The Handmaid's Tale

First of all, it is not the Handmaiden's Tale. Handmaid, it is. Many will be familiar with either the film or the television series. But Margaret Atwood is just too good of a writer to not get the full force of the story in the original.

From the Bibliophile's Devotional for June 10th:

"In this rich story of a dystopian future, the Republic of Gilead is an oppressive, underpopulated, Christian theocracy ruled by men. Right-wing fundamentalist set up the repressive state in the 1980s (the novel was published in 1986) after murdering the U.S. president and members of Congress. It is a bleak place. Women have been disenfranchised and are prevented from working or having money or learning to read. Homosexuals, jews, old women, and nonwhites have been sent to the Colonies to clean up toxic waste.

This cautionary tale is celebrated for its gorgeous prose and controversial for its forthright feminism. Atwood reminds the reader that all of the horrifying ways in which women are oppressed in this novel have been played out in history."

Silent Spring

In these times, particularly in these times, it is reflective to remember we were warned over 50 years ago that we were/are in conflict with nature. Rachel Carson published Silent Spring on September 27, 1962. It was shocking and groundbreaking then and worth rereading today.

The Bibliophile's Devotional chose Earth Day (April 22) as the day to celebrate Carson's historic observations about humankind and nature.

"Silent Spring came as a cry in the wilderness, a deeply felt, thoroughly researched, and brilliantly written argument that changed the course of history. Without this book the environmental movement might have been long delayed or never developed at all."  

-Al Gore, Introduction to the 1994 edition

Molly's Game (Book Review)

Bloggers at times get asked to do reviews based on their content. Long, long time ago, this blog was devoted to professional poker. But it's been awhile since I've been asked to review a poker-related book. So regular readers be forewarned, thar be some poker ahead.

Molly's Game is a breezy summer read. As the tagline says: "From Hollywood-elite to Wall Street's billionaire boy's club, my high-stakes adventures in the world of underground poker." Molly Bloom is, was or portents to have been the young lady who ran several high stakes poker games on both coasts.

Why "portents?" Because, although the names and dates synch-up for this to be a work of non-fiction; at times the literary gloss is just too shiny to ring completely true. But first, the good news.

Many of the negative reviews of this book harp on the lifestyles of the rich, famous and degenerate players in Molly's game. Those critiques are fairly shallow. I mean it's not like the promotional blurbs didn't make it clear what the story was about. If you don't want to read about certain aspects of a culture, than don't. But critiquing after the fact that the players were rich and amoral is like calling politicians low-life, lying scum. I mean who doesn't know that?

The story is told well, almost too breezy at times to even be a 'beach read.' But Molly Bloom and her editor know how to keep the story moving and still allow for a break to take a dip in the pool or the poolside bar.

My problems with the story center on the poker. How and when the choices were made to explain or not a specific poker term seems arbitrary. Certainly, the main storyline was about the players and not the game, but when action at the table was described it often showed a lack of poker knowledge. Just a bit of research or using a poker savvy editor would have easily caught a couple of glaring errors. For example, no poker player 'folds the nuts' because he was talked out of his hand by another player. 'The nuts' refers to the best hand possible, a hand that can't be beat.

All in all, an interesting read if you don't break out in a PC-inspired rash when rich, careless people are the subjects of the story. Poker players will have to hold their tongues over some lazy descriptions of the game but otherwise I give Molly's Game a just slightly less than tumid thumbs up.

Molly's Game is available in all formats (hard, soft, audio, kindle) from Amazon.

Flight Behavior - Book Review

Another audio road trip book review. This time I listened outside of my normal comfort zone. Barbara Kingsolver is not my type of author and her subject matter is not in my wheelhouse either, but the reviews were good and I took a shot.

One reading experience I truly enjoy is when the lead character is very introspective, that is certainly true of Flight Behavior. Set in the hills of Carolina among "regular folk," I found the interactions between the various characters to be compelling. The story itself around separation, bad decisions and monarch butterflies was more than enough to hold my interest.

I found the opening chapter to be completely misleading and therefore a truly inventive introduction to the work. My only criticism is that after a wonderful story the author had to go to a big Ta-Dah ending. It was rushed and just too over the top to fit with the rest of the story. She had it nailed just a scene or two earlier but had to go for a wee bit more.

In any case, I give it a recommended for audio time-distortion while on the road. Next CD launches when I leave Texas for parts even further West.

Leisureville: A Book (and a lifestyle) Review

"Behind all the gated age-restricted leisure, ersatz architectural nostalgia, and nightly hanky-panky, what I saw in The Villages is a concerted effort by a segment of older Americans to find community--something that in today's turbulent world can be hard to chance upon, particularly for the elderly. Many Villagers simply don't care if they live in an autocratic fantasyland founded on a policy of segregation; they just want a place to call home, a geritopia where they can be comfortable among their peers.

Most of the Villagers I met were blissful--thankful that such a place existed and that they had been lucky enough to find it. Retirement can be a stressful stage of life. There's no script to follow for the decades between giving up work and reaching advanced old age. Private developers such as Webb and Morse are filling that void for some people, peddling a glamorized vision of serene, financially predicable leisure living in segregated resort-like communities. It's a powerful vision that has proved to be very appealing to a sizable segment of aging Americans."

So opens the penultimate chapter of Andrew Blechman's book based mostly on the place where I am staying this month -- The Villages in Central Florida. I strongly recommend the book to anyone who ventures near this blog. If you are a progressive, you really need to inform yourself about what is happening far from your door. If you're conservative, there are a huge flock of like-minded individuals congregating in a land not so far away. And for my very few readers who actually are moderates, this place is fascinating or creepy or both at the same time.

After yesterday's election, one might consider just how far apart the red and blue sides of this country are. The stark contrast is geographically played out here at The Villages. The residents and snow-birds dominate local elections. Republican candidates flock to campaign here, paying homage to the mass of aging, white, conservative voters.

There are so many aspects to this place: political, social, anthropological, even constitutional. Read the book, I promise you will open your eyes a bit wider at what the Boomer generation hath wrought.