How the Dead Dream - Lydia Millet

Privately, he thought, at the heart of it, you wanted animals to turn to you in welcome. It was a habit gained from expecting each other to do this, from expecting this of other people and only knowing people, not knowing anything beyond them. That was another kind of solitude, the kind where there was nothing all around but reflections.

I forget where I first heard about this book, but I remember it cropped up in several places with favorable reviews. When it arrived at the library I put it at the top of my list to read, no longer recalling much about the plot. To be honest, I'm a little disappointed and although it's not a horribly written book, I also wouldn't rush to recommend it.

There's an overall sense of detachment that pervades the book. T., the main character, is a solitary sort of person. As a boy he was obsessed with money and its implications, the institutions that held it and the way it moved through the world. The first chapter or so makes for somewhat amusing reading, as T. wheels and deals in his early years, taking one classmate's allowance for protection from the bullies, or rounding up pledges for a walk he didn't actually participate in. But as we jump to his adult years, we realize how disconnected he is from other people and we're never really made to care. T. eventually suffers various losses, any of which could be devastating to your average person. But the way he reacts (and the way it's written) is without feeling.

Even his name, T., is a cipher. You eventually discover his name but it's appropriate that he's just an initial for most of the book, because despite learning a lot of his inner thoughts he's not somebody you really feel like you come to know. Very gradually he shifts his focus from making money, but only to become obsessed with "last ones," the last of various species bordering on extinction. The author works for the Center for Biological Diversity and there's plenty of references to creatures that are dying out, probably all well-researched.

The only thing that really made me react much was after T.'s mother comes out of a coma: she has a renewed zeal for her faith after finding herself in an IHOP and not being sure if it was "hell, purgatory, or as she first implied a disappointing version of heaven ..." She becomes worried about T.'s soul, fretting that he'll end up in a House of Pancakes when he dies. It's a minor bit which crops up from time to time in the rest of the book, but aside from that there was little to make me laugh or cry.

The Willoughbys - Lois Lowry

"Do you like our children?" "Oh, no," Mrs. Willoughby said, using her gold-plated scissors to snip off a bit of yarn that had made a snarl. "I never have. Especially that tall one. What is his name again?"

When I first started reading this to Robyn, we weren't really sure about it and just about gave it up, at least as a bedtime story. The first page and a half seemed amusing and clever and promising, but then in the rest of the chapter the Willoughby children turned out to be kind of spiteful and unpleasant. The parents (as you can see from the quote above) aren't much better.

But, fortunately, the story does pick up and turns into something quite delightful, as the Willoughby parents plot to get rid of their kids and the kids plot to get rid of their parents, and Nanny comes to take care of them. (There's also a side plot about the lugubrious candy tycoon who finds a baby on his doorstep, and of course eventually all the various threads tie up into a neat little package.)

It's a little bit like the Bastables by way of Lemony Snicket, four precocious kids dealing with outlandish adults (in this case, their parents). And at the end there's a helpful glossary, with entries like the following:

METICULOUS means extremely precise and careful. Surgeons have to be meticulous. Some people think great cooks are meticulous, but they are wrong. Great cooks read a recipe, maybe, but then they ignore the instructions and add extra garlic if they feel like it. Surgeons can't do that.

It's a short kids' book that plays around with the idea of "old-fashioned" stories, and is quite enjoyable after you get past the unpleasantness of the first chapter.

Baron von Baddie and the Ice Ray Incident - George McClements

Baron von Baddie was a genius. An EVIL genius.

Many of you may be familiar with the brilliant (but not suitable for kids) "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog," Joss Whedon's evil genius comic opera 3-webisode series. If not, I think it's certainly worth the five bucks it would cost you to buy it from iTunes.

Baron von Baddie is a kids' picture book that arrived at our library. I like picture books and generally flip through the new ones to see if they're something the kids would enjoy. This one seemed like it would go along with the recent rash of pop culture told from the criminal mastermind's point of view, so I took a look.

Oddly enough, the plot at first is eerily similar to Dr. Horrible's: Baron von Baddie's evil plans are always thwarted by his nemesis, Captain Kapow, a cheerful-but-dim superhero. Von Baddie (in goggles and heavy gloves, naturally) breaks out of jail and tries again. But one day he manages to actually freeze Captain Kapow. Hmmm. Dr. Horrible (in goggles and heavy gloves) builds a freeze ray in order to stop his nemesis, the cheerful-but-dim Captain Hammer. The only thing missing in the kids' book is Penny, the love interest.

