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By Terry Pratchett

At last! At last! It’s finally here! The newest Pratchett book! And it’s just as wonderful as I hoped it would be. Wintersmith is the third story about a 13 year old witch that grew up on the Chalk, Tiffany Aching. It’s also the third story that includes the Nac Mac Feegle as intrinsic characters. I must say that although Pratchett has created some excellent characters throughout the Discworld series, the Nac Mac Feegle are, hands down, the funniest by far (in my opinion at least)

If you haven’t read any of the Discworld novels then may I suggest you start right now, at this very moment. You might want to start with “The Wee Free Men” as It is the first of the Tiffany Aching stories and we are introduced properly to the Nac Mac Feegle (they have appeared before but only a few sentences here and there)

If you don’t have the time to read an entire novel before you read the rest of this review then let me sum up the Nac Mac Feegle for you: They’re 6 inch tall blue, magical hooligans that think they’re already dead (deid) because they’re having such a wonderful time in this life that they must be in heaven. They drink, fight, drink, steal, drink and say “Crivens!” quite often. Their leader is named Rob.

Rob Anybody.

And the only thing that scares him is the big wee hag, the hag o’hags and the kelda (his wife) The Big wee hag is Tiffany Aching, the Nac Mac Feegle are under a geas to watch over and protect her because she is the witch of their homeland, and the Kelda will kick their collective arses if anything happens to her.

The Hag o’hags is Granny Weatherwax, the most powerful witch in Discworld. Witches have no leader but if there was ever one person that wasn’t the leader most, it would be Granny Weatherwax.

In “Wintersmith” Tiffany Aching comes upon her toughest rival yet, a boy. Since she’s only 13 she doesn’t know much about love. However, since she grew up on a sheep farm, she does know all of the mechanics. This story continues Tiffany’s struggle with her peers (some of whom are snotty and ridiculous), the death of her host witch, and just how she is going to bring Summer back now that the Wintersmith has decided on her for a Bride. All while trying to keep the Nac Mac Feegle from reading her diary (if it didna have a look on it, hae wul we noo no ta reid it?)

There are even some new characters to get acquainted with. Horace and You are a great addition to the Discworld. And there’s always a guest appearance from an OLD FRIEND.

Read this book. Don’t make any excuses, just go read it. You’ll laugh and cry at the same time.

By P.G. Wodehouse, narrated by Jonathan Cecil

In “Love Among the Chickens” we are introduced to Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge, a great mastodon of a man who charges through life and lives of several other people, as though it were a race to see who can upset the most tea-carts. He’s not the main character, but he is everyone’s main problem.

Jerry Garnet, the actual main character, is bustled into the chicken farm business with his old school-chum Ukridge. Ukridge, the protagonist? Perhaps he’s the antagonist? I’m not sure. Booming through blunder and guffaw without prejudice, Ukridge ends up getting Garnet into more trouble than a barrel full of weasels. Certainly it was not a barrel full of monkeys. But in the end the guy gets the girl, the bills get paid and the professor wins at golf. And miraculously, Ukridge somehow comes out looking like the capable dashing hero that he consistently professes himself to be. Who’da thunk it.
 A very sweet story.

By Eve Titus

It’s funny how much you forget about children’s books when you grow up. I remember reading all sorts of books that took me so long to finish and now when I pick them up I realize that there were about 14 words per page and the books maxed out at 70 pages. Basil of Baker Street is a little more complex (let’s say 100 words per page) It’s a children’s version of a Sherlock Holms mystery. Indeed the main character is billed as the Sherlock Holms of the mouse world. He and his faithful Doctor friend Dawson even move their little mouse colony (Holmstead) into Holms’ basement. All the elements are there: the violin music, the deductive reasoning and even a little pipe (Titus wisely omitted the cocaine use) Fun to read, this book was 20 minutes of nostalgia wrapped up in silly puns. Read it to your children.

By Tim Russert

I tried to read this book. I really really tried. For the sake of all the “Blue-collar” people that wrote to Russert to share stories about their own fathers, I tried. In order to give them some of the respect I felt sure must have been their due. For standing up to the world and saying “I love my dad!” the least I could do was listen and say “Well, that’s nice.”

