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As an author, even after all these years, I never quite believe it until I have the actual book in my grubby little hands. Well, the box arrived yesterday and a few books cooperated for this photograph:

As a reminder, this book may be seen as a companion to, and extension of, the themes first presented in Bystander. If readers enjoyed that book, they could pick up this one next — though, admittedly, it’s a little tougher, a little darker. Or start with The Fall and ignore Bystander altogether. It’s your life!

Before I get to the excerpts, some review quotes:

 “It was 2:55 am as I finally gave up on the notion of sleep.  Having started reading THE FALL by James Preller earlier in the day, I knew sleep would not come until I had finished Sam’s story.  Now, having turned the last page, it still haunts me and will for quite some time.” — Guys Lit Wire.

“Told through journal entries, Preller’s latest novel expertly captures the protagonist’s voice, complete with all of its sarcasm, indifference, and, at the same time, genuine remorse.” — School Library Journal.

“Readers will put this puzzle together, eager to see whether Sam ultimately accepts his role in Morgan’s death, and wanting to see the whole story of what one person could have, and should have, done for Morgan. Pair this with Jay Asher’s Thirteen Reasons Why (2007).” — Booklist.

“With its timely, important message and engaging prose style, Sam’s journal ought to find a large readership.” (Fiction. 10-16) — Kirkus.

“I didn’t realize the emotional impact this book had on me until the very last sentence when it brought tears to my eyes. This was a heartbreaking and beautiful story about friendship, bullying, and the aftermath of all of it.” – Expresso Reads.

Now for the actual four-chapter excerpt, pages 151-158. Yes, each unnumbered chapter is super short:

FACE MEETS FIST

    In retrospect, I don’t think getting punched in the face was that bad. I kind of liked it. I mean, I’m not recommending it. “Oh, yes, you simply must try the Punch-in-the-Face, it’s divine. Far superior to the Knee-to-the-Groin and half the calories!”

     Fact: Fergus Tick went blam and I went boom. Hitting the ground was worse than the punch -– no disrespect to Fergus, who packs a wallop, but that concrete was hard.

     To my surprise, I did not see stars. Pretty little birdies did not circle my head, chirping tunelessly. None of the typical things I expected after a lifetime’s education watching Loony Tunes cartoons. I got hit, I fell, and my coconut throbbed but didn’t crack. That was it. Fergus’s fist caught me on the right cheek below the eye -– Fergus was a lefty, who knew! Maybe a tougher kid staggers back but keeps standing. Not me. I flopped like a spineless jellyfish.

     One punch and done.

     Message received, loud and clear.

     Surprisingly: Fergus was the one who looked frightened, and so did Athena, who stood watching. My confession in speech class shook them up. I had broken the code of silence. I said out loud what I had done to Morgan Mallen. I spoke the unspeakable. I owned the thing that nobody else wanted. And even though I didn’t point fingers at anyone else, I could see that it scared Athena to the core.

     She didn’t look so pretty from my viewpoint on the ground. She looked like she’d just swallowed a poisoned apple. There was something evil in her soul and she was rotting from the inside out.

     The fallout after Morgan’s suicide had not been a good experience for Athena Luikin. I watched her closely those days and weeks after Morgan’s death. I followed her movements, where she sat, what she did, and I saw that she had become damaged goods. If Morgan was the dead girl, Athena was the one we blamed. At first, Athena put on a brave face, the tough girl who didn’t give a hoot. Over time, cracks appeared. Everyone knew Athena was the one most responsible for harassing Morgan. In a way, she fell victim to her own game. Athena was tagged, too. Her tag read: BULLY. One by one, Athena’s friends faded into the background until she stood virtually alone, if not for the unwavering loyalty of Fergus Tick.

     Rumors went around that Athena was transferring to a private school in another town. “Good,” we said. One morning, a FOR SALE sign appeared on her front lawn. There was talk of a lawsuit, damages and courtrooms. The reign of the Queen was over.

     So there I sat on the ground, head going boom-ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom, fuzzzzzz.

  “Get up,” Fergus demanded.

     (So you can punch me again? I don’t think so.)

     “Leave him,” Athena said. “Come let’s go, Fergus.”

     And go they did.

     I waited for my head to clear. It wasn’t so awful, it felt like waking up any school morning, that torturous distance between head-on-the-pillow and feet-on-the-floor.

     I needed a hot shower. Or maybe a long hot bath. Morgan once said, “Baths make everything better.” It was time to find out if she was right.

     Despite all that, deep down, I felt fantastic. Like a million bucks. Terrific, awesome, happy.

     (How weird was that?)

     I wasn’t on the wrong side of life anymore. I was now an enemy of the bad guys -– and it felt great. I tasted something sweet in my mouth, a new flavor, but I couldn’t figure out what it was until I spat.

