Books finished over the Christmas break: My Dirty Little Book of Stolen Timeby Liz Jensen and The Fortune of War - the 6th in the Aubrey-Maturin seriesby Patrick O'Brian. I first read the Aubrey-Maturin novels a few years ago. I didn't like Master and Commandervery much originally but I decided to read the 2nd one, Post Captain, anyways and I liked it more. By the third one, H.M.S. Surprise, I was hooked and I read the rest of the series as fast as I could get through them.
Recently I decided to re-read them and I'm enjoying them as much the 2nd time through. In hindsight, it must have taken me a while to get used to the writing style and that is why I didn't like them at first. On 2nd reading, I appreciated Master and Commander as much as the others. O'Brian uses a very sparse style, peppered with nautical or historical language with little or no explanation. He also tends to have a long buildup followed by very short climaxes - often only a sentence or two to wrap up pages or chapters of plot.
My Dirty Little Book of Stolen Time could also be described as a historical novel, but with a science fiction twist since the characters travel back and forth between 19th century Copenhagen and 21st century London. It's not as interesting from a historical perspective as the Aubrey-Maturin books but it's a fun read. I picked it up from the library's featured books section on a whim but I liked it enough that I will check out Liz Jensen's other books.

I saw For Your Consideration, Christopher Guest's latest improv movie, over the weekend. I think I'm one of the few people who saw (and liked) Waiting for Guffmanbefore Best in Showand A Mighty Windcreated some buzz around what he was doing but his latest is probably the weakest of the four films. It has the same low key style, combination of slightly off and very strange characters and improv feel but it never quite jells. This one adds a lot of TV satire set pieces, playing off shows like Entertainment Tonight, and I think those pieces are too crudely done to fit in with the light touch of the rest of the film.

I also finished The Relicby Lincoln Child and Douglas Preston. It's a pretty standard thriller/horror book with some an interesting background - the Museum of Natural History in New York. I'm not sure how they divvied up the work on this one but they do create a decent "page turner". Preston also wrote a non-fiction history of the Museum called Dinosaurs in the Atticthat looks interesting.

I finished two books today. The first is iWoz - Steve Wozniak's autobiography. I owned an Apple II clone when I was in junior high but I never thought very much about the man behind it until last year when I heard him speak at a conference. His speech was about his childhood and inventing the personal computer and was inspiring. I didn't know how central his role had been and how much of an amazing engineer he was until that speech. After that, I heard his autobiography was coming out and couldn't wait to read it.

Of course, it's not quite as good as my expectations. Like many autobiographies, it's based on conversations/interview he had with the real author, Gina Smith in this case. Some of the stories are the same ones he told in his speech and some are ones that are available on the web. If you're interesting in the history of computers, Apple or want to be inspired about the pursuit of engineering, I'd recommend it.

The other book is Clive Barker's The Thief of Always. I haven't read a lot of Clive Barker's work, but this doesn't seem to be as much of a horror novel as his others. It's more of a modern fantasy/horror work for older children/young adults. It's an OK read but nothing surprising.

On the drive home today, I realized that I had overlooked one of my favourite authors when I claimed there were no American authors writing in a similar style/genre to Superchick. Po Bronson's first two books, Bombardiersand The First $20 Million is Always the Hardestare both great books in a similar style. Bronson has gone on to right some very good non-fiction booksbut I hope he returns to fiction some day.

Latest book read: Superchickby Stephen J. Martin. This one was sent to me by a friend and is easily the best thing I've read in a while. It fits in a genre that seems to be entirely defined by British/Irish authors, in particular Nick Hornbyand early Roddy Doyle. For some reason, American and continental European authors haven't produced anything in this working class, humourous, naturalistic style. The most similar things I can think of by US authors are the lighter works of Elmore Leonard, Donald Westlake, or Carl Hiassenbut these are all in the mystery genre.