But I failed. Okay, not so much failed as got so disgusted by the complete arrogance of Tim Russert that I had to stop reading. In a nutshell, Russert took all these nice stories about people and their life experiences and turned it into one big “Wow! Look at all the stuff I’ve done! I’m so cool! People really liked my other book so I thought I better write another one but didn’t have enough inspiration so I just published their letters to me and added my own opinions to it. And in between I was able to tell people how utterly great I am!”

Sure, you may think that I’m being a bit too hard on the man but let me just say this:

“I was seated at a [book signing] table at a Barns & Nobel in Fifth Avenue in Manhattan…”

“I served as council to New York senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, which led, eventually, to a similar position in the governor’s office in Albany, which was followed by an executive job at NBC.”

“When Luke was two, I went to China with the Today show.”

“When Luke was graduating from High School, his class asked me to give the commencement address.”

“When I asked Maria Shriver about her father, Sergeant Shriver, founder of the peace corps and George McGovern’s running mate in 1972…”

“In 1981, Jane Fonda had the unusual experience of making a movie with her father….”A lot of Norman Thayer was my father,” she told me..”

“In the spring of 2005 , I interviewed three justices from the United States Supreme Court….I asked [Antonin Scalia] what he had learned from his dad.”

“When I interviewed Rush Limbaugh…”

“And when I asked Rudy Giuliani…”

“I’ll never forget a conversation I had with former senator George McGovern…”

and my personal favorite use of a name for notoriety:

(after a tribute to the Washington Nationals on opening night at RFK Memorial Stadium) “…President Bush came out in a Washington Nationals jacket…he threw out the first pitch-high and inside. Then he walked off the mound and headed for the third-base dugout.
  Just before he went in, he spotted Luke and me and yelled, “Nice seats, Russert!” For that moment, it seemed to me, he had slipped back into his former incarnation as the owner of the Texas Rangers – the very team, as it happened, that had taken over the old Washington franchise.”

Um, excuse me? it seemed to Russert, he had slipped back into his former incarnation as the owner of the Texas Rangers? Sweet Merciful CRAP! How egomaniacal can you get? What the deuce does this little parable have to do with anything, let alone the subject of the book, other than showing the reader how Russert is so successful that he’s on a first name basis with the President ?!?

I’ll be the first to admit that I didn’t know that he and Bushie were pals. But then again, I wouldn’t know that because I’m only a blue-collar worker and not privy to the goings-on of the high echelons of society. I am a simple peon in this world, like many of the people who contributed their stories to this man in order for him to write this piece of self-righteous donkey-fodder and make tons of money. Woops! I may have gone too far there. Let me clarify, only parts of this book are crap. I quite liked most of the letters.

I also didn’t know that Russert was such a maven of fatherly advice. He introduces each of the letters with a sentence or two of his own special wisdom. Want an example? Whooo-boy, there are plenty:

“Every now and then, a father says something really important. And every once in a great while, a son is listening – and learning.”

“Years later, a father’s boyhood experience continues to inspire his son.”

“When you don’t have much, hold on to everything you’ve got.”

Unfortunately, it just goes on. It was sad to see these stories abused in such a manner. It’s also very difficult to witness the man’s complete lack of respect for the poor comma. What the hell has the comma ever done to you, Mr. Russert? Commas are intended for use when there would be a natural pause in conversation to emphasize your meaning, Mr. Russert, NOT every three words (see how I did that?)

Look, if you really want to read this book do yourself a favor and skip through all the bullshit at the beginning about Russert and his greatness. Go directly to the letters themselves and ferchrissakes don’t read the chapter introductions. In fact, I suggest you even take the book jacket off before reading it or you’re going to have to stare at the man every time you put the book down.

By Stephen Hawking, narrated by Simon Prebble

I didn’t start to like physics until after I graduated from college. Up until then I was haunted by Ms. Zebarth, my high school physics teacher who used to prance around the room letting her bra straps fall off her shoulders and flirting with all the boys in the class (which were many because there were only 3 of us girls)

Ah, High school. If I were to make a list of the periods in my life I would not want to repeat I think high school would be up right up there with the year after my dad got married to the mother of my classroom nemesis and the year I thought blue eye shadow was “pretty” (WHY are the 80′s coming back?)

