Book Review

The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi

Posted by Klaus

This book is about the water. Imagine the United States fragmented. Texas has fallen away and there is a fence, much like the one we put up to block immigrants now from Mexico.

Angel is what they call “A Water Knife”. He does the dirty work for the power brokers all fighting for the water rights to what is left of the Colorado River. Angel was hired by a woman named Catherine Case. She found him in a jail but under a false name, which, to all intents and purposes, made him a ghost.

Catherine has a group of “Water Knives” that work for her so she can obtain water rights for Las Vegas. Her nickname is “Queen of the Colorado.”

Angel drives all over Phoenix in his Tesla, an all electric car that actually exists today. Ironically, with gas prices going down right now, sales of the Tesla are a bit off. Americans have short memories and that is what Angel counts on.

Then there is Lucy Monroe, a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter who is closely following the water wars. Somewhere, someone has the papers to the key water rights sold by an Indian tribe in the early 1800’s and they are the only water rights that count.

In shanty-towns around the cities in Nevada, there are pumps where people go to buy water; running water outside the main cities is a thing of the past. Water is more valuable than gold.

Angel and Lucy Monroe catch a relationship on the fly and she saves his life as he saves her. The most powerful cartels are the water cartels and the narcotic cartels. When people lose all the things that we all strive for, there is nothing left but to get high and keep a steady water supply.

But as Angel says, “when things are like this alliances shift like sand. Someone will have to bleed if anyone hopes to drink.”

This is Paolo Bacigalupi’s first totally adult book since The Wind-Up Girl, which is about similar events in Thailand where everything is measured in precious energy units. Night Shade Books put it out in such a small run because they felt it was so complex that it would be a no seller.

But suddenly they were sold out of The Wind-Up Girl and more orders were flowing in. Printing after printing and each printing sold out as the book was Hugo Nominated and Paolo Bacigalupi became a Locus Award winning author.

Soon after the powerful success of The Wind-Up Girl, Paolo Bacigalupi put out two young adult books in rapid succession; one called Ship-Breaker, which was a runaway best seller that won the Michael I. Printz Award and a National Book Award Finalist. His next book was called The Drowned Cities and both books literally flew out of the stores, bought by young adults and older people too.

His next book, The Doubt Factory, was a young adult novel also but all three books sold to adults just as well. Go to www.sparechangenews.net and see my review of The Doubt Factory.

Like The Windup Girl, I predict The Water Knives, will be another award winning power seller. It takes place in the separated United States in the near future.

The main characters, their lives linked by blood and water, are Lucy Monroe, the reporter, Angel, the water knife who works for Catherine Case, and Maria Villarosa, a young refugee from Texas who is always on the edge of disaster.

Paolo Bacigalupi is right on the cusp of Climate Change and is accurate in his vision of the water wars that have already started in the Southwest. He writes about the America that will come about if we continue to be blind to the damage caused by the extreme consumption, taking place in our ‘God Blessed United States of America.’

The city of Phoenix is dying. There are pumps like we see today in gas stations where people line up with their containers to fill with water. Lucy’s sister, back in New England, warned Lucy to come home but Lucy Monroe knows the big story about the water rights is just around the corner.

Lucy Monroe searches for the key to the big story of who owns the water rights as she walks through a morgue over-flowing with the bodies of refugees who fled from Texas. Angel passes the bodies as he flashes his police badge at Lucy, gripping her arm tightly, but when he looks into her eyes, the angel of death grins back at him. Lucy tries to pull away but sees herself in Angel’s eyes as they both look at her friend Jamie Sanderson, who is on a gurney with empty sockets instead of eyes.

Just the other day Jamie, also a reporter, was talking about the key to the Colorado River Compact. Lucy warned him that he was playing out of his league. The morgue is full of bodies, mostly victims of dust and thirst; Jamie has no eyes and is also missing other body parts.

Angel questions Lucy in the overflowing morgue. She looks at his badge, then sees the tattoo of the snake running up his arm. This man is death, thinks Lucy.

“I didn’t get your name,” Angel pressed. And Lucy knows.

Outside, everyone is walking quickly through the dust storm, tightening the dust mask with the REI microfilters. It’s time to go.

Angel screams down the road in his Tesla, soaring like a predatory bird. He knows that the woman reporter in the morgue sees the world like him. Only the water rights bring life.

“Cup or pour? Cup or pour? Cup or pour?” The money is in every drop.

