Today’s Post by Joe Farace
“The magic is only in what books say, how they stitched the patches of the universe together into one garment for us.” – Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
Ray Douglas Bradbury (1920 – 2012) was an American author and screenwriter. He was one of the most celebrated 20th-century American writers and worked in many genres, including fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery, and realistic fiction. Bradbury is best known for his novel Fahrenheit 451 (1953) and his short-story collections The Martian Chronicles (1950), The Illustrated Man (1951), The Veldt, and The October Country (1955).
In 1999, Bradbury suffered a stroke that left him partially dependent on using a wheelchair. Yet he made regular appearances at science-fiction conventions until 2009, when he retired from the circuit. He continued to write, contributing an essay to the science fiction issue of The New Yorker about his inspiration for writing, published a week before his death. Bradbury chose a burial place at Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, with a headstone that reads “Author of Fahrenheit 451.”
I own a small collection of signed first editions but one of my most prized books is Bradbury’s Farewell Summer, his last book, which included a photograph of Mr. Bradbury signing the book for me that was made by my friend Ralph Nelson.
TBR Update
If you missed my last column, it has a definition of TBR and some information about my personal TBR list. I’ve added a new book to the list and it’s about BIGFOOT! The book is The Secret History of Bigfoot by John O-Connor and I can’t wait to read it..
Mini Reviews
The Wager by David Grann is the meticulously researched seafaring novel of the ill-fated voyage of a British Man o’ War that started in 1740 during an equally ill-fated war against the Spanish. The book bristles with context that allows a modern reader to feel what life was like on a warship of this era that, I feel, somewhat bogs down the real story—the mutiny, shipwreck-and incredible journey back to England by both the crew and the ship’s officers— with that very context. If you’re not familiar what an ordinary sailor’s life in the British navy was like during the era of “tall ships,” the book will be an eye opener. If you are already familiar with life on the high sees in wooden ships, you need to hang in there because the story of this voyage is pretty amazing, matched only by what happens at the end of the book when the mutineers face a court marshal back in England. What happens?—NO SPOILERS. The denouement is so contemporary in its scope that you will be amazed yet not surprised at the same time. None of this distracts from the bulk of the book which focuses on the voyage and all hardships faced by officers and sailors not only during the voyage but also when shipwrecked on an island that offered little in the way of means of survival. But survive most of them did, showing the indomitable spirit of the kind of men who sailed these ships, often against their will. While this book lacks the mystery and even poetry of Grann’s The Lost City of Z—I urge you to read that book—it’s remains a page turner. I give it eight bookmarks out of ten.
The Ghost Orchid by Jonathan Kellerman is the latest in his Alex Delaware series of mystery novels and it’s a good’un. Together with Detective Lieutenant Milo Sturges, Delaware seeks to uncover what lies behind a double homicide of a man and woman who were having an extramarital affair. The mystery is, at first, about who was the target of the murderer and which person was collateral damage. As Milo and Alex dig into the the backgrounds of each of the victims the search becomes the main focus of the story and ultimately that’s what helps them find the perpetrator and while who it is may be surprising—this is a whodunit, after all—it may not have been if you try to solve the mystery as you read the book. I don’t. I just go with the flow and let the story takes me where it will. NO SPOILERS. The manner in which the murderer is apprehended is at once surprising but at the same time, realistic and also highly satisfying for the reader. While this book is far from the best in the long running Alex Delaware series, it is wonderfully written, beautifully plotted and filled with the kind of psychiatric nuances that sets these novels apart from others in the mystery genre. I give it eight bookmarks out of ten.
More TBR…Rex Stout, the creator of the Nero Wolfe books, was born in Indiana in 1886. He was raised by parents whose library consisted of twelve hundred books, By the time he was ten years old, Stout had read all twelve hundred. And not surprising (to regular readers of these posts) I have slipped a few Nero Wolfe novels into mt TBR mix before jumping into the latest mystery novel by David Handler, . The Wolfe books I’ve read were Plot it Yourself, Gambit and The Red Box. I am currently reading Curtains for Three, which is book number nine in my “Books Read in 2024” list—in case you wondered.
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