The book is cute and silly, omitting the darker undertones of Dr. Horrible (which is also cute and silly). It's not a spectacular picture book, but I just thought it was worth a mention because of the convergence.

No Country for Old Men - Cormac McCarthy

How come people dont feel like this country has got a lot to answer for? They dont. You can say that the country is just the country, it dont actively do nothin, but that dont mean much. I seen a man shoot his pickup truck with a shotgun one time. He must of thought it done somethin. This country will kill you in a heartbeat and still people love it. You understand what I'm sayin?

I still haven't seen the Best Picture Oscar-winning film based on the book, but from reading the book and seeing the movie trailer I'd guess they're fairly similar. It's a harrowing read, and I suppose if you've seen the movie you know why: Anton Chigurh is probably the scariest villain I've come across in a while, and I've seen Heath Ledger as the Joker, so that's saying something. Chigurh's path through the story is littered with bullets and destruction, but the entire time he seems calm and methodical, following a bizarre code of justice that puts everyone who encounters him at risk.

I never thought of myself as a suspense fan but lately it seems I've read a few and I have to admit I haven't been too disappointed. McCarthy does a particularly good job of creating some small-town characters and bringing them to life (before killing them off, of course) through very little action and dialogue. There is action, though there's also a lot of waiting and hunting, and the action scenes are mostly brief. McCarthy's style takes a little getting used to; he writes the way people talk ("He must of...") and leaves out a lot of punctuation, including all quotation marks. It feels stripped down and simple, which is exactly the effect he wants.

The book starts with the aftermath of a desert shootout between drug dealers; a man named Moss happens upon the scene and finds a case full of money. Meanwhile there are small-town cops, drug dealers who want their merchandise and their money, the DEA, and various other interested parties. All of it comes tumbling together, and you never know how long Moss' ingenuity and sheer stubbornness is going to keep him alive. Sheriff Bell (who shares a few thoughts in between some of the chapters) is also on the trail, trying to protect Moss as one of the citizens of his county.

It's a reflection on human nature, the escalation of crime in the United States, and it's not an optimistic picture. Bell notes the transition between the criminals he understands and the newer sort who operate on a completely different level. He cites a school survey that listed things like chewing gum and running in the hallways as the biggest problems in teaching forty years ago, and then the current answers: "Rape, arson, murder. Drugs. Suicide." And in the center of his story is Chigurh, the epitome of the new criminal.

I wouldn't recommend this book if you're looking for something light and escapist. If you're ready for a powerful, uncomfortable look at some worst-case scenarios, this is a well-written story that will grab you.

Truancy - Isamu Fukui

"Control," Umasi answered simply. "They keep you too busy to rebel, too downtrodden to protest being a second-class citizen, and too well-conditioned to challenge them when you reach adulthood. Indeed, many end up joining them so that they can do the same to the next generation. It's really a complicated form of bullying."

In the City, the school is run like a totalitarian regime. In fact the school is part of the regime: Educators, Enforcers and Disciplinary Officers are among those who run the city under the Mayor's leadership. The purpose of school is solely to produce obedient citizens who are easy to control. Students are tattooed with barcodes on their arms which are scanned as they pass through the school gates or subway turnstiles. As with any regime, there are dissidents and rebels: the Truancy. Some are kids who have been expelled and have no future in the City; others have deserted school to fight the system. Under the leadership of the mysterious Zyid, they assassinate Educators and plot the downfall of the Mayor and his government.

Tack is a student who's growing increasingly discontented with school; time after time he is punished unfairly by teachers. One day when he accidentally winds up in the abandoned District 19, he comes across Umasi, another boy who opens his eyes to the world of the Truancy and the true purpose of school. After a botched assassination attempt, Tack joins the Truancy to seek revenge on one of the Truants, but quickly gains sympathy for their cause.

Truancy, as it turns out, was written by a high school student from New York City (who is apparently dissatisfied with his education). He started writing at age 13, and (so the story goes) wrote it for himself but his father found the manuscript in his room and sent it off to a publisher. At any rate, I heard about the book on GeekDad, and although I've had bad experiences with books written by teenagers I thought this one sounded like it might be promising. The premise was a little different and didn't sound like something just ripped off from Tolkien.