This book, “The Water Knife” will own you. Once you pick it up, you will find it almost impossible to put down. Paolo Bacigalupi has created another masterpiece.

“The Water Knife will be released in Spring of 2015 by Alfred A. Knopf, Publisher, New York. www.aaknopf.com

Wanton Regard by Geoffrey Neil

Posted by Klaus

“Fate Don’t Negotiate. . .” – Gage Dolan

click the book over if you are interested in buying this book...As I read the book, Wanton Regard, I wonder what kind of mind Geoffrey Neil has, to be able to come up with a fiend like Gage Dolon. This is Geoffrey Neil’s 3rd book and his writing is every bit as good as Stephen King’s or Joe Hill’s writing. The only difference is he deals with what is real rather than the supernatural. This makes it all the more terrifying.

Hailey Vaughn doesn’t know what it means to live in a digital age where someone who is obsessed with you can watch your every move, can listen to everything you say, at home, in the office, even in her car.

But there is a guy, we’ll call him Gage because that’s what he calls himself, who is totally obsessed with Hailey Vaughn—and he has big plans for her—as he watches everything she does and even manipulates aspects of her life without her awareness of any of it. For a while.

The author, Geoffrey Neil, in Wanton Regard, has created one of the most monstrous villains I’ve ever read about. He calls himself Gage Dolon and he has big plans for Hailey. To make matters more complicated, Hailey has a husband named Mason who is extremely jealous and loves guns.

Hailey Vaughn is the maiden in the middle. She likes to go for a drink in the morning at a place called Hot Perks and orders a medium half-caf, no-foam, non-fat, vanilla soy latte. A Barrista named Marissa works there and makes the drink for her, exactly as she likes it.

Gage is aware of this. Extremely aware. Frighteningly aware.

Let’s leave Marissa at Hot Perks in the short time she has left there and go back to Hailey Vaughn at the office where she works. She has just received a call from Gage Dolon, or whatever his name might be, about her note pads that she left behind while she was at a conference handled by The Small Business Growth Expo.

Gage is sitting in his car, parked in a vantage point where he can see into Hailey’s office window. He is offering to return the notepad and his voice is so gentle and suave. While he speaks to her he watches a live feed of a high-definition mini-cam loaded with footage of Hailey.

Hailey is flattered that this man, Gage, is willing to go through so much trouble for her. There is so much that Hailey has to learn and Gage Dolon wants to be her teacher. Hailey is not yet aware of the trouble Gage has gone through to gain access to her life.

Mason, Hailey’s husband, works nights and goes to the gun range almost every day. Hailey hates the guns but Mason thinks that Hailey should learn how to handle one for her own safety. Mason is also concerned that Hailey is having an affair with her assistant Robert.

On the front of the book it says, “Inspired By True Events.” The deeper I go into the book, the more it makes me think of certain events that I have read in the news. I can’t tell you what they are because I want you to read this book. Why should I have all the spine-tingling pleasure of watching an electronic net cast so carefully around Hailey Vaughn.

I’m a little ahead of myself. Hailey, flattered by Gage’s attention, meets him at a hotel and has dinner with him. She is utterly charmed. Gage is skillfull and he quote’s his father, “Fate Don’t Negotiate,” as he tells Hailey that it was fate that brought them together.

click the book over if you are interested in buying this book...Hailey isn’t fooled. Or is she? The net is cast. Her jealous husband is cleaning his guns. Hailey is drinking a little too much wine. The electronic devices are silently spinning a web, as if a spider was wrapping its meal for later. Have you ever seen an insect struggling as the web surrounds it?

As I read I think of a song that was popular in the 50’s. It was called Sincerely and one of the lines in it went like this—“and I’ll never ever ever ever let you go, sincerely—“.

This is Geoffrey Neil’s 3rd book. Like his first two, Dire Means & Human Resources, it gripped me; like Hailey, I found myself in the snare. I started reading Wanton Regard on Saturday night of Memorial Day weekend and finished the story before Sunday evening. I would advise you not to start any of Neil’s books unless you are ready to set aside the next day or two to live in his world.

You can find his books on Amazon & EBay or just by Googling Geoffrey Neil. He has his own website. Believe me, once you read one of his books, you’d hunger for more.