     Oh, blood.

I KNOCKED  

    I decided to do it. I had to.

     I stood at her front door yesterday.

     I breathed in and out, in and out.

     Steady as a willow in a hurricane.

     And I knocked.

     Bark, BARK, barkbarkBARKbark!

     I’d forgotten about Larry. The lunatic mop.

     I suddenly, fiercely, insanely wished I had a mint. I breathed into my open palm. Yuck, gross. How was my hair? What was I doing here?

     Time passed.

     And the door creaked open.

     The mother was standing there, wheezing slightly, sizing me up. The expression on her face said, What now, dear Lord, what now?

THINGS I LIKE  

     This is a list of random things I like.

     I like baseball games that last extra innings. “Free baseball,” we call it. I like weekends without homework, watching my little sister sleep with her puffy lips and how the saliva dribbles out of the corner of her mouth. I like my bed made with the blankets folded down nice and perfect, just right. I like the cold, numb feeling of a package of frozen peas on my swollen face. I like the last bell of the school day and the sound in the hallways of a hundred lockers slamming joyously shut and the big hum of let’s get outta here, let’s go. I like funny videos with absurd cats (I realize it’s a big joke to some people, but I do). I like memories of old vacations, camping trips and card games and nickel antes. I like the stars in the sky when the night is warm and silent. I like the sound of a swing and a miss on the baseball diamond, the absence of sound followed by a fastball popping into the catcher’s leather glove, the whoosh-and-pop combo. I like that just-beginning feeling when you see a girl and think, wow, that’s all, just WOW, and you know you have to find a way to stand next to that girl somewhere, somehow. I like a brand new box of my favorite cereal, when I know it was bought just for me. I like turning on the radio and a great song comes on that same instant. I like laughter, and promises kept, and friendly waves across open fields. I even like Morgan’s lunatic dog that barkbarkbARKed with the soul of wolf.

     I like being alive, and today I am, right now, saying yes to life. Yes, yes, and yes.

 
WORDS   

     Larry pounced on my shoes, barkbarkbARKing!

     “You remember me, don’t you, Larry?” I said.

     “And you are?” the mother asked.

     I didn’t have a good answer. And in fact, I never expected to see the mom. That wasn’t my plan. Yet here she was, a fairly gigantic woman in a huge floral housedress. She might have weighed three hundred pounds. She smelled of butterscotch and a scent that reminded me of Morgan, the faint whisper of booze.

     She eyed me suspiciously, the door only half-open, ready to slam shut.

     (I am Sam, Sam I am.)

     All I had to do was open my mouth. It’s all anybody ever wanted me to do, my parents, Mr. Laneway, Morgan. “Just talk,” they said. “It’s easy. Try it. Say one word. Start with your name . . .”

     Seriously?

     What good would that do? My name is . . .

     Use.

     Less.

     Ness.

 -

YES, I LOVE TO DO SCHOOL VISITS — EVEN SCARY MIDDLE SCHOOLS!

The books have started to arrive, the kids are clearly delighted and we are thrilled to pieces to see over 150 books on the way to DC. The wishlist is still active — please give it a look and buy a book for this high school library.

Over at Guys Lit Wire, the group book review site for teens I co-founded several years ago, we are again hosting the annual Book Fair for Ballou High School in Washington DC. Every year I build wishlist with Melissa Jackson, Ballou’s librarian, and we put it up online (at Amazon this year) and spend a couple of weeks blitzing the internet and asking for folks to buy a book for Ballou. This year we started with just under 400 books on the list and we hope that over the next 2 weeks 100 books will be bought.

This used to be a lot easier. When we first organized a book fair for Ballou in 2011, over 800 books were bought for the school. Since then, it has steadily become more difficult to generate excitement, to get folks to make their own blog posts or mention it on tumblr or facebook. The tweets have slowed down, the RTs are harder to come by. This book fair, like everything else, is just lost in all the clamor that lives in social media these days.

Another problem, is that so many school libraries need help these days. On Monday I was in a discussion on twitter where I heard about one parent whose daughter goes to school in a district where four elementary schools are depending on fundraisers to get books. Another teacher told me that his high school has not had a librarian for two years and the local public library is struggling to get new books as well. In the midst of this conversation it was easy to understand how yet another school library in need could get lost in the shuffle.

For me, Ballou is special. Melissa and I have talked and exchanged many emails over the years and I am continuously impressed by her enthusiasm for her job and dedication to her students. And when her students send a list of books they want, all I want to go is get them all. I want them to walk into a library every day that has thousands of books they want to read. I want to give them something magical because I know that books themselves are the biggest magic in the world.