Fukui's writing is, for the most part, decent. There are some awkward sentences and not-quite-right words used here and there, but for the most part the story is engaging enough and the writing doesn't get in the way. There are some fight sequences, though, that get a little tedious. Imagine if someone were to describe to you, in prose, a fight scene from "The Bourne Identity" or some similar action movie and you'll have an inkling of what to expect. There are one or two scenes that last several pages, and the action gets bogged down in cliche. To be fair, I haven't read too many action scenes written by adults, so maybe this is the norm; maybe I'll go read a scene or two in Robert Ludlum's books and see if I feel the same way about them.

Our young writer is also not above putting himself into the story, and more than once. The Yoda figure who spouts cryptic aphorisms and trains Tack to fight is named "Umasi" (Fukui's own name backwards), and Zyid, the leader of the Truancy, is described as having jet-black hair pulled into a ponytail and wears a windbreaker buttoned around his neck like a cape ... much like Fukui in the dustjacket photo.

Vanity aside, Fukui has created a nice piece of science fiction, sort of a teenager's version of 1984. It's not the best prose I've read but I think it's something young adults would enjoy, and grown-up sci-fi fans may find it worth a read.

Making Children Mind Without Losing Yours - Kevin Leman

Sometimes you have to pull the rug out and let the little buzzards tumble.

My mom recommended this book to me and I finally got around to reading it. Leman is a proponent of what he calls Reality Discipline, and this book is largely about explaining how that works and giving some examples about how to use it. He makes a distinction between "discipline" and "punishment" and goes so far as to say we should only discipline and never punish. I'm still not convinced that Reality Discipline is never punishment, but for the most part I found the book to be good advice. It's not entirely different from all of the other parenting books I've read (in particular, there are lots of similarities to Parenting the Heart of Your Child) but does offer a few tips that I think may be helpful.

Reality Discipline is, in short, allowing reality to teach your kids consequences of their behavior, rather than establishing arbitrary punishments. For example, if your child refuses to get up and get ready for school in time, you don't scream and fuss and drag them bodily out of bed, and threaten to take away TV privileges. Instead, you allow them to miss the bus, get to school late, and suffer whatever consequences there are for being tardy. On the one hand, it's supposed to result in less nagging and fuming on the parents' part; on the other hand, it often takes more thought and creativity to figure out exactly what reality-based consequences go with particular behaviors. (My own example: I want my kids to speak Chinese while at home. What reality-based consequence is there, other than allowing them to grow up and discover that it's much harder to pick up a language when you're older?)

The position Leman takes (explaining that he bases it on Biblical teachings, the way he understands God's discipline and Jesus' teachings) is something between authoritarian and permissive parenting. He does include spanking but only in certain cases and feels that it shouldn't be the primary form of discipline. He also argues against a reward-and-punishment system.

The book is a little dated (first published in 1984) and I'm not sure if there's a more recent version available. For the most part I don't think it matters, but occasionally he makes remarks that date the book (Atari, for instance). He also has a weird habit of using names like "Festus" and "Cletus" and "Buford" when he needs a sample kid to talk about.

Overall, a decent book on child-rearing with lots of suggestions I may try on my own kids. Hopefully it will reduce the amount of nagging and arguing, but it will definitely require ingenuity on my part and cooperation with my wife.

The Ha-Ha - Dave King

I want to say yes and of course and I'm sure you're right. But I've tried, in my way, and I'm invisible here. Can't you see that? Maybe I'm overtired, too, but I miss my old lonely life, with doughnuts and Dr. Pepper for breakfast, the housemates indifferent, and no baffling child in my sights.

Howard Kapostash was in Vietnam for only sixteen days when he was severely injured by a landmine. Since then, he has not been able to speak except occasionally in grunted syllables. Mostly he makes do with a few gestures and nods of the head, or no communication whatsoever. But there's nothing wrong with Howard's mind, and in his narration of this story we are privy to his inner thoughts, the things he wishes he could tell people, his frustration at being treated as if he's stupid or crazy or both.

His high school girlfriend, Sylvia, is a single mom, strung out on drugs, and when her sister stages an intervention and puts her in rehab, she calls Howard (her codependent go-to-guy) to take care of her nine-year-old son Ryan. Howard agrees (he always agrees), thinking that she'll only be a week before she quits the program. But as she sticks it out in rehab, Ryan shakes up the life of Howard and his housemates.

It's a beautifully written book, with pain and joy constantly butting up against one another. King puts us in Howard's shoes and we experience all his shifting moods during good days and bad. From the outside Howard would be a difficult person to sympathize with: he has fits of rage and gives up easily when he can't get a point across, his behavior is often unpredictable and incomprehensible. But by letting Howard tell the story, we see so much more.