Published by Priorities Intact Publishing, 8306 Wilshire Blvd., #7076, Beverly Hills, CA 90211 & 3680 Grant Drive, Suite N, Reno, NV 89509

The Turning Point: Doctor Sleep by Stephen King

Posted by Klaus

“We stood at the turning point. Half-measures availed us nothing.” The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous

I’ve been reading Stephen King since I was young. Let me make this clear: young is a variable for me. The first book I ever read by Stephen King was The Stand, a book of about 800 pages. It was supposed to be longer but King’s publisher didn’t think a book that ran over 1100 pages would sell, so they asked King to cut, cut, cut, but no pasting, until they felt it was marketable.

The ravaged version, which, by the way, was great, came out in 1978. Years later, when King’s popularity was peaking, they released the full version. This was in 1990. It is now 2013 and Stephen King, after completing his magnum opus called The Dark Tower, is at his best.

King’s newest book, Doctor Sleep, was just released (528 pages). Way back when King was starting out, he wrote a book called The Shining, which was later made into movie starring Jack Nicholson. My guess would be that more people saw the movie than read the book, although the book sold quite well. The Shining has 447 pages, which makes it one of King’s shorter novels.

To appreciate Doctor Sleep, one does not need to go back and read The Shining, however, it might add some flavor to the experience. Loosely speaking, they are sequential.

The main character in Doctor Sleep is Dan Torrance. He is in his early 30’s in Doctor Sleep; in The Shining Dan Torrance is a little boy who sees more than the normal person. To be hyper-aware is not always a gift. If you can shake someone’s hand and see their imminent death, it’s hard to smile and say, “Have a good day and it was nice to meet you.”

As an avid reader, I hate book reviews that spoil the fun, if that would be the proper word to use for one of Stephen King’s books. I find myself faced with a conundrum. I don’t want to spoil Doctor Sleep. But I do want to tell you why I think it is Stephen King’s best book.

It’s quite different than his 7 book Dark Tower series- which is the modern Lord of the Rings. But Doctor Sleep touched me in a very special way.

If you happen to be an alcoholic in recovery, you will love Doctor Sleep. Boy, I put myself out on a limb there, didn’t I? But really, I mean it. Even if you’ve never read a King book before, if you are in recovery, just pick it up and read the first ten pages, including the quotes at the beginning of the book.

I’ll go one step further. If you’re an alcoholic or a drug addict who is still using but doesn’t want to use anymore, pick up Doctor Sleep and read it. Then go to an AA meeting or an NA meeting. You don’t have to wait until you finish the book. After all, you’ll want to be sober enough to remember the damn thing, right?

Just like Dan Torrance had the Shining when he was a child, in Doctor Sleep there is a little girl named Abra Stone who Shines like the sun. She’s got some power, all to the good.

There are other folks cruising down the highways and byways of America. You’ve probably seen them in their big RV’s, mostly retired people who are past their mid-sixties. Looks are deceiving my friend. Just like there are motorcycle clubs called The Devil’s Disciples, it could be that not all of these old folks have warmth in their hearts.

There is a gang of them that calls themselves The True Knot and they hunger to live. What they need is children who Shine and, just like vampires drink blood, these folks drink the Essence of the children. No, no, the children don’t survive. The True Knot has been around a long time. They traveled in covered wagons back in the day.

And, just like true Bikers, these folks have names like Steamhead Steve, Black-eyed Susie, Diesel Doug, & Steve the Chink, who is not Chinese. Their leader is a big woman who wears a sinister top hat and they call her Rosie the Hat.

They don’t like dogs and dogs don’t like them but they love children. Children who Shine. You know that statement from the old rock songs, “you always hurt the one you love”. The True Knot does just that.

Abra Stone picked up on The True Knot when they were draining the Steam from this young man, about 12 years old and never to see another birthday—she hooked in on what they were doing with her Shining and began to scream as she pulled away.

Not quick enough. Rosie the Hat sensed her and knew that, whoever that young girl was, she was definitely a large store of food for The True Knot. And that’s all I can say about that because I don’t want to ruin the story for you.

Dan Torrance, who we talked about before, has a job to do. When the teacher is ready, the student will appear. That’s an old saying. I don’t even know where it came from but it definitely applies here. But this is enough about Doctor Sleep. I’ve probably told you more than you want to know. This is Stephen King at his best and his heart is really in this book.

All of us, one way or another, reach a turning point in our lives and we either take the path we were meant to take—or we slip down the dark road. I’ll have to say that I was lucky and took the right path after 30 years of dark road. But it’s never too late for anyone as long as they are alive.