So, I spread the word on the book fair and I beg everyone else to spread the word. About 30 books have been bought so far and so the odds of us making it to 100 in the next 2 weeks are pretty good. Of course I wish it was like the first year and we would sell out, but I get that times have changed (even on the internet). The books are still magic, no matter how many we get headed their way.

[Post pic of the kids from Ballou on Monday holding up signs thanking us for starting the book fair.]

We are often asked why we have chosen to stay with Ballou Senior High School for our annual book fair. Prior to Ballou, Guys Lit Wire worked with a group serving juvenile offenders in Los Angeles and two schools on reservations in Arizona and New Mexico. While we certainly were happy to help those folks and felt that our book fairs did a lot of good and were appreciated, when we first teamed up with Ballou we quickly realized we had found a special situation.

Melissa Jackson, the Library Media Specialist, loves her job and her enthusiasm is quite infectious. A look at the library's facebook page shows the many events she plans there from poetry slams to club meetings to author readings and tons of visiting speakers. Melissa works tirelessly to get students excited about reading and has been key to the past success of the book fairs. She cares so much about the kids at Ballou and has shown us just how much one dedicated librarian can accomplish for a whole school. Melissa is a powerhouse whose dedication can not be denied. We are thus delighted to work with her, and help her, through the current book fair.

If you want to know how the world can be changed, then Melissa is a shining example of what a force for good looks like. Guys Lit Wire organizes these book fairs each year through her direct coordination and support; Melissa is the one who gets all these books you purchase off the list into the hands of teenagers eager to read them. Please know how much you making her job easier with every title you send to Washington DC and every effort you make to spread the word.

The Book Fair for Ballou Sr High School continues. Please check out the details and shop the Powells wish list.

[Post pic of Melissa Jackson with the Ballou mascot, the "Golden Knight".]

Cross posted from Guys Lit Wire.

That's how the students at Washington DC's Ballou Sr High School and their librarian Melissa Jackson feel about the recent Guys Lit Wire Holiday Book Fair. Via the Powells Books wish list, 59 books were bought and shipped to Ballou where they have been very gratefully received.

I love seeing something like this happen - it's really what the holiday season is all about. Thanks so much to everyone who helped make these kids happy and to all of you out there who believe in the power of books to change lives. :)

This is one of those books filled with so much fascinating yet disgusting information that you can’t help but read parts out loud to other people so they can be grossed out right along with you.

Or maybe that’s just me. Because I started reading this book at work one day and just had to read some sections aloud to my co-workers. Like when Rebecca L. Johnson explains how a certain fungus grows inside the corpse of a type of carpenter ant, until “a long, skinny stalk erupts through the dead ant’s head.” Or the description of a wasp laying an egg on a cockroach, then the egg becoming a larva that slowly eats the roach’s internal organs while the roach is still alive. (And then I absolutely had to show my co-workers the accompanying pictures, as well. I mean, just look at page 24.)

Maybe you think zombies aren’t real, but zombification of sorts actually exists in nature. In Zombie Makers: True Stories of Nature’s Undead, Johnson explains how parasites like hairworms and the jewel wasp, among others, reproduce by infecting their host and making them act in weird, practically zombie-like ways. Vacant stares and stilted movements? Check. Unresponsive to pain, injury, even loss of body parts? Check.

Johnson (whose Journey Into the Deep I reviewed several years ago) focuses on just a few parasites in this short but, uh, engrossing book. Her writing is vivid, the design and photo selection effectively complements the text, and a lot of information is packed into this short book. Besides describing how the parasite infects its host and reproduces, Johnson also briefly discusses the scientific observations and experiments that informed our knowledge of the parasites. Back matter includes an author’s note, glossary, and bibliography. Whether you’re interested in science or just want to read a good gross-out book, or both, I highly recommend Zombie Makers.

Book details:
Middle Grade nonfiction
Published in 2012
ISBN 9780761386339

Cross-posted at Guys Lit Wire.

I’ve neglected to cross-post my last few reviews for Guys Lit Wire (Bomb by Sheinkin and Sumo by Pham, if you’re interested), but Spillover. Oh my god, this book was awesome and I loved it. If I’d read it when it came out last year, it would have easily topped my list of favorite books of 2012. But since I didn’t actually have a chance to read it until this past March, I’ll have to settle for putting it on my 2013 list.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Pick an infectious disease.

Influenza. Ebola. Bubonic plague. SARS. AIDS. I could go on.

Whatever disease you chose, there’s a good chance the pathogen that causes it originated in an animal and then jumped to humans. “This form of interspecies leap is common, not rare; about 60 percent of all human infectious diseases currently known either cross routinely or have recently crossed between other animals and us,” writes David Quammen. Such pathogens are known as zoonoses, and the moment when a pathogen jumps from one species to another is called spillover.

In Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic, Quammen investigates a handful of zoonoses and how they spilled over, traveling all over the world and going into the field to speak to doctors, scientists, and survivors. He joins a biologist in Gabon who is conducting a biological survey of Central African forests, visits the “wet markets” of Guangdong, China, and helps trap monkeys and bats in Bangladesh. Along the way, he talks to men who were in the village of Mayibout 2 when Ebola struck in 1996, the doctors in Singapore who treated patients suffering from what was later identified as SARS but at first seemed merely a severe case of pneumonia, scientists who identified previously unknown diseases and tracked them to their original hosts, and many others.

Which would make for compelling reading on its own. Yet what really pushes this past compelling to outstanding is Quammen’s prose, sometimes wry (as when he notes “If you’ve followed all that, at a quick reading, you have a future in biology” after a paragraph-long description of the life stages of the Anopheles mosquito, and later “Mathematics to me is like a language I don’t speak though I admire its literature in translation.”), always sharply observant and erudite.

But for all the in-depth sections explaining scientific, medical, or epidemiological terminology, this is not a dry, detached scientific discourse. In a way, Spillover is about the human experience of infectious zoonotic disease–both those who are stricken and those who investigate it. And I could not put this book down. It’s timely and relevant, endlessly fascinating, and eloquently written.

Spillover happens to be one of three shortlisted titles for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction, along with Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis by Timothy Egan and The Mansion of Happiness: A History of Life and Death by Jill Lepore. The winner will be announced at the ALA annual conference on June 30.

Book source: personal (purchased) copy.

* If, like me, you are into books about pandemics, David Dobbs put together a reading list at Slate. I haven’t yet read everything he recommends (must work on that!), but I also want to plug one article he didn’t mention, “Death at the Corners” by Denise Grady from Discover magazine. It’s not about a pandemic, but it is about a zoonotic disease outbreak, and probably THE article sparked my reading interest in infectious diseases.

I think in this case, pictures are worth a thousand words, right? We have sold just over 100 books off the Powells wish list for Ballou Library and it is truly wonderful to see these titles unpacked with so much excitement. This is why we do the book fair - because we know how much the books are wanted and will be enjoyed.

In all honesty though, sometimes I feel as if I am nagging the entire internet with posts and tweets trying to cajole folks to spread the word and help us sellout. I wish it was easier; heck, I wish it was unnecessary. I wish that I didn't get emails from people disappointed that we were staying with the same school as years previous, that we had not found someplace "needier". I wish I did not have to explain why Ballou still needs our help and I wish I didn't get frustrated and even a little angry at how a school library in our nation's capitol that has not money for new books deserves lots of novels and science fiction and romance (even with vampires) and all of those other types of books that don't sound serious enough to some folks but are desperately wanted by teenagers everywhere.

Just look at that girl with Redshirts - pretty darn happy, don't you think?

The spring book fair formerly ended yesterday but I'm going to leave the list open for just a little while longer. I can't help but think that seeing these pictures might prompt a few folks to buy a book or two or let some folks know about the book fair who might have missed the initial Guys Lit Wire post. I do hope everyone will share these pictures far and wide though - it's pretty cool to see how excited teenagers can be about the gift of books, isn't it? They make me feel hopeful in a thousand different ways; hopeful and pretty damn happy.

And we are back!

As longtime readers know, this time of year over at Guys Lit Wire we get hard at work to help librarian Melissa Jackson at Ballou Sr High School in Washington DC fill her school's shelves. From our previous efforts, starting in 2011, we have helped Ballou move from a library that had less than one book for each of its 1,185 students to a ratio now of FIVE books per student. While this is all kinds of wonderful and something we are quite proud to be part of, the American Library Association advocates eleven books for each student. Ballou is still operating at a serious literary deficit and so we are staying with them until they are busting that minimum standard and knee deep in all the reading these students could ever want or need.

The most exciting news for Ballou is that a new structure is in the works for the school and should be completed by January 2015. As the existing building dates to the late 1950s and is in disrepair, to say the project is overdue would be a vast understatement. But while the new Ballou is going to be a great and wonderful thing, it is not the answer to all its students' problems. The bright and shiny 2015 Library and Media Center will be 5,800 square feet of awesomeness but there is no money in the budget - nothing from the DC public school system - to actually provide books for its shelves.

Wrap your head around that fact for a moment, please. The library space will be grand, the library contents...not so much.

The main problem for Ballou's library, the thing Melissa Jackson is constantly working on, is getting new books. Her students want what all teen readers want - popular and newly released titles that speak to them. Specifically, the Ballou teens are asking for science fiction, romance, fantasy, graphic novels, historical fiction, thrillers and realistic fiction.

