The Grouchy Editor

by Andy Weir

What on Earth is there not to like about this book? It’s a first-time novel from an obscure software programmer who initially gave the thing away as a free e-book, and which is now a bestseller and the basis of a blockbuster movie starring Matt Damon. So kudos to Andy Weir, who transferred his love of all things NASA and Dr. Who into a rip-roaring adventure about an astronaut stranded on Mars.

Did I mention that I loved this book? There are two reasons for that: 1) Our hero, botanist/astronaut Mark Watney, is an engaging smart-ass whose predicament is both harrowing and entertaining; 2) The Martian is what they call a “hard science” novel, in that the events are (mostly) based on real science – no little green men or flying saucers in this story. I confess that at times the extensive math and/or chemistry made my eyes glaze over, but more often Watney’s constant mechanical tinkering was both fascinating and (dare I say it?) educational. His predicament might have been dire, but as a reader, it was great fun to be stuck on the Red Planet with him.

Nitpicks: Apparently, the type of Martian sandstorm that precipitates Watney’s abandonment by fellow astronauts is pure fiction. Also, it’s a stretch to believe that Earthlings would so easily part with millions (billions?) of taxpayer dollars, not to mention risk the lives of five other astronauts, to rescue just one man – not even Matt Damon.

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by Robert Galbraith

I thoroughly enjoyed J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books, but when I did have complaints about them, they were usually related to plot – there was often too much of it. Rowling’s characters were delightful, but her convoluted back stories could be challenging.

Ditto for The Cuckoo’s Calling, an old-fashioned detective yarn that Rowling wrote under the pseudonym “Robert Galbraith.” Cuckoo’s protagonist, a war vet turned private investigator named Cormoran Strike, is interesting and likable, and Rowling’s supporting cast is colorful. But when crucial plot points unfold near the end of the story, my eyes would occasionally glaze over; it feels like over-plotting when it takes the hero an entire chapter to explain how he solved the case.

I might be nitpicking because, as with the Potter books, getting to the end of the story is a lot of fun. The slovenly Strike sleeps on a makeshift bed in his tiny office, drinks too much, and bumps heads with the rich and famous in London as he investigates the apparent suicide of a supermodel. He is aided by a temp worker who becomes his girl Friday and, presumably, his potential love interest. Together, this duo makes Cuckoo a pleasure to read – complex plot be damned.

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by Voltaire

Poor Candide. Raised on a wealthy German estate, with his own tutor and the world as his oyster, one fateful day he is rudely expelled from his idyllic home and in short order finds himself abused by a Bulgarian army, beaten, robbed, and tortured by a series of strangers, and nearly devoured by cannibals. Worse, Candide’s beloved cousin, the beautiful Cunegonde, is abducted and becomes the sex slave of one dastardly man after another.

Sound like a satire to you? It is in the hands of Voltaire, whose detached, bemused narrative moves at lightning-pace as he takes aim at the prevailing “wisdom” of 18th-century philosophers, including the folly of thinkers (like the aforementioned tutor) who preached that “all is for the best.” The only problem with this entertaining novella is that, unless you happen to be a European historian, you’re not likely to recognize the contemporary targets of Voltaire’s wit.

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by Erik Larson

I get depressed when I think of how little I actually know of American history – or world history, for that matter. I had never heard, for example, of H. H. Holmes, an American serial killer who out-rippered Jack the Ripper, both in the ingenuity of his killings and the number of victims. I also knew next to nothing about the Chicago world’s fair of 1893, which is akin to someone a hundred years from now drawing a blank when asked about The Super Bowl.

In Devil, Larson juxtaposes two story lines – the construction of the Chicago exposition, and the nearby killing spree of 19th-century America’s most prolific murderer, a man born Herman Webster Mudgett but better known as H. H. Holmes, a charismatic doctor who lured unsuspecting fair visitors to his hotel, a gloomy edifice near the fair which the press dubbed Holmes’s “Murder Castle.”

Larson deftly weaves back and forth between the sagas of Holmes and the fair but, somewhat surprisingly, I think his depiction of the creation of the against-all-odds exposition is the more compelling read.

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by Stephen King

At one point in Roadwork, middle-aged Barton Dawes contemplates his crumbling marriage and reminisces about earlier days with his soon-to-be ex-wife: “They had had good years before. He was sure they must have been good because he couldn’t remember much of what had happened in them.” Funny, that, because don’t the psychologists tell us that we tend to recall the good times, and block out the bad? 

That’s one difference between Stephen King books and those written by his dark half, Richard Bachman. Novelist King provides an occasional glimmer of hope for his characters, but Bachman people tend to dwell on the downside.