Now I get to read and collect these books, of which Doctor Sleep is one. Even if you don’t like to read Stephen King, this is the book to jump on. If you like it, pass it on. If you don’t like it, well write to me and complain. I’ll hear you out.

But watch out for caravans of RV’s with those bumper stickers that say “Old but not dead, save Medicare, I’m a conservative and I vote.” You never know whether they’re out hunting or Sight-seeing.

Oh, Doctor Sleep works in a Hospice. We come to find that the ties that bind a family together are stronger than we believe. The truth is always just one stranger away.

Whether you are a friend of Bill’s or just a close cousin, this is not a book to miss.
_”DoctorSleepBook.com”—SimonandShuster.com”

NOS4A2 by Joe Hill

Posted by Klaus


Like father, like son, some people say. Joe Hill is Stephen King’s son and the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. As a matter of fact, this apple is sweeter if you like your books tinged with tales of horror and love. Joe Hill slips you quickly into his world like slipping a noose around your neck while you are eating a lollipop, then, before you know it, the rope is tight and your feet are off the floor.

Joe Hill doesn’t just do this with his new book NOS4A2, but all of his books, The Heart-Shaped Box, Horns, his novellas—Gunpowder and Thumbprints, do exactly the same thing. What is nice about them is, each book does it differently and Hill doesn’t waste a word. You might say, like one of the lead characters in NOS4A2, Charles Talent Manx, that Joe Hill has a talent for it himself.

When Charles Manx first appears, an old man who seems to be in a coma, one gets a taste of what evil is truly about in three pages. How does this happen? Well, Manx just opens his eyes and talks to his nurse, Ellen Thornton, and a few words are enough to spiral her to hell.

Charles Talent Manx drives a 1938 Rolls-Royce Wraith, with the license plate NOS4A2, right into and out of a place called Christmasland. Christmasland! Sounds like a place any child would want to go to have fun, but wait. Obviously, there’s more to it than that, of course, of course.

In this delicate tale of terror, there is a little girl named Victoria McQueen, a young princess of the fair sex who is capable of white magic. Why, she can ride her bicycle over an old wooden covered bridge, called the Shortaway, and come out miles away from where she started.

Stephen King, in his books, usually has that knack of taking sides, sheer evil against goodness with a fatal flaw, and one must pay attention or else things go wrong. Joe Hill has that same talent but is more succinct.

I love Stephen King’s books—one of my favorites by him is The Dark Tower, an eight book series of mystifying American magic with demons, wraiths and gun-slingers. It’s the modern Lord of the Rings but King does waste a word or two in the tale.

As a writer myself, I look for those places that could have been edited but Joe Hill has me mesmerized. The more I read, the more I like. Multi-talented, Joe Hill writes graphic novels too, an exceptional example is Locke and Key. But we’re getting off topic, leaving Christmasland before we’ve even arrived.

I did mention Victoria McQueen, didn’t I? She is the young girl who rides her bicycle over the old wooden bridge, the Shortaway, which takes her exactly where she wants to go. Whether it is good for her or not. Sometimes, when she stays too long in the places the bicycle takes her, her eye begins to pulse, like there’s pressure in her head that’s not good for her. Magic has it’s price.

Charles Talent Manx’s old Rolls-Royce Wraith takes him on roads no one else can find, which disappear him when he drives. He needs that car just like Victoria McQueen needs her bicycle and magic bridge.

There are people in this world, a few special folks, who can go places no one else can go. They don’t need to buy a ticket but they still have to pay a price. Folks can get away with anything, anytime but there is always a price to pay. Like when Victoria McQueen, unwanted by her mother, definitely unwanted by her father, looks for trouble on the other side of the Shortaway bridge, she finds it.

Victoria rides right into Christmasland, a magic place run by Charles Manx. He likes to take little boys and girls there, and then, well, they never come back. Sometimes Charles hooks up with other characters with kinks in their thinks, such as Bing Partridge who put a nail gun to his dad’s temple and thought it was a joke. When he pulled the trigger his dad didn’t do much more thinking at all. Then Bing took his mother right out of her grief.

Bing was lonely, and he had dreams of Christmasland where a kindly old fellow drove a big old Rolls-Royce Wraith. After a hard day at the factory where he worked with solvents that weren’t too healthy if you were around them too long, the Wraith with the license plate NOS4A2 just pulled up in front of his house and Bing knew he was in heaven. But his goal was Christmasland and only Charlie Talent Manx could get him there.

