BOOK REVIEW: "The Black Tower" by Louis Bayard

Louis Bayard's novel, The Black Tower, is like a roller coaster; it builds slowly but before you realize it, you've hit the peak of the hill and the action is moving fast. The first few pages of this book contain a timeline and genealogical charts to help explain the historical context: revolutionary-era France and the family of Marie-Antoinette. During the early chapters I found myself continually referring back to the charts, frustrated at the names (especially the multiple Louises and Charleses!) and family connections tossed around. Once I gave in to the pure enjoyment of reading The Black Tower, though, the novel rewarded me with an unpredictable outcome on the heels of a series of plot twists that I didn't see coming but made sense in the rearview mirror.

The story follows Hector Carpentier, whose financial missteps have left him and his difficult mother running a student boarding house and whose academic pursuits are less than successful. Carpentier unwillingly joins with a notorious French crime fighter to investigate a murder, and the investigation ends up leading them through the story of the lost son of Marie Antoinette and the difficult moral choices faced during revolutionary times. As the plot progresses we also see Carpentier and Vidocq, the inspector, expand into fully-developed and fascinating people, alongside other memorable characters. Bayard creates sympathy for his very flawed protagonists and allows them to carry the story through to its conclusion. The final sequence of events, though rushed and possibly unbelievable, feels right in the context of the entire book.

For readers who enjoy a mystery, or well-imagined history, this will be a pleasure. Aspects of both genres are well-developed and thoughtful, and Bayard's voice is intelligent and enjoyable to read.

---Katy Wischow
imagineatrium.com

Put your brain to the test.

If you think you're so smart, put your brain to the test with the BBC's Senses Challenge. It's annoyingly, frustratingly fun. Click here to take the test.

BOOK REVIEW - "The Geography of Love: A Memoir" by Glenda Burgess

A memoir of a life stuffed full with love and of losing someone special---someone so close you wonder if you’ll be able to breathe on your own once they’re gone. The first 100 pages or so read like a Harlequin romance, complete with stifling sentimentality and rose colored glasses. The writing feels class-practiced and hyperbolic - Glenda tells us that her lover turned husband looks like Gregory Peck and has the wit of Mel Brooks – and descriptions of nature and good wine are shared like intimacies but leave the reader limp and disengaged in this deep and narrow world of love supreme.

But things change for Glenda and her husband, Ken. 15 years into their happy marriage and family life Ken is diagnosed with cancer, first thought to be lung cancer, then abdominal. Ken is still described in larger than life terms by his loving wife but now the descriptions seem to better fit the man. Ken is on a collision course with a death force, and although the statistics are against him he dives soul first into the battle. Glenda too becomes more present to the reader now, we see her courage, her grace as a caretaker, and understand her desperate need for science or God to explain and reverse Ken’s fate. “Closing my eyes I prayed for a miracle. Prayer..A song in the face of loss”.

The book also deals with other sides of Glenda and Ken’s lives: her mother’s cancer, his vindication in his previous’ wife’s murder, and his relationship with his troubled daughter Jordan. Glenda’s love for Ken, however, is her focus, and his struggle with cancer is the story she tells best.

---Niamh Bushnell
imagineatrium.com



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PARTICIPATE IN THE BIG READ!

The Big Read, an annual initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts designed to restore reading to the center of American culture, is coming to your community!

Aimed at addressing the steep decline in literary reading among Americans, this national, community-centered event will take place in cities and towns across the United States. Each community chooses one book as their "Big Read," promoting the novel city-wide with book readings, discussions, film viewings, and festivals.

Currently, 208 communities are encouraging literary reading through The Big Read programming from September 2008 through June 2009. To find out what city or town near you is participating, visit The Big Read's web site.

If you're in the New Jersey/NYC area, consider attending Jersey City's Big Read kickoff for Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 on September 13. Visit http://www.imagineatrium.com/ for more info.

The Lost Tribe Discovered...Again

The Observer in London revealed today that the "undiscovered" tribe, located in the Amazon near the Brazilian and Peruvian borders and whose pictures were blasted across major news bureaus all around the world a few weeks ago, aren't so recently discovered after all.

Carlos Meirelles, a "sertanista," or expert on indigenous tribes, working for the Brazilian Indian Protection Agency, apparently had knowledge of this particular tribe for over 20 years and also admitted that the tribe was first known almost a century ago. Meirelles actually sought out the tribe's location and took pictures as a publicity stunt in order to draw public attention to the threat of the logging industry in the Amazon and its impact on indigeneous populations.

Even though it turns out the tribe was not just discovered, it is still quite fascinating for those of us who had previously not been aware that there are many tribes of people living in various parts of the world who have never had direct contact with "modern" civilization and who possibly live as humans did thousands of years ago. To us, the "newly discovered" tag does still apply.

Meirelles says that one reason why he took the pictures and passed them off as an undiscovered tribe was to prove to naysayers (including the president of Peru) who did not believe the claims of the Indian Protection Agency that isolated tribes still exist!

More from The Observer....

Attention Female Filmmakers!

In 2006, women comprised only 15 percent of all directors, executive producers, writers, cinematographers and editors working on the top 25 domestic-grossing films. Lifetime Movie Network is working to change those statistics by offering you, the next generation of female filmmakers, the chance to be discovered. Enter their Every Woman's Film Competition for the chance to have your short film shown on the channel and receive a cash prize of $5,000 plus the opportunity to attend networking events and festivals. Hurry, the deadline is July 8.

Bugs Passing Gas Might Help Us Live Better

Silicon Valley hopes that bug poo is the future of gas. Bacteria could be the answer to the oil crisis, aming other things. Check out this very interesting article from the Times of London.