On the Decay of the Art of Lying (kindle) by Mark Twain

Not Twain's best work.

Twain (1835-1910) says that On the Decay of the Art of Lying was an essay written in 1885 for a $30 prize for the "Historical and Antiquarian Club of Hartford". Twain notes that he did not win a prize for this essay.

The essay focuses on the lost art of lying. Twain discusses different kinds of lies, situations in which people lie and why all lies are not bad.

The essay is sometimes funny but mostly sounds like an old stand up routine about good lies and bad lies.

The Kindle version is very short - only 86 locations which equals about 12 regular pages.

I rate this essay 3 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: On the Decay of the Art of Lying by Mark Twain.

Reviewed on May 28, 2009.

Old Testament Legends being stories out of some of the less-known apochryphal books of the old testament (Kindle) by M.R. James

Sometimes interesting, mostly tedious

Originally Published in 1913  

M.R. James has collected additional stories from the Old Testament era. None of these is included in the canon books. These are not stories from the Apocrypha but even more stories. In times past, some churches actually treated some of these stories as scripture.

According to M.R. James, some of these are quite ancient and some are newer. The stories are arranged chronologically and feature Adam, Eve, Cain, Abraham, Job, Joseph ,Jeremiah and Solomon. A new, non-Biblical character is Ahiker, advisor to the King of the Chaldeans.

The stories about Adam and Eve mostly concern how they deal with being sent from the Garden of Eden. The story of Job is a re-telling of his book in the Bible, but it is more satisfying than the original.

M.R. James (1862-1936)

The story of Solomon is very bizarre. Solomon uses a ring to control demons in order to build the Temple. Abraham gets a lot of attention in these stories and we get to read stories about him as a young man and as an old man. There is a long story about Joseph (the interpreter of dreams) and a young woman that conspires to marry him.

The problem with these stories is the writing. They were written in a style that mimics the King James version, which was the par for the course for Biblical translation when M.R. James wrote this book. But, it's just makes some of these stories even more difficult to enjoy reading.

There is one more issue with this Kindle version. Many times the capital "C" is actually replaced with a capital "G". So we have Gain and Abel and the Gaananites. It's no big deal, especially since I paid nothing for this version, but just be aware of it if you choose to read these stories.

I rate this book 2 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Old Testament Legends.

Reviewed May 29, 2009

Some Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion (Kindle edition) by Mark Twain

Story of a trip by Mark Twain to Bermuda - starts fairly weak and ends strong

First published in 1877 by The Atlantic.

The title of this essay has it right - these are just a series of stories about a trip that Twain (1835-1910) and some friends took to Bermuda from New York City. Twain wrote this for "The Atlantic" in 1877 and his wry style makes him an excellent travel companion.

In reality, Twain's story of the trip is the story of the people he meets along the way. Most of the stories are humorous, some are duds and about an equal number are quite funny. I won't forget the story about the town with the cat situation for quite a while.

Twain on Bermuda:

"We never met a man, or woman, or child anywhere in this sunny island who seemed to be unprosperous, or discontented, or sorry about anything. This sort of monotony became very tiresome presently, and even something worse. The spectacle of an entire nation groveling in contentment is an infuriating thing."

Twain on modern communication:

"The Bermudians are hoping soon to have telegraphic communication with the world. But even after they shall have acquired this curse it will still be a good country to go to for a vacation, for there are charming little islets scattered about the enclosed sea where one could live secure from interruption. The telegraph-boy would have to come in a boat, and one could easily kill him while he was making his landing."

Can you imagine what he'd say about cell phones, text messages and Twitter?

I rate this essay 4 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: Some Rambling Notes of an Idle Excursion by Mark Twain.

Reviewed May 29, 2009.

Thank God for the Atom Bomb by Paul Fussell

The works of a brilliant essayist are a joy to read.

Originally published in 1988.

I admit, I was attracted to Thank God for the Atom Bomb because of the title. Our library had it featured on its web page with some excerpts and I was intrigued. I was not disappointed.

The title essay is simply brilliant. It is also caustic, blunt and nuanced. I'll refer to it before the next time I teach about World War II.

There are two more essays on World War II. I found the two essays on George Orwell to be most interesting. His commentary on the differences between tourism and travel reminded me of the Twain essays I've been reading lately. "Taking It All Off in the Balkans" is the account of his visit to a nudist resort in the former Yugoslavia - very funny and (I've got to say it) revealing.

Paul Fussell

Two essays were just not interesting to me, being mainly about poetry and I find myself unable to muster the interest to read poetry, let alone read extensive commentary on it. I skimmed those.

The essay on the 2nd Amendment ("A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.") comes off as a poorly-researched rant as opposed to the well-researched arguments made in the Atom Bomb essays. It stands out in this collection for that reason.

