Books A Million

++I know how you are excited about the news of a long lost Ayn Rand novel being discovered. A Hollywood female movie star is accused of murder. You will be able to get her screenplay for the book as well.

++It's been 5 years since the world of letters lost J.G. Ballard. My first Ballard was "Drowning World" published by the late Doubleday Science Fiction Book Club. But Ballard lives! The Fourth Estate (London) has published Extreme Metaphors:The Collected Interviews. A special treat is that the book includes all the interviews conducted by counter-cultural guru V.Vale. These interviews range from discussions of his life, to the meaning of punk rock and consumerism. A must read for Ballard fans.

++Following up her marvelous memoir of growing up in Ireland A Story Lately Told,Angelica Houston brings us her second volume Watch Me. She obviously picked up her story telling skills from her father movie great John Houston. The lady can write. This volume deals with her movie career, her affairs with Jack Nicholson and sculptor Robert Graham and too much glitz for my taste. You do learn what those of us from the Jersey Shore knew for years,the true story of Jack Nicholson's mother. As a piece of writing, I prefer volume 1.

++My wife asked me why there are not series of novels about women like Richard Ford's Frank Bascombe books. Good question to which I have no answers. Frank is now a retired real estate salesmen living at the Jersey Shore just after Hurricane Sandy. Let Me Be Frank With You is a meditation on the vissitudes of life appropriate for someone my age. It was nice that Richard Ford got all his shore sites correct.

++My boycott of Maine remains in place as long as Gov. Le Page holds forth. Carolyn Chute returns with the mammoth Treat Us Like Dogs and We will become Wolves. Chute caused some concern among her liberal sponsors when became known that she was also the Secretary of a Maine militia group. This new book is about a population living off the grid and centered around a charismatic leader. The politics are Occupy Wall Street,350.org meet the militia and libertarians. A very long read which brings to light an alternative white America.

++Once a journalist in Taylor's Liberia,Denis Johnson returns to Africa in The Laughing Monsters, a book President Obama bought for Christmas this year. Johnson traces counter-terrorist agent Roland Nair and his covert trips through Africa. Johnson has lost none of his ear and sensitivity to the sights,sounds and smells of Africa. Small compared to his Tree of Smoke, this small novel is worth it.

++Mystery writers with a long shelf life can fall into tiresome formulas. So it's nice to see Val McDermid return with The Skeleton Road. A body is found in Edinburgh that has links to the Balkan Wars. And we are off and running. McDermid is at high form and the ending is perversely pleasing for someone in my profession.

++A filmmaker who worked at the late and sorely missed Ollssen's Books in Alexandria recommended a poet I would like. Twenty years later I still read her. Mary Oliver is out with Blue Horses, a new collection of her verse replete with the herons, kingfishers,trees and water we expect. The word for her work is Mindfulness. She reminds us that the red fox that meanders into my yard and the raccoon under my decaying deck are as worth my attention as what goes on politically here in D.C.Do they not reflect a deeper meaning?