I found myself rooting for Howard, wanting so badly for things to work out, but his daydreams of reuniting with Sylvia and becoming a typical family unit just didn't seem realistic, and I doubted that's how the book would turn out. In the end, there is optimism and hope for Howard, but there are also doors that are shut, options that are closed off. It's a moving book that doesn't sugarcoat Howard's life. His own flaws and mistakes are harshly portrayed, as are his disappointments and Sylvia's manipulations.

I'd come across this book a while back (it was published in 2005) but never managed to read it until it showed up in the library, and I'm really glad I gave it a chance. I should mention that there are brief portions of the book that are graphic (some sex, some violence), but for the most part they're integral parts of the story.

Winter Wood - Steve Augarde

All her memory came flooding back to her then, and all that had seemed so hazy and unreal was brought into focus. It had gone away for a while, this other world that she was somehow part of, but now it had returned to claim her and she was to be caught up in its dance yet again.

Robyn and I finally finished Augarde's excellent trilogy, and the third book is a wonderful conclusion to the story. I still can't understand why these books didn't get better marketing in the U.S. They've apparently done well enough in the U.K., but it was extremely difficult getting my hands on a copy of Winter Wood here, and I ended up buying it online from somebody in England. The trilogy is being repackaged as "The Touchstone Trilogy" with new covers for the U.S., so maybe it'll gain a following then. (Oddly, I don't think the trilogy had a name before this.) Personally, though, I love Augarde's own illustrations, which are classier and have an older, woodcut-style look to them. The new covers are likely to get lost on the shelves with other fantasy books.

Winter Wood fills in some of the gaps between Celandine's life and Midge's, and we finally see how the threads of the two stories intertwine. It is also, despite some tension and conflict, a less disheartening book than the first two (especially Celandine, in which Celandine seems doomed to misery). For the most part, it's very satisfying to finally see how everything turns out. However, there are a few parts (particularly near the end) which Robyn and I agreed were a little unnecessary, like one string of "is she dreaming?" scenes that were never fully explained.

That aside, this is definitely one of my new favorites and it's a series I wouldn't hesitate to recommend to fans of the fantastical.

The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need - Daniel H. Pink

"Where do you see yourself in five years? What's your biggest weakness? What will be your biggest weakness in ten years? If you were a can of soup, what flavor would you be?"

I think I read about this book on the GeekDads blog which occasionally has items labeled "The Geekly Reader." It's a career guide as manga, centered on a chump named Johnny Bunko who hates his dead-end job. While he's out getting sushi, he breaks apart a pair of chopsticks and -poof- out pops Diana, a strange fairy-ish creature with an attitude and tips about career guidance.

It's a bizarre way to approach the subject, but it just may get the attention of some readers who might not pick up a traditional book on jobs. Each time Johnny gets into a bind, he breaks open another pair of chopsticks (he has six) and Diana appears to give him some more advice. It boils down to six statements, which I suppose it doesn't hurt to just list here:

1. There is no plan.
2. Think strengths, not weaknesses.
3. It's not about you.
4. Persistence trumps talent.
5. Make excellent mistakes.
6. Leave an imprint.

Within the first one there's a statement about the reasons we do things: for instrumental reasons (hoping they'll lead to something else) or fundamental reasons (because we believe they have value in themselves). Pink's suggestion is that successful people usually do things for fundamental reasons, and that doing things we don't care about because we think they'll lead us to something else is a bad idea.

In summary, it's a very short, somewhat entertaining book. I'd say I probably agree with most of the advice offered even though I don't always follow it myself, but it serves as a good reminder. I do think it's a book I could recommend to high-schoolers or college kids who don't really want to read What Color Is Your Parachute? or something like that.

The Adventures of Blue Avenger - Norma Howe

The SSN, as it is called, is thrown on front sidewalks, lawns, driveways, or roofs of 30,444 residences in the greater Tulsa area every Wednesday afternoon, where it lies around for several days before being tossed into the nearest garbage can or trash pile, accompanied by phrases like "Oh, this stupid paper again!" and "What a nuisance!" and, from the truly perplexed, "There should be a law against scattering this *#%! all over the neighborhood!"

David Schumacher, for reasons unknown, decided on his sixteenth birthday to change his name to Blue Avenger, a comic-book character he had drawn as a child. Strangely enough, things start happening in his life: he becomes famous, starts dating Omaha Nebraska Brown (a kindred spirit), and pretty much transforms into the hero of San Pablo High School.