There’s so much more but my job isn’t to spoil the ride for you. Once you get in the Rolls-Royce Wraith built in 1938, you’re in for the ride of your life. What’s left of your life, that is.

I’ve told you plenty but there are no spoilers here. I’m not saying whether Victoria McQueen gets to grow up and have a child of her own; a child that can do magic like hers. If she had a boyfriend, because she wouldn’t be the marrying kind, he’d be a Biker who knew his engines. Maybe she’d write children stories. But you’ll need a Search Engine to find out about that.

This is Joe Hill’s third novel and, like his father Stephen King, this might be The Stand for him. His first two novels were really, really good but this one will take you places you’ve never been before. Joe Hill doesn’t waste a word. NOS4A2! Get it, Read it. You’ll love it and you’ll curse me for taking you to Christmasland!

NOS4A2, a William Morrow Book, An Imprint of Harper Collins Publishing, written by Joe Hill, 2013.

The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan

Posted by Klaus

When are the passing years more than one can bear? Jake Marlowe can answer that question. Jake is a werewolf closing in on his 201st birthday. He’s outlived almost everyone he’s loved and, being a werewolf who shifts into a savage thinking beast every full moon, Jake is challenged when it comes to intimacy.

He has one close friend, a guy named Harley, who, ironically, works for WOCOP (World Organization for the Control of Occult Phenomena) and one of their specialties is hunting and killing werewolves. But Harley loves Jake. And he’s just given Jake the bad news.

A werewolf known as the Berliner was just killed by a WOCOP hunter named Ellis, who was trained by a WOCOP hunter by the name of Eric Grainer, and the death of the Berliner, real name Wolfgang, makes Jake Marlowe the last living werewolf in the world.

It’s tough being a werewolf. Relationships with women are strictly about sex, a lot of it, you see, part of being a werewolf is an extremely high libido. Unfortunately, the song that goes “you only hurt the one you love” happens to be deadly true if you’re a werewolf.

Sure, Jake loves Harley, but there’s no sex involved here, but it is convenient because Harley, being a member of WOCOP, keeps Jake one step ahead of the trackers. But now Jake is the last werewolf. Indeed, that means that the entire focus of the group is on this hunt.

Jake is extremely intelligent and this has helped him become very rich. He owns a number of companies and has numbered bank accounts and stocks under different names, and he’s reached the point where he can easily change identities and go anywhere in the world. But that doesn’t change the terrible fact that on every full moon he changes into a werewolf and kills.

Jake has tried killing animals but nothing satisfies like human blood and meat. This, as you might guess, has some extreme drawbacks. Oh, yes there are vampires in the world too. However, vampires have the gift of speech. They have become very organized and rich. They are primary funders of WOCOP, which is aware of their existence, and the hunters leave the vampires alone as long as they follow certain rules.

Werewolves and vampires hate each other. To quote from the book, “A vampire has written: ‘the great asymmetry between immortals and werewolves (apart from the obvious aesthetic asymmetry) is that whereas the vampire is elevated by his transformation the werewolf is diminished by his. To be a vampire is to be increased `in subtlety of mind and refinement of taste; the self opens the door of its dismal bed-sit to discover the house of many mansions. Personality expands, indefinitely. The vampire gets immortality, immense physical strength, hypnotic ability, the power of flight, psychic grandeur and emotional depth. The werewolf gets dyslexia and a permanent erection. It’s hardly worth making the comparison.’”

Obviously there is extreme prejudice between the two. That may be because the werewolf can be sexually active; vampires can’t. That, itself, can cause hatred between the two species. Werewolves can communicate with each other telepathically, but they don’t run in packs; they are solo. And, as far as anyone knows, there has not been a female werewolf. It takes a certain type of stamina to survive the bite of a werewolf; not many do, and it has been a long time since anyone has.

Which brings us to a world where all of WOCOP’s forces are focused on the last werewolf—Jake Marlowe. And Jake has had enough of life. The yearning for a mate has worn him to the point where he suffers from extreme depression. WOCOP, because of the way they operate, only get satisfaction from killing the beast, not the man. So they must wait and be there when Jake turns.

