Review: A Fine and Pleasant Misery

A Fine and Pleasant Misery by Patrick F. McManus
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I discovered Patrick McManus through the audiocassettes of his essays and stories, articles from outdoors magazines. The audios, especially the ones narrated by George S. Irving, were truly hilarious. Irving told the stories with the bombast they deserved, particularly the stories involving McManus as a kid with a cast of characters that felt real small town, yet comic. For instance, one Rancid Crabtree keeps showing up to show how foolish outdoorsy bachelors get along.

For this book, “A Fine and Pleasant Misery”, I couldn’t find an audio version, so I went with paper. Crabtree shows up in a few stories in this collection, cantankerous as always. There are 27 essays or stories here, all humorous, and all dealing with the outdoors. There are a few about fishing issues of the day, but a majority of this collection are essays about kids in the outdoors or stories about McManus as a young outdoorsman and his cast of characters – other boys, his dog Strange, wily store owners, wise Granny, and Rancid Crabtree. I think these are where McManus truly shines.

Strangely, three of the stories involve surplus stores, describing the pitiful state that the goods tend to be in, and the effect those goods have on the boys that just have to have that genuine jungle sleeping bag or used Nazi mess kit. I recall from my childhood visiting a surplus store in deep rural Southern Illinois, with the overwhelming smell of long damp canvas, and just full of treasures that my dad wouldn’t let me buy (except for a can of peanut butter from WWII, which I think exploded in the car on the way back from vacation). McManus captured the smell, and the mania, perfectly. Another enjoyable set.


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Review: Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family

Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This had an interesting beginning that seemed straight out of a TLC reality show. Take an XL family of 12 kids, all but the youngest two are boys. Describe the difficulties of raising a large family, while also sharing some unusual family hobbies, here falconry. Start telling the story chronologically. After a long introduction, then start filling in the realization that the children are slowly revealing similar, often drastic, often violent mental issues. Focus on the youngest kids, the girls, who gradually realize they may be the next to be afflicted, while their parents split them up, sending one away to school while keeping the other with the now often dangerous brothers and no protection. It starts like “Cheaper by the Dozen” and ends like a Hitchcock movie.

I found the story of passing interest, although by the ¾ mark I was hoping for a quick ending. This seemed like such a unique family that I didn’t learn much that I felt was relatable or usable, but I can see where science would see the family as a goldmine for further study. This is one of those stories that generally got worse for the family members as time went on, and while the author played up the benefit to scientific study, this was a very draining book to read. I appreciated the way the author wrote this story, though, as I can’t picture a better way to portray the mental illness and family dynamics it caused for this large family.

Read along with a college alumni online reading club. This is one of those books where it is valuable to get other peoples opinion on the events and to share some angst.


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Review: American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road

American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road by Nick Bilton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Ross Ulbricht is described here as the kind of guy you might have run across in college. He lived in the stereotypical style of a hippy, albeit a few decades beyond the 60s. He spouted Libertarian dogma, and tended to live his life that way, at least in some aspects. Specifically he said he believed in free markets, for everything, including things that the government made illegal, like drugs and guns. It was very interesting following along as Ulbricht got deeper and deeper into his internet marketplace, and at times had to decide whether his principles would survive real-world situations. Also interesting were the stories of his opposition, people from various branches of government set to take him and his marketplace down. I found it a fascinating read. The part that seems strangest relates to (view spoiler)[ Ulbricht’s attempts to have people killed. As written, these attempts seem counter to the personality of Ulbricht otherwise described, both before and after. I wish the author had described what happened there, but I suppose he didn’t want to speculate. It just seems this very damning evidence just shows up at some point, and changed Ulbricht ultimate portrayal from a principled but tragic figure to one with a mental break. (hide spoiler)]