It's a very bizarre book, filled with little factoids (the one above is a personal favorite because those advertising circulars are one of my pet peeves) and side-remarks to the reader. It reminds me a little bit of the narrator in the movie "Stranger than Fiction": "Every weekday, for twelve years, Harold would brush each of his thirty-two teeth seventy-six times. Thirty-eight times back and forth, thirty-eight times up and down." (And so on.) There's also a tiny hint of Douglas Adams in the super-omniscient narrator, explaining things that nobody could possibly know.

A major theme throughout the book is the conundrum of free will versus fate. Most of Blue's class at school believes in free will; Omaha is the only one who strongly believes in fate; Blue himself is undecided on the matter, and performs experiments in attempts to settle the matter. It's an interesting approach, tackling a weighty and serious issue in a lighthearted book.

I found it in the young adult section of rotating books at the library, and would recommend it for somebody looking for something a bit different.

Trollbridge - Jane Yolen & Adam Stemple

Teller, teller, tell me a tale, Of love and fear and duty, I want to die in the arms of love, I want to die for beauty. For beauty is the only truth, And death the only lie, I want to sing a final tale, And love before I die.

Jane Yolen is a very prolific author, but mostly what I know about her is that she's done various folklore-related books. This one, found in the library, is the second in a "Rock 'n' Roll Fairy Tale" series written with her son, who is (according to liner notes) a real rock-and-roller.

The plot is a mash-up of "The Twelve Dancing Princesses" and "The Billy Goats Gruff," with a bridge, a troll, and a strange fox-man named Fossegrim thrown in for good measure. The modern-day setting changes the dancing princesses to Minnesota's Dairy Princesses; in this story, the butter sculptures of the princesses are left each year on a bridge in the small town of Vanderby, but nobody really knows why. This year, however, there's a new mayor who doesn't want butter running off into his fishing lake, so the butter sculptures aren't there.

Then, of course, weird things start happening. The twelve girls end up captured by a troll, fated to be brides for his sons. The Griffson brothers, a pop sensation, also end up in Trollholm, and with the somewhat iffy help of Fossegrim, come up with a plan to free themselves and the girls. Interspersed throughout the chapters are excerpts from the Griffson Brothers' songs, as well as snippets of a morning radio show in which the mysterious disappearances are discussed.

It's a fun, short book and kind of clever: a good filler between meatier books.

Half Magic - Edward Eager

Above, a flaming-hot sun blazed in a cloudless sky. Otherwise there didn't seem to be anything anywhere but sand. "What happened? Where are we?" he cried dazedly. Jane sighed grimly. "You just got half a wish," she told him. "Desert, yes. Island, no."

I got a tip about this book from the GeekDad blog. One of the things they liked about it (and I agree) is that the kids refer to actual stories and books (Edith Nesbit, for instance). Jane and Katharine and Mark and Martha are four kids who are a little like Nesbit's Bastables, except that nothing exciting ever happens to them. But of course then it does: they discover a magic charm which grants wishes by halves.

At first, the children (and their skeptical mother) don't realize the magic of the charm, which leads to some odd circumstances when their idle wishes ("I wish I were at home") are half-granted. But eventually the children figure out the rules and become more adept at wishing for twice as much as they really want; but the charm remains a wild card, and things don't always go as planned.

It's an old book but it holds up quite well. The reading level was probably a bit high for Ridley (age 4.5) but she still seemed to enjoy the story and found lots of things to laugh about. I found a used copy online and will be happy to read it to Ridley again when she's older.

Coraline - Neil Gaiman, adapted and illustrated by P. Craig Russell

Coraline wondered why so few of the adults she had met made any sense and who they thought they were talking to.

Neil Gaiman's creepy tale for young readers has now been adapted into comic book format by P. Craig Russell, who is a wonderful artist. I first read Coraline several years ago and now own a copy; it's kind of an Alice-in-Wonderland sort of tale but a good deal spookier. (Since my original review didn't say much about plot, I'll give a quick once-over here.)

Coraline lives in a big rambling house with her parents, along with a few other tenants in the other flats. Coraline's parents are boring people and she wishes her life were more interesting. One day while exploring the flat, she finds a strange door in the drawing room. It leads, says Coraline's mother, to the empty flat on the other side, but when the house was divided up into apartments it was simply bricked up. But of course, this being Gaiman, eventually this door opens up onto a dark passage, and Coraline enters a world that is certainly more interesting.