Roadwork is atypical King in other ways. Unlike in most of his novels, we spend the entire story inside the head of just one character, the despondent Mr. Dawes, a Midwesterner who doesn’t react well, to put it mildly, when 1) his child dies; 2) his wife leaves him; and 3) his home and business are targeted by eminent domain. Also, there isn’t a hint of the supernatural in Roadwork – and that’s a good thing. So is the fact that this was published in 1981, when King/Bachman was at his peak.

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by Ann Coulter

Ann Coulter is the right’s answer to the left’s Michael Moore: brash, passionate, sarcastic, and take-no-prisoners armed for political foes. Her can you believe this crap? outrage certainly grabs your attention, but as is the case with Moore, it can also make you wonder how fair she’s being. Does the other side have no legitimate arguments?

Coulter’s “other side” in the case of immigration includes Republicans as well as Democrats. The subject of Adios is the downside of illegal immigration, and Coulter’s approach is twofold: bombard the reader with horror stories about crime and other social costs associated with illegal border crossings (primarily from Mexico), and then bolster those anecdotes with facts and figures. I think the tactic is persuasive. Coulter is right when she claims that both political parties, most politicians, and much of the media routinely lie to the rest of us about unrestrained immigration, which benefits the few but harms the country as a whole.

By the way, I checked the book’s index and Donald Trump’s name does not appear. But I do wonder if the indomitable celebrity-candidate thumbed the pages of Coulter’s polemic and came to the same conclusion that I did: It’s time to build a fence.

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by Jack Finney

Writers are taught that details matter, and that they should be sure to include lots of them in their stories. But that advice can be taken to an extreme, and as evidence we have this 1970 science-fiction novel, which time and again is bogged down by tedious, nonessential detail. Stephen King in his nonfictional On Writing had better advice when he said that a writer can evoke almost any setting by using a few vivid, well-chosen details, and then letting the reader’s imagination fill in any gaps.

It’s too bad Finney didn’t heed that advice, because the concept of his novel, in which a lowly graphic artist is recruited for a top-secret time-travel experiment, is a fun one. But Finney’s obsession with describing every horse, buggy, building, and snowflake on the streets of 1882 New York makes reading most of this book a chore.  Time and Again finally springs to life about three-quarters into the story, when Finney abandons his love affair with descriptive passages and turns his attention to characters and plot, at which point the novel turns charming and entertaining. I’m just afraid that many readers won’t make it to that point, having long since decided that the preceding sluggishness is a waste of their time.

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by Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie created some of the most memorable protagonists in mystery-novel history. But her secondary characters, including the villains, tend to be interchangeable from one book to the next. When an episode of Poirot that I first watched years ago plays again on TV, I can never recall “who done it,” because none of the characters stick to my memory. This isn’t the case in Crooked House, one of Christie’s personal favorites among her novels (writing it was “pure pleasure,” she said). I guarantee that even if you’re able to guess the identity of the culprit, you won’t soon forget him – or her.

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by Jon Ronson

Ronson’s book is certainly a timely arrival. I imagine that Brian Williams, Ben Affleck, and Britt McHenry placed early orders on Amazon. Shamed examines the repercussions of public humiliation, primarily via social media like Twitter, on several of its unfortunate targets.

Ronson’s conclusion is mostly anti-shaming, anti-mob mentality, but he doesn’t draw much of a distinction between a public dressing-down of the rich and powerful, and the same treatment aimed at the little guy. What can “destroy” — a word Ronson returns to repeatedly — a private citizen like Justine Sacco is probably no more than a nuisance to, for example, a Ben Affleck.  

Also, I think most of us would agree that Sacco’s life was negatively impacted when tweeters hammered her for an ill-advised AIDS joke. Among other things, she was fired from her public-relations job.  But was her life truly “destroyed”? I’m guessing that Hester Prynne would beg to differ.

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by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard

Political firebrand Bill O’Reilly took a break from his TV show and returned to his roots – teaching American history – to co-author this lively account of Abraham Lincoln’s final days.  O’Reilly and Martin Dugard fashion their nonfiction books in the manner of fictional thrillers, and Killing Lincoln is certainly a page-turner. But as I turned those pages I had the same nagging question that afflicts me when I read most history books: How much “artistic license” did the authors take?  

Do O’Reilly and Dugard really know what ran through Lincoln’s mind as he stood on the deck of a steamboat and observed the bombing of Petersburg, Virginia? Were the authors privy to John Wilkes Booth’s inner turmoil as he lay injured in a Maryland swamp, just days after assassinating the president? And yet, no historian can expect to achieve total accuracy. Killing Lincoln at the very least does a fine job capturing the tumult and horror of April, 1865.

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