Jake has always avoided them in that narrow window of time because of his friend Harley’s help but this is the first time that all the focus is on him. And it’s quite possible, by now, that Harley is suspect. Between that and Jake’s depression, it appears that, if this were a game of cards, Jake is ready to fold.

Ah, but! I’ve told you nothing, no spoilers, no wreckage of the tale. The Last Werewolf is written by Glen Duncan, a brilliant young novelist who is very well read, and he lives in London. Duncan is a literary master and spins a yarn that will keep you warm in cold weather. Like The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, the book begins slowly, so you must sip it like an extremely hot bowl of delicious chocolate.

Next, this book is no “Twilight” referring to the vampire series written by Stephanie Meyers. Not to knock that series but, in comparison, that series is “monster lite” whereas this is Poe mixed with Neil Gaiman. Glen Duncan is a writer’s writer, using many literary references to spice the drink.

The Last Werewolf is literally one of the best werewolf/vampire books I have ever read. There is also a special treat that goes along with this book. It has to be bought separately though. It is a CD by a group called The Last Tuesday Weld and the name of the CD is The Last Werewolf—A Soundtrack.

Glen Duncan takes part on the CD with words from the book. Excellent to listen to the CD and read the book at the same time if you wish. The book is available at The Harvard Bookstore in Harvard Square and the CD is available at Newbury Comics.

There are many twists and turns on this haunted verbal road. I highly recommend it. If it is done right, it would make a wonderful movie. The Last Werewolf is a Borzoi Book published by Alfred A. Knopf. It was originally published in Great Britain by Canongate Books, Ltd., Edinburgh. There is a quote from the Selected Poems of Thom Gunn within the story.

Near Death | Well Jay & Simone & Team

Posted by Klaus

Well Jay & Simone & Team

Great read. I picked up Near Death as an extra and now I’ll have to put it on my regular pull list at my shop Comicazi in Somerville MA. This is as good as Criminal by Brubaker; I’m sure you’ve seen it. Even the art is comparable. If you keep going like this, you have a killer on your hands, if you know what I mean. I understand the art being placed in Seattle, just as Stumptown was placed in Portland, Oregon.

I recognize both places; I lived in Portland while I was a fugitive for two years; finally got caught and rendited back to Massachusetts after a 3 month legal battle. But I miss Portland. The West Coast gets in your blood but I’m settled now and write for a small newspaper called Spare Change News that helps people in dire straits get back on their feet.

I started with them when I was a homeless junkie and now I’m clean, happily married and comics have replaced heroin as my addiction. Just ask my wife. Your portrayal of the underworld is realistic and the story in Near Death just pulls the reader along. I did a poetry reading while I was serving time and the tier was going crazy and all of a sudden I realized that I was pulling everyone towards a riot. They were chanting, “Goldfinger, Goldfinger, Goldfinger.” So I pulled back and started reading love poems. Slowly the mood died down. After it was over one of the guards thanked me for slowing it down. When I got back up on the tier one of the hard cases said, “Why did you take it down. You had ’em. We coulda ripped out!”

 

Well, the last thing I wanted to be in the middle of was a prison riot. Especially when the finger pointed to me as the instigator.

In prison some of us grow up; some of us get harder. In Near Death Markham, your “hero” has had a life-changing experience. He’s still in the game but in a more dangerous sort of way. I’m looking forward to your continuing tale. You guys are the balls!

By the way, if you haven’t checked it out yet, a good show on TV is called Breaking Bad. It’s well-done with good character development and suspense. It’s realistic too. I know. I came out of that world alive. — Marc D. Goldfinger

Gregory David Roberts | Shantaram

Posted by Klaus

Shantaram, by Gregory David Roberts: A Book Review

My daughter gave me a soft cover edition of this book. I held it in my hands and looked at the massive size of it. I flipped to the back and thought, “Good God, 936 pages. I’m never going to get through this.” I almost put it aside and then I turned it over and read the blurb about the author.

Gregory David Roberts, born in Melbourne, Australia. It appears that he was sentenced to 19 years in prison for armed robbery. Why? Because he was a heroin addict. After serving 10 years, Roberts escaped from prison and went to Bombay, now known as Mumbai, in India, where he lived for ten of his years as a fugitive.

Okay, I was interested. So I started reading. I was hooked almost immediately. As I continued I realized I was experiencing one of those rare times for an avid book reader. This was a book I did not want to end. I was ecstatic that the book was so long. And it kept getting better and better.