Russell's drawings are excellent and it's fun to see a favorite book in a new format. However, there are also some things that remain more sinister and shiver-inducing in Gaiman's original prose and Dave McKean's illustrations. My suggestion: read the original first, then take a gander at the comic.

Before I Die - Jenny Downham

I curl up at the foot of the stairs. This is where the cat sits when she wants to trip people over. I've always wanted to be a cat. Warm and domesticated when you want to be, wild when you don't.

Pretty shortly after I'd read Deadline, I heard about this book, which seemed to have a similar plot only with a girl as the main character (and British, which I didn't know until I read it). It's hard for me to think about this book without comparing it to Deadline, so that's what I'll do.

The premise is the same: high schooler with a terminal disease (in Tessa's case, leukemia) has a list of things to do before death. To borrow a line from "Shawshank Redemption": get busy living, or get busy dying. However, Tessa's approach is quite different from Ben's. Ben kept his illness a secret, and decided to go all out for a great senior year. Tessa has been sick for several years so it's no secret; she's no longer in school and her list includes things like doing drugs, driving her dad's car without a license, and committing crimes for a day. (Both, naturally, have sex pretty high on the list.)

Before I Die focuses a lot more on the illness: the symptoms and effects, Tessa's deteriorating appearance, the various hospital visits and blood transfusions. (Ben's disease in Deadline was an unnamed MacGuffin, something that conveniently had no immediately outward symptoms.) It's more about the experience of being sick. Tessa's behavior is often impulsive and brash, without any consideration for how it may affect anyone else. The driving is a good example: even if her father would have objected to drugs and crime, you'd think he would probably allow her to try driving if she'd asked, instead of stealing the car and driving out to the coast.

In the end, Deadline was probably written more to drive home a message about what's important in life, and Before I Die is more like the diary of a girl who gradually learns what's important as she's dying. Ben's goals are high-minded and mostly well-planned. Tessa's are wild and dangerous, as if she thinks "really living" consists of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll. My preference for Deadline may be as much a matter of my age as my gender or nationality.

The Pickup Artist - Terry Bisson

Shockingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, no one on either side defended the permanence of art. Museums as well as individuals were being overwhelmed by a world which produced more, not less, every year, and in which even ephemera was preserved.

My problem is that I want to do everything. I want to read all the good books, see all the good movies, listen to all the good music, eat all the good foods, go to all the good places. Of course, that's impossible, particularly now when, on average, a book is published every three minutes and over 400 movies are released per year in the U.S. alone. That's where the pickup artists come in: the Bureau of Arts and Information was created to prune the tree of art, so to speak. Books, movies, poetry, plays, and music are all selected for "deletion" to make room for new works of art. Hank Shapiro is a collection agent, sent to pick up hard copies of deleted items that weren't voluntarily sent in for destruction.

The problem of the glut of information and art was brought to a head by the Alexandrians ("named for the fire, not the library"), loosely-related groups and individuals who took it upon themselves to purge the art world by bombings, fires, and theft. Along the way there was a schism, and there's now another group of Alexandrians ("named for the library, not the fire") out to preserve art by secreting away hard copies before the Bureau can get them.

It's a fantastic premise.

Unfortunately, the execution leaves a lot to be desired. The plot is a mess of subplots: Shapiro's dying dog, the many instances of Indian Bob, a Hank Williams album, Shapiro's mother/father issues, Henry (short for Henrietta) the librarian who's been pregnant for eight years, a bugging device that develops an emotional attachment to Shapiro (and vice versa). I also felt it was poorly edited; Shapiro (who narrates) often repeats himself, usually right after a chapter break. It's not clear if he's supposed to be reminding you, or if Bisson just simply forgot that he'd explained something already. There are also little typos throughout the book ("must" instead of "most").

The Alexandrians subplot reminds me of the VFD in Lemony Snicket's books: one half of the group puts out fires while the other half sets them. There's also a lot of foreshadowing which seems to be leading up to a big revelation that never occurs.

Every other chapter is more of a history section, explaining the formation of the Bureau and providing some backstory. Those are probably the most interesting portions, setting the premise and eventually explaining the rules of deletion. But following Shapiro as he drives out west, trying to rescue this missing album and keep his dog alive, never really hooked me.

As much as I wanted to like this book, I'd recommend you pass on it.