Sound like basically every other teen you know?

So while there are plenty of congratulations all around to DC for building the new school, the walls and windows will do nothing to actually get books into the hands of these kids who happen to be smack in the middle of one of the most challenging environments in the country. On the city's most recent standardized tests, only 22 percent of Ballou 10th-graders were proficient in math, and just 18 percent were proficient in reading. To improve their lives, we need to make books an easily accessible part of their school experience and, just as important, we need to make sure these are books that will get them excited about reading.

So, you know the drill - a wish list has been created at Powells books that has been vetted by both Melissa and her student literary leaders. We continue to partner with Powells because they do a killer job of getting the books out fast, they offer lots of sale titles (be sure and watch for those) and their "Standard" used copies a pretty much like new. Plus, we are supporting a bricks and mortar store in the fine city of Portland, Oregon which is nice way connecting both sides of the country in one outstanding literary effort.

Yeah, we love Powells.

Our 2013 Wish List for Ballou, (here's the link if you want to embed it in a post: http://bit.ly/GLWBookFair), has a lot of manga, urban fiction, poetry, paranormal titles and a boatload of big sellers. (Margo Lanagan, Ellen Hopkins, Sherman Alexie, Cassandra Clare, Paolo Bacigalupi and Walter Dean Myers are all front and center.) As a fan of nonfiction I'm delighted to see books like Courage Has No Color, The Elements, How to Fake a Moon Landing: Exposing the Myths of Science Denial and The Pregnancy Project on the list and there is also a healthy collection of adult crossover titles like Here, Bullet, (Brian Turner) The Grey Album (Kevin Young) and The Intuitionist (by Colson Whitehead). There is also a lot of urban fiction, as requested by the students, and since Melissa is working with a reading population that varies in literacy levels from 5th grade to college prep, we have liberally mined the resources of the ALA Quick Picks list to discover books with older teen appeal but manageable reading levels.

You can check out the list, make your selections for the school and please know while we prefer new it is perfectly fine to purchase used copies of a book (more bang for your buck). But check and make sure the book is in "standard" used condition and not "student owned" (you will have to click on the title and leave the wish list to check this). The "student owned" copies are very cheap for a reason - they are written in and thus not a good choice for this effort.

Once you have made your selections head to "checkout" and you will be prompted to inform Powells if the books were indeed bought from the wishlist. This lets the store know to mark them as "purchased" on the list. After that you need to provide your credit card info and also fill in the shipping address. (If you have already done this in the past the info will be saved to your Powells account.) Here is where the books are going to:

Melissa Jackson, LIBRARIAN
Ballou Senior High School
3401 Fourth Street SE
Washington DC 20032
(202) 645-3400

It's very important that you get Melissa's name and title in there - she is not the only Jackson (or Melissa) at the school and we want to make sure the books get to the library.

After that you pay for the books and you're done! Please head back over here when you get a chance and leave a comment letting us know who you are, where you're from and what you bought. Also be sure to follow @BallouLibrary on twitter where Melissa will be updating on books as they arrive and student reactions. You can also let her know what you have ordered via twitter - I'm sure she will be delighted to let the kids know what's coming their way.

As always, the crew at GLW and especially me personally, thank you from the bottom of our hearts for helping us in this effort. The book fair is one of the best examples of what we all believe in - getting as many books as possible into the hands of kids who need them. Books matter so much - actual physical books that can be checked out and shared and read dozens of times over by kids for whom owning an e-reader is a distant dream. The Book Fair for Ballou is all about letting kids in a tough spot know that someone out here, someone they will never meet, wants them to read great books and is willing to put forward some of their own hard-earned dollars to make that happen. This level of caring is a powerful thing folks, and it can change the world in significant ways.

Buy a book, send a tweet, post on your blog or at facebook. Spread the word for Ballou and never doubt how much your help is appreciated. And now, enjoy a few recent pictures from the Ballou Library facebook page showing just how much this library is appreciated!

Toriko! Vol 2 is on the list! (And we would be happy to add many more in the series... :)

Chess Club getting serious in the library

Annual African American "Read In"

Women's History Month celebration

Here are the numbers:

• 2,208 people were on board the RMS Titanic on her maiden voyage
• of these, 891 were crew members and 1,317 were passengers
• yet she carried just 20 lifeboats that could have held a total of 1,178 people
• she sank, after hitting an iceberg, on April 15, 1912
• only 712 people survived

But numbers can only tell us so much. They don’t convey the excitement surrounding the largest and most luxurious ocean liner ever built at the time, the confusion and fear on board when disaster struck, the bravery of many crew members and passengers, or the heartbreak of realizing a loved one did not survive.

