane Austen

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

         - from Pride and Prejudice

Description:

I admit to never having read a Jane Austen book, but I am eagerly looking forward to the day when I finally sit down with one of her magnificent books. Biting, wise, and off-beat looks at the lives and relationships of the wealthy and not so wealthy English landed gentry. True love wins out in the end despite delightful and unwitting obstacles. Definitely my next series to read.