But something funny happened to me after college. I read a book called the dancing Woo-Li brothers. I won’t pretend I understood it at all. I don’t even think I liked it but it made me realize that there were more things going on in this universe than I once presumed and the fact that there were going on all the time and all around me made me curious to know more.

About this time I discovered public transportation and physics book went hand in hand. For some reason I was able concentrate more on the heavy ideas put forth in some of the books I read only if I were surrounded by the boredom of the daily commute. I read Hawking’s first book “A Brief History of Time” while commuting on the T in Boston and found a great deal of it mind-blowing. So it was with eager anticipation that I checked out “The Universe in a Nutshell” read by Simon Prebble.

It’s always interesting when I learn more about the little bits of myself. It was particularly intriguing to find that I was unable to enjoy this book simply because it was read out loud. Though this book was only 4 cds long I had to backtrack quite a few times to let me brain catch up to what my ears were hearing. Several times I sat wishing I were able to see the graphs and pictures I was certain were available to the reader because without a picture I was lost. Hawking talks about the 6 or 7 “other dimensions” beyond the four of our daily existence and how, if these four were found to curl around and move about that time travel might be possible. It was all well and good to know there is a theory out there about time travel and how it technically could be possible, but I felt like I was constantly running to catch up to the ideas.

The other strange thing I encountered while listening to “The Universe in a Nutshell” is that Simon Prebble is an excellent narrator. This in itself is not strange, but Hawking writes from a first person perspective and listening to Prebble read sentences like “I discovered the equation for …” and “If such a thing were discovered I would win a Nobel prize.” made it sound as though he were the actual physicist. This was a constant source of confusion to my poor brain because I know what Stephen Hawking and his little electric chair sound like but I was lulled into this sort of stupor which had me thinking things like “Man, that Simon sure is smart, I hope he does win a Nobel prize!”

Beyond my complicated experience with this audio book I have to say that I still enjoy reading Hawking’s work. I don’t understand it all and he doesn’t always translate from scientific speak to plain English well but his ideas are exciting to think about and worth a try if you are at all interested in physics. The main problem I have with his writing is that he is a bit arrogant (as well he should be, he holds 12 honorary degrees and basically kicks scientific ass) but I find his way of presenting ideas a bit dominating and gives the reader little hope to differ in opinion on the more esoteric of his ideas. This is not necessarily a flaw because I agreed with most of his opinions, but it felt a tad bit heavy handed and makes me wonder how many of his colleagues think he’s hard to get along with in real life. I recommend this book to all of the physics-curious people out there, make the time to read the actual book though, you’ll probably get a lot more out of it.

By Christopher Fowler

My mother recommended Christopher Fowler as a bright and entertaining mystery writer. I picked up Seventy-Seven Clocks because it seemed like his first book in a series and was pleasantly surprised. In short, SSC is a fun mystery of the old-school variety. Set in England in the 1970′s the detectives May and Bryant are part of a new branch of police called the Peculiar Crimes Unit (or PCU) this is the story of their first case.

The people involved are all part of the crumbling British Aristocracy, obstinate and entitled to the point of indecency unwilling to help the detectives even though they and their family are the main targets for some peculiar and gruesome murders. Fighting against the unhelpful family, burdensome press and higher-ups in the police department that want to see the PCU fail from the start, Bryant and May scramble around solving this archaic and ingenious crime.