As the subtitle of Deborah Hopkinson’s Titanic: Voices from the Disaster implies, this is a human history of the Titanic. After describing the building of the ship and giving readers a sense of its massive scale, Hopkinson introduces some of the crew and passengers (from several countries, and different social backgrounds) who were on board. Their memories add depth and intimacy to events, engaging Titanic buffs as well as readers less familiar with the disaster. Hopkinson does an excellent job weaving multiple voices together—first describing, well, “normal” life on the Titanic for passengers and crew, then the chaos after the iceberg was spotted—with contextual information regarding different aspects of the Titanic (both in terms of what was known or custom at the time, and based on what we know now) into an organically flowing narrative.

Numerous images (photos, reproductions of telegrams, and more) spread throughout the book provide additional atmosphere; it’s one thing to read about some of the amenities on board, but seeing photographs of the gymnasium and a life preserver made of cork give the details even more impact.

The back matter is another thing to rave about here. Seriously, it is awesome, especially if you love back matter as much as I do. It’s comprehensive (comprising about a quarter of the book!), including a glossary, timeline, selected bibliography, source notes, additional biographical information about some of the passengers, and an excerpt from the British Wreck Commissioner’s Inquiry Report.

Book details: middle grade nonfiction, published 2012 by Scholastic, ISBN 9780545116749

Book source: public library.

Cross-posted at Guys Lit Wire.

The Russian Far East, early December 1997.

Vladimir Markov is dead, killed in gruesome fashion. The killer is obvious: a Siberian tiger. What little remains of Markov’s body is torn and tattered. When Yuri Trush arrives at Markov’s cabin, he records the scene with a video camera.

The camera doesn’t waver as it pans across the pink and trampled snow, taking in the hind foot of a dog, a single glove, and then a bloodstained jacket cuff before halting at a patch of bare ground about a hundred yards into the forest….

The temperature is thirty below zero and yet, here, the snow has been completely melted away. In the middle of this dark circle, presented like some kind of sacrificial offering, is a hand without an arm and a head without a face. Nearby is a long white bone, a femur probably, that has been gnawed to a boneless white. (p. 14-15)

Trush lead the Bikin unit of Inspection Tiger, an agency charged with investigating forest crimes, specifically those involving tigers. Inspection Tiger was created to protect Russian wildlife—Primorye territory, bordered by China and North Korea, is a Boreal Jungle, as John Vaillant terms it, “unique on earth, and it nurtures the greatest biodiversity of any place in Russia” (p. 25). It’s home to the most valuable timber in the Far East, and the animals that make their home in the taiga are just as valuable. For most people living there, the animals provide essential sustenance. Poaching, though illegal, is common because of the widespread poverty. However, a few poachers target not wild boars or badgers, but the most fearsome creature in the taiga. A tiger carcass will fetch $30,000 on the black market, a stunning amount of money, especially when you consider that most people in Primorye may not make $1,000 in one year. Inspection Tiger tries to stop poaching, but in this case, the tiger is dangerous, attacking and eating humans. It must be stopped.

At its heart, The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival is not just the study of a tiger. Vaillant uses the circumstances of Markov’s death and the hunt for the tiger that killed him as the framework for an absorbing exploration of the confluence of history (both natural and Russian), geography, and ecology in Primorye, and of the relationship between humans and tigers living there, focusing on one particularly shocking and fascinating incident. Some readers may consider Vaillant’s scope too broad, with digressions into human evolution and predators in other parts of the world that slow the momentum of the narrative; I found them fascinating.

Perhaps the most haunting, disturbing part about Markov’s death is the calculation with which the tiger deliberately stalked Markov and, later, its second victim. The tiger, it seems, held a grudge against Markov and the results were brutally obvious.

Book source: public library
Adult Nonfiction
Published by Alfred A. Knopf in 2010
ISBN 9780307268938

Cross-posted at Guys Lit Wire.

Last Monday we unveiled the Powells wish list for the Guys Lit Wire book fair with great excitement. This was our fourth year of running a book fair for a struggling library in the US and we have always done astonishingly well. Between past efforts for incarcerated juveniles in LA County and schools on the Navajo and White River Apache reservations, plus last year at Ballou SR High School in Washington DC, supporters have purchased more than 2,100 books off our wish lists and had them sent to the respective schools. Last year at Ballou we busted all records with 800+ in the spring book fair and another 150+ in a smaller holiday fair in November.

You can understand how hopeful we were last week to do this wonderful project all over again.

As I explained in my post at Guys Lit Wire, we elected to stay with Ballou because this school is literally building a library from the ground up. Last year they had less than one book for each of their 1,200 students - only 63 in the fiction section. Through our efforts and others, they had two books for each student this spring. (The American Library Association standard is ELEVEN books for student in school libraries.) Ballou was suffering from donor fatigue however - most of their support has disappeared but their need remains the same. The library is an incredibly vital part of the school (chess club, manga club, poetry club and on and on meet there), and we want to help them make it the crown jewel it deserves to be.