Unbelievable! While I was reading Shantaram, I actually kept bursting out in laughter. How many books can do that? I don’t mean that I was chuckling quietly to myself. I was exploding with laughter. Come. Let me give you a small taste. After a long trip across part of India with Gregory David’s friend Prabaker, who called Gregory ‘Linbaba’ for most of the time, they had arrived at Prabaker’s small village.

 

(Excerpt begins.)
“Prabaker said, “You must have a bath, Lin. After such a long travel you must be smelling unhappy. Come this way. My sisters have already heated the water on the fire. The pots are ready for your bath. Come.”

“We passed through a low arch, and he led me to an area beside the house that was enclosed on three sides by hanging tatami mats. Flat river stones formed a shower base, and three large clay pots of warm water were arranged near them. A channel had been dug and smoothed out, allowing water to run off behind the house. Prabaker told me that a small brass jug was to be used to tip water over my body, and gave me the soap dish.

“I’d been unlacing my boots while he spoke, and I cast them aside, threw off my shirt, and pulled off my jeans.

“’Lin!’ Prabaker screamed in panic, leaping, in a single bound, across the two metres that separated us. He tried to cover my body with his hands, but then looked around in anguish to see that the towel was on my backpack, a further two metres away. He jumped for the towel, snatched it up, and jumped back, giving a little shout of panic – ‘Yaah!—each time. He wrapped the towel around me, and looked around in terror.

“’Have you gone crazy, Lin? What are you doing?’

“’I’m trying to . . . take a shower . . .’

“’But like that? Like that?’

“’What’s the matter with you, Prabu? You told me to take a shower. You brought me here to take a shower. So, I’m trying to take a shower, but you’re jumping around like a rabbit. What’s your problem?’

‘You were naked, Lin! Naked, without any clothes also!’

‘That’s how I take a shower,’ I said, exasperated by his mysterious terror. He was darting about, peering through the tatami matting at various places. ‘That’s how everyone takes a shower, isn’t it?’

‘No! No! No, Lin!’ he corrected, returning to face me. A desperate expression contorted his normally happy features.

‘You don’t take your clothes off?’

‘No, Lin! This is India. Nobody can take his clothes off, not even to wash his bodies. This is India. Nobody is ever naked in India. And especially, nobody is naked without clothes.’

‘So . . . how do you take a shower?’

‘We wear it the underpants, for having a bath in India.’

‘Well, that’s fine,’ I said, dropping the towel to reveal my black jockey shorts. I’m wearing underpants.’

‘Yaah!’ Prabaker screamed, diving for the towel and covering me again.

‘Those teeny pieces, Lin? Those are not the underpants. Those are the under-underpants only. You must have it the over-underpants.’

‘The . . . over-underpants?’

‘Yea. Certainly. Like these, my ones, that I am wearing.

“He unbuttoned his own trousers enough to show me that he wore a pair of green shorts under his clothes.

“’In India, the men are wearing this over-underpants, under their clothes at all times, and in all the situations. Even if they are wearing under-underpants, still they are wearing over-underpants, over their unders. You see?’” ( Excerpt of Shantaram.)

The clash of cultures is so well done and so humorous that I couldn’t stop laughing. Even when lives are at stake, and that takes place in this marvelous story, there are moments where you will not be able to restrain your laughter. Or your tears. Yes, there are times when I cried, literally had tears spilling down my cheeks.

This is the story of a man traveling through life, fighting his demons of addiction, falling in love, and meeting people in unusual circumstances. Linbaba, or as he is known in Australia, Gregory David Roberts, is on a journey of growth, an epic tale that is unbelievable. But true.

Like I said before, this numbers among one of the ten best books I’ve read in my life—and I’ve read many. I read books like people eat happy meals. Sad to say, I’ve finished the book but I will go back to it.

My wife is reading it now and the she is laughing out loud too. I’m watching her read and loving her enjoyment.

You could say I’m a bookworm. I’ve never read a more realistic description of drug addiction. Gregory David Roberts has a special way of reaching the heart. His heroin addiction is minor part of the entire book yet he does it better than William Burroughs. Upon reading this book, I had to have a hard cover signed edition — book collector that I am, so I bought it from an Amazon vendor. However, I’ve seen this book at The Harvard Book Store in paperback. This massive book brings Bombay, now called Mumbai, a city in India, to life. So wonderful, I just can’t praise it enough.