If you like any of the authors I listed above, check this one out. It actually had me laughing out loud a few times.

I just finished Gen-e-sis by Robert M. Hazen, a non-fiction book about the scientific research into the origins of life on Earth. I read a fair amount of non-fiction popular science books but this one was a little different. First, it was written by one of the researchers in the field instead of a journalist. Second, it was written about a problem that hasn't been solved yet. Because they are written in hingsight, many of these books pick up a stronger narrative feeling -- the scientists face certain adversities, perservere and eventually they are vindicated. For example, see The Double Helix, which tells the story of Watson and Crick discovering the structure of DNA.

In contrast, Hazen's book provides a slightly different window into the world of working science. There are multiple competing approaches with controversies, false starts and personality clashes with no ultimate winner yet. If you want to get an idea how actual scientists work together, compete or think in general, I highly recommend this book.

I was lucky enough to hear one of the researchers featured speak at Wonderfest, a series of dialogues/lectures that is held at Stanford/UC Berkeley every year. The topic of the debate was "Was the Origin of Life Inevitable". Both of the researchers who spoke actually agreed with the thesis but for the sake of having a debate, one of them took the other side and did a very good job of using his expertise in the field to highlight the missing pieces and problems in the current theories. If you're in the Bay Area, you should check it out next November.

Just finished Saga of the Jomsvikings. Quite short and not very lively compared to most modern fiction. If you like the works of Homer or Herodotus like I do, you might enjoy this one as well. Just don't expect a modern story with a Viking setting.

I just finished Adventures from the Technology Underground by William Gurstelle, an interesting non-fiction book about projects being accomplished by a slew of DIY technology geeks. If you are a fan of Robot Wars, Junkyard Wards/Scrapheap Challenge, Make or even Mythbusters, you will probably enjoy this book. It's a bit short and is more of a collection of vignettes than a deep study of the topic but the people he meets are all interesting and the book could serve as a resource for someone trying to research modern DIY.

The ABC Family Channel was showing the first three Harry Potter movies this weekend. I've seen the first two a number of times on TV over the years but this is the first time I've seen Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban on TV. As I thought at the time, it's clearly the best of the movie versions. And it's more than just a result of the book being meatier than the previous ones. Even a cursory examination shows that Alfonso Cuarón created an actual world that Harry and the other characters seemed to live in, compared to the shallow, un-imaginative backdrop that Chris Columbus created. I only saw Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire one time in the theaters but it was clear the Mike Newall was trying to be more in the Cuarón rather than Columbus mode. Good for him.

Arthur & George is Julian Barnes latest book and the first I have read by him. The two main characters are real people - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and George Edalji - and their lives are compared/contrasted throughout the first part of the book. The later part is more focused on Doyle's involvement in the real life miscarriage of justice that put Edalji in prison for 3 years based on part raciscm, part police incompetence. After his release, Doyle got involved and eventually got Edalji pardoned. Some of the other major themse in the book are Doyle's involvement in the spiritualism movement and his relationships with his first and second wives.

Barnes does a better job portraying Doyle than Edalji. Even though Doyle had some odd beliefs - he believed in spirits and the afterlife and even argued for the existence of fairies at one point - Barnes creates a convincing character based on the Sherlock Holmes author. On the other hand, Edalji remains a mystery. Many other characters respond strangely to him and it is never made clear if this is because of his mixed race or if it is something odd about Edalji's manner. Edalji's relationship with his father is also never fully explained - his father insisted on sleeping in the same locked room as him until he went to prison but the reasons behind this are never comfortably established.

Overall, I would highly recommend it, particularly for fans of Sherlock Holmes or of the Victorian/Edwardian period in general.

OK, I haven't managed to actually post here in years. I'm going to try something new - just post quick notes about what I'm reading, shows I've been to, etc. and see how that goes. For example, I just recently finished Arthur & George by Julian Barnes. Maybe tomorrow, I'll post a review.