We are all book lovers after all - how could we walk away when the job was not done?

So we put 525 books the list with the advisement of Ballou librarian Melissa Jackson and we started the book fair with great optimism. Our outreach this year was without parallel; I am not exaggerating when I say that hundreds of thousands of people heard about the book fair via blog mentions, facebook updates and countless tweets. I was frankly stunned by how much help we received in spreading the word. Folks started buying books immediately and it looked like we were set for yet another sellout.

And then everything just slowed down.

As of today we have sold 117 books off the wish list. We are in the middle of the second week and seeing number similar to the second day for the past book fairs. I have honestly no idea why this has happened. Some people have suggested we held the fair too close to tax day, but that has never been an issue in the past. Some have suggested the Powells wish list, which requires you to manually type in the school's address, is too complicated. As we have always gone through Powells and strongly support independent bookstores, we just don't see how to change that and hope it is not an issue this time.

Some have suggested that the economy is a factor but as we are economically in better shape now than at any point during the previous book fairs, that is a hard one to accept. Additionally, many of the books on the list are less than $10, even with shipping, so the cost of helping is really quite small. Some have gone so far to suggest library fatigue and honestly, that one is just too painful to imagine.

One former donor told me she did not contribute this time because she preferred we choose another library and not give more than once to Ballou. While I certainly respect her choice to not help us, this one really hurt. We want to stay with Ballou partly because so many others have walked away and left the work unfinished. We thought we were doing the best thing possible for the school and students by not quitting now and yet I can not help but think that if I had another school with a fresh compelling story it might have gotten more support. But honestly, who knows.

This is all, quite frankly, enormously frustrating.

In

Cross-posted at Guys Lit Wire.

The Guys Lit Wire annual book fair is going on right now! Please support the Ballou Senior High School Library by purchasing a book or two (or more) on their behalf.

A woman finds herself in a park, her body aching, with no memory of who she is or what she was doing. She survived some kind of attack–the ring of motionless bodies surrounding her is an obvious clue–and finds a letter in her jacket pocket which begins

Dear You,

The body you are wearing used to be mine. The scar on the inner left thigh is there because I fell out of a tree and impaled my leg at the age of nine. The filling in the far left tooth on the top is a result of my avoiding the dentist for four years. But you probably care little about this body’s past. After all, I’m writing this letter for you to read in the future. Perhaps you are wondering why anyone would do such a thing. The answer is both simple and complicated. The simple answer is because I knew it would be necessary.

Killer opening, right? And, for the most part, what follows lives up to the promising start. Which is saying something, since the book is nearly 500 pages long.

The letter writer, Myfanwy Thomas, warns the woman reading the letter that she is in terrible danger. The original Myfanwy (rhymes with Tiffany) considerately gives her the choice of starting a new life, with a new identity, or continuing to live Myfanwy’s life to find out what happened her. New Myfanwy is no idiot. She’ll take the new life, thank you very much. Why would she want the old Myfanwy’s life, when strange people wearing latex gloves want to harm her? Only, before she can follow Myfanwy’s instructions, she is attacked. She has no idea how the people after Myfanwy have found her so quickly, but it changes her mind about which route to take. She will remain Myfanwy Thomas. And in a few days, she will go to work as if nothing happened to her and try to figure out which of her colleagues betrayed her.

If she can find the time to investigate, that is. Myfanwy is a Rook of the Checquy Group, which exists to protect England from supernatural dangers. Okay, Myfanwy’s an administrator, a paper pusher, but she’s very good at her job and she knows it. Well, the new Myfanwy knows that the old Myfanwy was good at her job, but trying to hide the fact that she remembers nothing about her old life while reviewing the budget for the removal of plague-infected bodies, observing the interrogation of a man apprehended by the Checquy, and dealing with a sentient fungus, among other things, is not easy.

The reader learns about the Checquy and original Myfanwy’s life along with the new Myfanwy, through letters and the contents of a giant purple binder the original Myfanwy wrote before her memories were taken from her. These sections are informative without feeling infodump-y. Plus, they’re filled with mentions of past supernatural threats (or assets, in some instances) Myfanwy had to deal with that, many of which were refreshingly imaginative and frequently hilarious.