It’s not often you come across such an inventive mystery writer. Fowler adds tension and intrigue when you least expect it and includes several red-herrings when you think the crime is all wrapped up. His people do not act out of character (a problem many writers seem to stumble over) though it was hard to get to know some of them at first and there are many with whom you eventually become acquainted. I will make an effort to read more of his work to see if it pans out the same. For now, I can recommend Seventy-Seven Clocks to those of you that like a good mystery (and yes, there are eventually seventy-seven clocks in there somewhere)

By P.G. Wodehouse, narrated by Alexander Spencer

With all this Mordecai business lurking about I was overcome by the need for more English humor. This happens to me every so often and I’ve learned that it’s always a good thing. Currently, my parents are in the process of moving house -never a fun thing to do. After paring down her book collection I found myself with my mother’s copy of P.G. Wodehouse’s “Code of the Woosters” Now, I knew that Bonfiglioli was profoundly influenced by Wodehouse and even mentions the author throughout some of his books, but I myself have never actually read any Wodehouse and for that I am deeply ashamed. I feel as though I must apologize for not connecting with this English legend sooner. So, to all of you English literary snobs out there: I, a mere American and probably stupid at that, deeply apologize for not reading Wodehouse before now. And probably I should also apologize since I didn’t even read him this time, I listened to Alexander Spencer read him to me. But I’m not going to. After listening to Alexander Spencer for a few minutes I realized he was the absolute best person to turn to for an introduction to Wodehouse because there is no way that a modern American, born and white-bread-bred in the heart of liberal, hippy country would ever get the accent right.

In short, Alexander Spencer does an incredible job bringing Bertram Wooster and Jeeves to life. “Jeeves Takes Charge” is a collection of the famous Wodehouse short stories. All of them funny, and all of them satisfying to hear. Now that I am in acquaintance with Jeeves and Wooster, a whole new world of reference has opened up in my mind. And since allusions to Wodehouse are nearly ubiquitous throughout the literary world, this is a very good thing. Plus, one of Bertie’s favorite sayings is “What the Deuce?!” and you just can’t go wrong with that. No one can work a “the deuce” into a conversation without gaining some measure of respect from me. Cheers to you if you pick up a Wodehouse novel. You’ll enjoy it. And if you don’t, that’s okay, I know some great Spiderman comics you might enjoy…

By Kyril Bonfiglioli

I’ve almost developed my opinion of Kyril Bonfiglioli by now. I’ve one more book of his to read and after that I’m sure that I will be able to say, with confidence, that he was a drunkard, somewhat below par with the ladies and an excellent writer.

“All the Tea in China” is not a continuation of the Mordecai series but rather the story of Carolus “Karli” Van Cleef, a Mordecai ancestor, and his adventures in the Delft pottery and opium trade. Most of the story takes place during his journey to and from China, first on a ship and later by foot. It is a fun story to read and interestingly, we learn the origin of the Mordecai name.

As ever, Bonfiglioli’s main character is arrogant in a humble way, dashing, immoderate and rich (or will be) His servants are capable and he comes out on top of the situation until the conclusion wherein, he comes out at the very bottom. So of course, I liked him quite a bit. And though his treatment of women is rather degrading, it’s easy to chalk it up to stupidity rather than intention. He is a man that assumes he’s morally superior right up until something goes slightly wrong then finds himself crying home to mommy for help. The book is written from the perspective of Karli telling his grandchildren about the wild days of his youth and how he became rich. Which is good because when the ending sucker punches you in the gut at least you know that Van Cleef does actually end up on top again…somehow. But I quite liked the ending, no matter how sadistic Bonfiglioli is towards his characters. I think the whole book stands very well on it’s own and doesn’t actually need the Mordecai stories to back it up (though I am glad they exist) If you like sailing the open seas of the late 1700′s than I think you’d like this tale.

By Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, narrated by Scott Brick

**First and foremost, I’m planning on spoiling parts of this book so if you’re actually a fan of this series, please don’t read any farther unless you’ve already read the book. ***

Oh my sweet Lord Jesus. This book has everything. And I mean that, Everything. Let’s just take a look

• An ancient Egyptian curse? Yep.
• Rough and tumble New York Museum guards? Yep.
• A high-tech prison break? Yep.
• An insane drummer? Yep.
• An insane computer programmer? Well, yes, eventually.
• A handsome English Egyptologist? Yep.
• Does he eventually go insane? You bet!
• A stoic FBI agent who knows secret kung-fu mind tricks? Well, of course!