The other oddball essay is my 2nd favorite (after the title essay). Fussell went to the Indy 500. Try to imagine an East Coast college professor who writes about poetry standing around Indy's infamous snakepit and the guys with the "Show us your t*ts" signs. Fussell's comments are quite observant and show that he really spent some time walking around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and getting a feel for racing in general. Having just attended my 24th Indy 500 six days ago I was especially interested in his comments. I would be most interested in seeing Fussell's thoughts at having more racial diversity in the fields and 3 women in the race nowadays.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This collection can be found on Amazon.com here: Thank God for the Atom Bomb by Paul Fussell

Reviewed on May 29, 2009.

Night and Day (Jesse Stone #8) by Robert B. Parker

Jesse Stone returns to form

Published in 2009.

After the rather awful Stranger in Paradise I was afraid the whole series was going to just fizzle.

I was pleasantly surprised with Night and Day. It is a return to higher standard of reading to which I had grown accustomed. The plot moves along nicely, the witty banter is plentiful. The case is distressing but not super-hero level.

I will not go into all of the plot details. Those are outlined by others on the page. All in all, this is a pleasant and quick read. Everything I look for in a Parker novel - detecting, banter, psychobabble and a bit of romance (in a macho sort of way, of course).

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5. This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Night and Day (Jesse Stone #8) by Robert B. Parker.

Reviewed on May 30, 2009.

Fear the Worst: A Thriller by Linwood Barclay

WOW! This one starts in a hurry and never slows up!

Published in 2009 by Bantam.

Normally, I am very skeptical of all of those little blurbs that cover books. This one came with all kinds of blurbs from established authors and professional reviewers, including "Will leave you breathless - Robert Crais", "A one-sit thriller - Michael Connelly" and "The surprises just keep on coming - Charlaine Harris."

Well, guess what? Fear the Worst lives up to its praise. I'd never heard of Linwood Barclay before I read this book, but he writes a terrific thriller.

The premise of the book is that car salesman Tim Blake's daughter goes to work one day and does not return. No one at her job has seen her before. No one in the area knows anything about her. Her best friends don't know anything. She's just gone. The whole idea comes from the author's daughter who looked at him at breakfast one day and said, "Suppose you came to pick me up at my job, and found out I'd never worked there?"

This book is jam-packed with action, but none of it seems over the top. There are dozens of plot twists, a body count that would make a Sylvester Stallone movie jealous and surprisingly normal good guys going against bad guys that are real bad, but not unrealistically bad.

What do I mean? Well, I can't really get into it without creating spoilers, but suffice it to say, it's not like our hero, a car salesman, takes out the Russian Mafia singlehandedly, but the bad guys are certainly bad enough.

One very nice touch is that the main character always refers to every car by it's make and model. He never calls it a blue mini-van. It would be a Honda Odyssey. Why is that a nice touch? Car salesmen know cars - all of them.

I rate this book 5 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: Fear the Worst: A Thriller by Linwood Barclay.

Reviewed on June 1, 2009.

The Night Watchman by Mark Mynheir

Pretty good thriller

Published in 2009 by Multnomah.

I feel silly, but it wasn't until I was 85% done with The Night Watchman that I actually read the entire description on the back of this book. In my defense, it is rather wordy....

Anyway, it was not until that point that I realized that this was actually a "Christian" cop book. That doesn't bother me since I'm a Christian. But, my experiences with Christian fiction have been mostly negative. A lot of it is clumsy, to say the least.

So, I guess this is a long way to say that this one was not clumsy. Instead, it was different. It is a "Christian" detective story in which the main character is not Christian. Not even searching. Not even close. He carries a big gun and he uses it lots of times. He lies. He cheats. Praying bothers him. He suspects that church-going people are weak and does not believe that God can change a person's life.

Mary Mynheir

So, on to the book. The main character is Ray Quinn, a homicide detective that has been forced to retire due to injury. He walks very slowly with a cane. Now, he's the night watchman at a condo building. He becomes convinced that a murder-suicide at the building is really a double murder and the story gets going.

The book was enjoyable. Ray is an interesting character and the give-and-take with his night watchman colleague Crevis is often humorous. The fact that he cannot beat up everyone or use the resources of the police/legal system makes him interesting - he has to improvise and think more. The mystery is realistic although I thought it wrapped up a little too neatly.

 The author is a police officer who has worked homicide, narcotics, the SWAT team and just about everything else.

This is the first in a new series of mysteries centered around Ray Quinn. I'll be keeping my eye out for more.

Read my review of the second book in the series here: The Corruptible: A Ray Quinn Mystery.

I rate this book 4 stars out of 5.

This book can be found on Amazon.com here: The Night Watchman by Mark Mynheir.

Reviewed on June 3, 2009.