Blogging at A Slice of Orange

I'm blogging to day at A Slice of Orange on recent updates in the digital world, including the new B&N Nook ebook reader.

Also, my alter ego, Lyndi Lamont, is featured this month at TRS Rainbow Studio for GLBT books.

Linda

Book Review Club: THE LOST SYMBOL by Dan Brown

I wasn't sure if I was going to buy Dan Brown's latest in hardcover until I discovered that it was about the Freemasons, a subject of lifelong interest. My grandfather was a Mason, my grandmother was a member of Eastern Star, and I joined Job's Daughters as a teen, so you could say it's in the blood.

From the product description:

As the story opens, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned unexpectedly to deliver an evening lecture in the U.S. Capitol Building. Within minutes of his arrival, however, the night takes a bizarre turn. A disturbing object--artfully encoded with five symbols--is discovered in the Capitol Building. Langdon recognizes the object as an ancient invitation . . . one meant to usher its recipient into a long-lost world of esoteric wisdom.

When Langdon’s beloved mentor, Peter Solomon--a prominent Mason and philanthropist--is brutally kidnapped, Langdon realizes his only hope of saving Peter is to accept this mystical invitation and follow wherever it leads him. Langdon is instantly plunged into a clandestine world of Masonic secrets, hidden history, and never-before-seen locations--all of which seem to be dragging him toward a single, inconceivable truth.

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. After scores of Da Vinci Code knockoffs, spinoffs, copies and caricatures, Brown has had the stroke of brilliance to set his breakneck new thriller not in some far-off exotic locale, but right here in our own backyard. Everyone off the bus, and welcome to a Washington, D.C., they never told you about on your school trip when you were a kid, a place steeped in Masonic history that, once revealed, points to a dark, ancient conspiracy that threatens not only America but the world itself.

According to Wikipedia, The Lost Symbol is the "fastest selling adult novel in history", having sold one million copies in print and e-book format in the US, Canada and the UK on the very first day of release! Talk about a writer's pipe dream come true! Pretty awesome, considering it has been six years since The Da Vinci Code was released in 2003. I saw a TV interview with Brown where he said he spent years researching the book, and what he learned changed his beliefs.

I won't go into a lot of plot details as I don't want to inadvertently spoil anyone's enjoyment. The joy of a Dan Brown novel comes as much from the intellectual exercise as the thrilling plot twists and turns. In addition to the secrets of Freemasonry, Brown delves into noetic science which tries to reconcile modern science with ancient mysticism. Katherine Solomon, the sister of Langdon's mentor Peter, is a scientist working in this area, and her work is also targeted by the diabolical and almost superhuman villain Mal'akh.

I enjoyed The Lost Symbol as much, if not more than, the Da Vinci Code. Having already read Holy Blood, Holy Grail and other books about the Priory of Sion and the Knights Templar, I was familiar with a lot of the territory in that book. While I had some background about the Freemasons, I didn't know how deeply Masonic ideas and symbols were enshrined in our nation's capital, so a lot of this was new to me and great fun to follow and decipher. I'm now happily off on an exploration of Katherine Solomon's field of interest: Noetic Science.

If you're a Dan Brown fan, don't miss this one!

Linda

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Book Review Club: Baby Be-bop

Barrie Summy's book review club review is about the only regular blogging I'm doing these days, so I'm glad for her monthly reminders. This month's review is of BABY BE-BOP by Francesca Lia Block, a Young Adult novel.

This summer I heard that a group wanted the book banned from a public library for its gay theme, so I thought I'd see what the fuss was about.

Baby Be-bop is a story of a teenage boy, Dirk, who knows early on that he's gay, but is afraid to let anyone know, including his beloved grandmother, Fifi, who has raised him. He's afraid of disappointing her. He finds a friend in a free-spirited boy named Pup, and for a while they are best friends, and Dirk hopes, possibly more, until Pup starts seeing a girl. Finally, Pup admits that he loves Dirk but can't deal with the consequences and they part. The book evidently takes place in the 1980's because after Pup's rejection, Dirk becomes a punk rocker. One night he makes the mistake of insulting a skinhead and gets beaten up. He manages to make his way home and into bed, but he's badly injured. That night he has dreams or is visited by the ghosts of his grandmother and his parents, though it's not terribly clear if it's a dream or a near death experience. In one of his dreams we learn that Dirk's dad was a beat poet nicknamed Be-bop which is where the Baby Be-bop title comes from. There's also a section about a gay boy named Duck, who I assume will be Dirk's partner at some point in the future. In the end Dirk awakens in the hospital with his grandmother by his side.

There is some underage drinking and drug use and allusions to gay sex, but the book is hardly graphic. It's really a coming of age story, and Dirk is a sympathetic protagonist. As a librarian, I'm never in favor of book banning, and I think there is a place in public libraries for Baby Be-bop. In fact, that's where I found the book! It's apparently out-of-print except as part of an anthology called Beautiful Boys: Two Weetzie Bat Books, which is available new at Amazon in a library edition or as a Kindle e-book.

Block's language is lush and often poetic, though at times I thought it was a little overdone, maybe because I'm more a fan of popular than literary fiction. Dirk is, apparently, a character in her other books in the Weetzie Bat series, and this is his back story. It's a short book and a fast read. I found the story interesting and well-written, but I'm not sure I want to read her other books. I'm just not that into young adult angst. I would recommend it to YA fans though.

For more reviews, click on the graphic below.

Linda

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@Barrie Summy