How else is he going to catch up with the psychotic, Southern, Absinthe-swilling killer (who just so happens to be his very own brother?!!?)?!?!? Not to mention part of the story takes place at the only mansion in New Orleans with a basement (lead lined because the monks that built the mansion needed some place to store all the hooch that they made. I had no idea there were monks in NOLA, but there you are)

Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking “Okay, NOLA basement dwelling monks are one thing but I bet it doesn’t have a laser light show!”

And there’s where you’d be wrong. It Even has a laser light show. (Albeit, one that makes lots of people go insane)

No, the only thing this book lacked was Jessica Fletcher.

Moving along, I think that Preston and Child must have decided long ago that the most horrific thing a person can do is go crazy. This is absurd because we all know that clearly there are much worse things that could happen to a person, probably involving cheese graters and fingernails being bent backward. But that’s neither here nor there because when it comes to going insane there’s no way to describe it. Literally, in this case, as the authors completely bobbed and weaved around the story of what exactly happened to turn the bad guy to such an evil psychopath. This felt like a huge cop out from coming up with something really really shocking. But never mind, I guess it’s best we don’t know.

I have to be honest, the idea of someone actually creating such an old-school bad guy who runs around in disguises, plotting his evil schemes for years, is hokey but entertaining. The characters in this book are outlandishly stereotyped, the plot thickens exponentially and you can still see the end coming from 32 chapters away, it’s everything you could want in an adventure mystery!

Foolish me though, I didn’t realize TBoTD was a sequel until one of the characters (an NYPD Cop) said something like

“But we know Diogenese Pendergast is alive because he nursed his brother backed to health after I rescued him from Count Chocula’s castle last summer.”
  At which point I promptly turned off my brain because I was fairly certain that I wouldn’t need it for the next 11 discs. I wasn’t disappointed. This book was on par with Dicey Deere’s “An Irish Manor House Murder” although I probably liked this bad guy more because you know he’s going to come back in another book with even more disguises and even more intricate though ridiculous plans. He’s like the Joker only without the tights. If you’re looking for a true carnival of a read, may I suggest this series? I can’t vouch for the first book because I haven’t read it but I am going to go out on a limb and say it’s likely to be just as entertaining.

By Kyril Bonfiglioli, narrated by Simon Prebble

I am a complete idiot. I don’t know how I got these books so out of freakin’ order but I read the whole series back to front or upside down or however you want to call it. Basically, I listened to the last book first, read the first book second and then listened to the second book third Those last two were okay but I’m constantly having to reassess my opinion of Bonfiglioli’s writing style. Maybe I should just give up and accept that his books are excellent reading and leave it at that. But I just keep picking at it. I can’t say that I’ve fallen in love with Bonfiglioli because he seems to be somewhat misogynistic and a touch too Anti-American for me but I have become somewhat addicted to his work.

“After You With the Pistol” starts with a conclusion to the cliff-hanger where “Don’t Point That Thing at Me” left off. That was the first great thing about this book. The next great thing about this book is the resurrection of Jock. That’s Jock Strapp for those of you unfamiliar with the character. He is the best and most loveable English thug I’ve encountered in anything I’ve read to date. The Honourable Charlie Mordecai is also back in rare form. Or perhaps it’s not so rare since he is consistently as arrogant and humble as possible. I love the Mordecai character. He plays stupid until he’s required upon pain of bodily harm, to be quite intelligent.

The third great thing about this book is that it doesn’t end with all the characters dying, anyone losing any body parts or even with Mordecai in the clutches of anything more dangerous than a Brandy & Soda (oh, and a Jam sandwich) I think the most likable facet of Charlie’s personality is the relish with which he indulges during meals. He may be more well-bred than most but a well made fish-cake by the wives of policemen killed on duty elicits as much praise as a formal Cantonese meal prepared by a professional chief. I like him. I like Jock. I like the whole damned series. If you like arrogant and witty English humor, you’ll like it too.

I have one more thing I should add to this review. If you have a chance, listen to this series as read by Simon Prebble. He is so talented in reading these characters that I can’t really recommend anyone higher (As incredibly talented as he is, I’m not sure Frank Muller could have done a better job, and that’s really saying something)