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Review: The Sacred Bridge

The Sacred Bridge by Anne Hillerman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Another in the Hillerman family enterprise of Navajo nation mysteries. Daughter Anne Hillerman has taken the lead characters from her father’s time and transformed them to side characters to her detective Manuelito. I haven’t found the stories gripping, but have found them mostly entertaining. Compared to the previous book in the series, I found this one to have much more Navajo-related description, with Chee deeply involved in a personal spiritual crossroad that ends up entwined with a murder investigation with aspects of ancient history and modern tourism. Manuelito gets involved with another aspect of modern Navajo nation issues, dealing with corporate hemp growers and their interactions with traditional Navajo ways. I liked the main story lines here. However, the author added a number of side stories that detracted and distracted from the interesting bits - overlarge red herrings. I also found the beginning of the book had a number of long descriptive monologues by characters that sounded like they were quoting from Wikipedia. I realize the author needs to set the stage for the rest of the story, but the beginning was too forced and formulaic.

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Review: Stargazer

Stargazer by Anne Hillerman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Another in the Hillerman family enterprise of Navajo nation mysteries. Daughter Anne Hillerman has taken the lead characters from her father’s time and transformed them to side characters to her detective Manuelito. I haven’t found the stories gripping, but have found them mostly entertaining. This one had some of the Navajo character and feel that was prevalent in most of her father’s books, but to a lesser extent. This could almost have been an episode in many other modern mysteries taking place in very different areas. Also noticeable in this story is that Manuelito seems to act in an out-of-character manner, more whiney and oblivious than other books. Good for a quick entertainment.

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Review: The Speckled Beauty: A Dog and His People

The Speckled Beauty: A Dog and His People by Rick Bragg
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The titular subject of Rick Bragg’s most recent family story is not a blood relative, but a found stray dog. Bragg describes his dog Speck, short for “Speckled Beauty”, with many of the same traits as he previously described his relatives, sharing hard-headedness, a reflective outlook on life, love of the land, and loyalty. It’s a grand story of a dog. It’s also the story of illness and aging. Bragg compares Speck’s aging and mellowing and medical issues with the people that populate the story, including the author, his mother, and his brother. You strongly sense Bragg focusing on the declining years here, and it adds a weight to the story that Speck can at times counteract through canine adventures. I got the feeling near the end of the book that Bragg really wanted to write a book about his older brother, who was facing medical issues and decline, but didn’t want Bragg to write about him. This might end up being the book on Bragg’s brother as well as his dog. Due to the many medical stories, this book feels melancholier than his other family stories, but the writing is memorable and enjoyable. And Southern. (view spoiler)[ And for my sister, who won’t read a book about a dog unless she knows this up front, the dog doesn’t die in the end. (hide spoiler)]

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Review: Snowman in Flames

Snowman in Flames by Clark Darlton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I grew up in a small, rural town on the Mississippi River. Our town of 1200 had a small, one-room public library, and I tended to read a lot. I quickly ran out of books there. My parents would take me to the city library about a half hour away to get additional books. The closest library also invested in a different sort of book than was available locally. One example was Perry Rhodan books. Rhodan is a German pulp science fiction character with many episodes in Germany, and 50 years ago they started releasing American versions of the stories in mass market paperback. I would get five at a time and read them, sharing them with my cousin. We must have read dozens back then.

Now, with new free time available, I thought I would try reading some of these again, about 50 years after I began. I found a few at a bookstore in Columbia, Missouri and #25, Snowman in Flames, is the first I’ve read in at least 45 years. I may have read it when in Elementary school, I don’t remember. The story was pretty much what I generically remembered about the series. There were interesting characters and the authors dived into these characters in places. There was a lot of action. There was a lot of discussing what had happened in earlier episodes. It was very sexist in a 60s way – the women were portrayed as scared and as girlfriends of the other characters, despite being research scientists. It ended abruptly, without the final battle described, as if the author had hit his word count goal for the book and called it done. It was poorly edited, or at least poorly typeset, with lots of incorrect words. And I enjoyed it quite a bit as a reminder of my pre-teen days.

I had forgotten that the books in these series had the main story, but also some additional sci-fi stories, movie reviews, letters, and artwork. I also forgot the staple of these mass market paperbacks, a bound in advertisement for True cigarettes. Quite a time machine.


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