sdelmonte | Words, Words, Words

Some recent books to report on...

The Last Hero - this brief, and gorgeously illustrated, "Discworld Fable" was one of the works that filled the gap between full-length Discworld novels, and to my surprise, I was not all that engaged. The tale revolves around an effort by Cohen the Barbarian, ancient but still a great warrior, to destroy the gods on general principle. Of course, this would have bad repercussions, and so when Ankh-Morpork hears of this, a team of disparate Discworld characters gets ready to stop Cohen. Alas, Cohen is a very unlikeable cuss, and the shtick about his Silver Horde being both decrepit and capable gets old quickly. This book is really about the pretty pictures by Paul Kidby, and Terry Pratchett does get to play with a whole host of beloved characters that rarely share the spotlight. For once, I even liked Rincewind, as he seems to have accepted his fate as a perpetual unlikely savior of reality and doesn't run away very much at all. But in the end, I found the plot to be a bit wanting, not up to the standards Pratchett has set over and over.

Sandy Koufax: A Lefty's Legacy - This biography of the 1960s LA Dodger great (and Jewish athlete) by former sportswriter Jane Leavy focuses on Koufax's career but also takes a look at his impact as a Jewish sports star, his reception within the sports world, and his famous shyness. For once, we get a sports biography that is neither worshipful or spiteful, although Koufax's refusal to be part of this project leaves the reader at a distance from him. Leavy perhaps overplays Koufax as Jew just a bit, noting only in passing that at least some Jews did not care to make a hero out of a man who had no interest in Judaism as a religion. From the vantage point of an era when even a Jew running for president is only marginally newsworthy, the seeming emulation for Koufax feels quaint. But the book does a good job looking back at a time when the old orders were changing in the larger world and in baseball, and when being a celebrity came to be something bigger than being a pitcher. The best parts? Her extended, inning by inning, look at Koufax's perfect game in 1965 - which was also a one-hitter for the losing pitcher - and her keen observations about the abysmal state of sports medicine at that time.

A Fine and Private Place - This is a very early novel by Peter Beagle, years before The Last Unicorn brought him fame. It takes place in a Bronx cemetery in the late 50s, in a New York that seems as distant and yet familiar. Here we meet a man who's lived here for 20 years, hiding from the world, and we meet two ghosts not ready to forget being alive. Oh, and there's a somewhat smart-alecky raven. The prose style is quite beautiful, but this is a slow read and not all that uplifting, given the odd view of the afterlife Beagle uses. But this glimpse at a young Beagle is quite fascinating, with much charm and quite a few hints of the offbeat worlds he would create later.

Lastly, a comic book recommendation. Last year, DC let writer Ed Brubaker redefine Catwoman. Gone was the overly sexualized Bad Girl whose long-running comic was little more than T&A and catfights. In her place, a capable and intelligent woman who had chosen to make her career as a cat burglar, and who now was looking back over her life and finding it wanting. In the current Catwoman comic, Selina Kyle has remade her costume into some more practical and less showy, and remade her life into something that gives back to the hard-bitten East End community that made her what she is. Along the way, Brubaker and his artists, mainly Darwyn Cooke and Cameron Stewart, have given the reader a generally excellent crime noir comic set against the backdrop of Batman's Gotham City. The result might be DC's best comic book. Catwoman: The Dark End of the Street, a trade paperback of the first four issues of the new series plus a serialized story that set up the comic, is available for all who are interested. And I think anyone who likes a good crime story, a good comic, or strong characters both female and male, should be reading this series.