In brief, Gregory David Roberts, a career criminal because of his addiction, escapes an Australian prison after serving 10 years of a 19 year sentence and travels to Bombay. And the odyssey begins. A guide named Prabaker is one of the warmest human beings I’ve ever met in the pages of a book. If you’ve read a book and never wanted it to end, then you know how I felt about Shantaram. Wonderful, heartbreaking, exciting, uplifting! I can’t say enough about it. So I’ll stop right now! — Marc D. Goldfinger

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts—St. Martin’s Press, N.Y., N.Y.

Dire Means by Geoffrey Neil

Posted by Klaus

We will never have peace in the world until men everywhere recognize that ends are not cut off from means, because the means represent the ideal in the making, and the end in process, and ultimately you can’t reach good ends through evil means, because the means represent the seed and the end represents the tree. — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I found this book through a friend on line; it seems that stores generally don’t carry it. It is a story about one man and his organization who decides that he will end homelessness once and for all.

Now Spare Change News is a paper that deals with homeless issues so I felt duty-bound to read and report on this book which, unfortunately, has not received much press. To be honest, I wasn’t looking forward to it. I thought I would be slogging through a 300+ page book, but like I said, because it dealt directly with homelessness, I felt I could not ignore it.

Was I in for a surprise!! Before I had read ten pages I was gripped with the desire to find out what would happen next. Then, even after I was hooked, the intensity began to build and I found myself totally engaged with the lead character, a 28 year old computer techie named Mark Denny, and the situation into which he found himself thrust.

You know the expression, “No good deed goes unpunished.” Well, it certainly applies here, and by page 36 Mr. Denny finds himself knee-deep in it. Little does he, or the reader, know that upcoming twists and turns will find Mark Denny a public figure, heroic in scope, with his position constantly shifting.

If you have never been homeless, you must read this book because you will, through the author’s skill, find yourself identifying with what it is like to be homeless. If you have been, or are homeless, you should read this book because you will find yourself saying, “Yeah, I’ve been there; I know what this feels like.”

Well done, Geoffrey Neil, well done.

As I said earlier, I thought this book would be a chore to report on. How wrong I was! I found myself gripped by the tension and flipping from page to page. I literally couldn’t put the book down.

It was a weekend and my wife, as understanding as she is, said to me, “Well, are you going to spend the weekend with the book or me?” in more ways than just verbally. But I was hooked.

From the moment that, for selfish reasons, Mark Denny decides to help two scam artists harassing drivers for “gas money,” he finds himself in a predicament that would give PTSD to anyone to the moment, soon after, where he is attempting to rescue a “homeless” man from a certain suicide because he really wants to be a good guy, the story whips into the fury of a hurricane.

The story takes place in Santa Monica, California. People are disappearing at the rate of one a day. We’re talking business executives, rich housewives, arrogant teen-agers, average middle-class citizens, not homeless people at all.

Then, days later, they start to reappear, dead, with camera footage from digital cameras hung around their necks showing them abusing, either verbally or physically, homeless folks. Their Cause of death—starvation and thirst.

Santa Monica goes into panic mode. All of a sudden no one wants to abuse, through neglect or otherwise, homeless people or people who appear down on their luck.

Because of his selfless act on the roof, saving a “homeless” man from suicide, Mark Denny’s hero status brings him into contact with the very people who are “disappearing,” the abusers. And he finds that, somehow, someway, he is the only person who can bring the horrific means these people use to end homelessness to a halt. That is, if he can survive.

It is amazing how quickly one can go from hero status to fugitive status. Mark Denny finds himself brought into this organization which operates with technological expertise, lethal manipulation, and is a trusted information disposal company which, by its very nature, escapes suspicion and is held in extremely high regard by the business community.

Imagine having access to financial information, medical information, family history, etc. and using this knowledge to alter society for “altruistic means.”

Mark Denny, the hero, the computer expert, the homeless sympathizer, is brought into this organization and, little by little, the doors are closing behind him, and, before he knows it, there is no way out.

I could say more but why would I want to? This is a book that must be read. I guarantee you will be turning pages and ignoring everyone around you.

What’s the difference between a homeless person and yourself? One wrong corner turned, a hurricane, a mugging or an information specialist with a Taser.

Access to Dire Means can also be found on Facebook. I had mine specially ordered from the Harvard Coop. Dire Means copyright, 2009.

Please Note: much more on Goeffrey Neil can be found via his web page by clicking here…