This, and the distinct voices and personalities of the two Myfanwys, make Daniel O’Malley’s The Rook a clever and entertaining and very fun read. Yeah, some of the chess-related aspect of the Checquy’s structure felt a bit underdeveloped (why, exactly, organize it around chess?), and, once the plot really gets going, some Myfanwy’s letter intrude on t

Readers of Guys Lit Wire, the group review blog I moderate, will likely remember our efforts last year to build up the library at Ballou Sr High School in Washington DC. Melissa Jackson, the school librarian, posted a video of the library that showed the extreme dearth of titles in her stacks. In early 2011 they had less than one book for each student, which is particularly alarming when you consider the American Library Association is 11:1. Through our efforts and those of many others the situation at Ballou has improved and there are now two books for each student. While that is certainly a good thing, it is far far (FAR) from where the Ballou Library should be. So, Guys Lit Wire is back this spring with a new wish list at Powells Books and a new call to help Ballou.

Head on over to GLW to read the full post, and find out exactly how you can buy a book (or more) to help this DC school. There are a few extra hoops to jump through going through Powells, but as you guys know, I'm a big fan of independent bookstores and all of us support what Powells does for the city of Portland. It only takes an extra minute to order from them and is well worth the effort.

On the list this year you will find a lot of manga and urban fiction, some great nonfiction and several adult crossover titles. There is historical fiction and paranormal romance and all the big books of the past few months plus a lot of graphic novels and some wonderful poetry. Every book on this list has been vetted by Melissa and is a title that the school wants and/or needs. This is a big part of what makes the GLW Book Fair so unique - we aren't sending Ballou books we want to get rid of but purchasing for them books they want to have.

The point, after all is not to clean out our closets.

The fair will run two weeks or less if we sell out early. There are over 500 books on the list, with a few titles (the less expensive manga) requesting more than one copy. (They will get a lot of use!) There are plenty of sale titles, lots for less than $10 and most for less than $20. If you can't buy a book we ask that you do please help us spread the word as far as wide as you are able. This is a senior high school in our nation's capitol and we are a critical source of their books. This is not a vanity project folks, not something to make us feel good. This is about stocking the shelves in a way that would not happen otherwise and it's also, as Melissa has told me more than once, a way to show these kids that they matter. You want to change the world today? Buy a book for Ballou and do something that will make a lot of kids and one happy librarian believe in miracles.

I love this project, and I love everything about all of you who make it so successful. Thanks so much for helping us do a very good thing. :)

My review of Baby's in Black, a forthcoming graphic novel about Astrid Kirchherr, Stuart Sutcliffe, and The Beatles. (Astrid is perhaps best known for giving the band their original signature haircuts, and for some early photographs she took of the band. Stuart is famous for being the band's original bass player.)

And to those of you still reading my blog, which I have been woefully neglecting of late, a very heartfelt thank you.

Unforeseen consequences.

I’m sure most, if not all, of us have done something with good intentions, only to see things turn out…not how we expected.

Supporters of prohibition hoped that outlawing “the manufacture, sale, and transportation of liquor” would “forever end drunkenness, reduce crime, and make life better for American families.” (p. 3)

That’s not what happened after the Eighteenth Amendment went into effect. Ordinary people willfully broke the law, smuggling alcohol into the United States or brewing it themselves. Policemen and politicians accepted bribes while gangsters fought for bigger shares of the suddenly-illegal alcohol distribution trade.

In Bootleg: Murder, Moonshine, and the Lawless Years of Prohibition, Karen Blumenthal delves into the history of Prohibition, its causes, and its effects. This makes the book’s title somewhat misleading, since the scope of Blumenthal’s narrative is broader than just bootlegging and gangs. So don’t be surprised when the book begins with an account of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in 1929, but doesn’t return to the incident for another eight chapters.

Blumenthal instead explains why Prohibition became law by first discussing the history of alcohol production and consumption in America (did you know that Americans drank more alcohol, per person, in the early 19th century than at any other time in the country’s history?), the temperance movement (which initially advocated only drinking in moderation), and the lobbying and political machinations that led to the adoption of the Eighteenth Amendment. Only then does she go into detail about the smuggling, gangs, (lack of) law enforcement, and so on. Blumenthal covers a lot of ground, considering the relatively short length of the book. Bluementhal’s writing is accessible, and the narrative organized mostly in chronological order, which helps all the names and information straight. Most of all, Blumenthal excels at providing context, such as the influence on World War I on the prohibition campaign, giving readers a deeper understanding of the topic. Along the way, Blumenthal also reveals the origins of the words teetotalers and speakeasies, that Al Capone’s brother once worked as a federal agent, how some children and teenagers broke the law themselves while Prohibition was in effect, and much more.

The book’s design is simple but effective, featuring numerous black and white photographs and illustrations. I do wish a timeline was included with the backmatter, which is otherwise extensive and includes a glossary, bibliography and source notes, and an index.

Book source: public library.

Cross-posted at Guys Lit Wire.

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