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This may be the best nonfiction book I've ever read. Maybe that's not saying much, since I don't read all that much nonfiction, but I found it engrossing and well-written. The well-known book that's been turned into a movie and a TV series follows the season of High School football for the Permian panthers in Odessa, Texas; but along the way, Bissinger not only brings the town and the people to life, he also gives fascinating insights to racism, classism, politics, the oil bust and boom, the history and culture of Odessa and neighboring rivals, as well as the fanatical, near-religious devotion to football.

Every now and then I found myself wondering about the narrator-- not because he is present or noticeable in the text, but precisely because he is so invisible and yet manages to capture so many details and moments in a way that seems so clear and insightful; even though it's never mentioned, I imagine the author doing his careful, meticulous research, following along all season long with the team, the coaches, the players and their families to capture so many of these crucial moments in the season, and to hear and understand their stories.

There are so many fascinating insights here that are just a part of the fabric of the story that Bissinger tells. For instance, desegregation of the schools in Odessa was delayed quite a bit, in part because no one wanted to mess up the football programs; and when they finally did desegregate, the district lines were gerrymandered so that Permian would get a greater share of the black athletes. When the star running back is severely injured, he becomes a nobody, and they don't even try to coach him back, they just replace him with somebody else; when he no longer gets the preferential treatment of a football player, he can't keep up with his classwork because he never was really taught.

The story of the many oil millionaires in nearby Midland Lee gives a personal glimpse into the oil industry, and the way that government policies had a tremendous impact on people's lives, and the striking difficulty of getting oil from Texas as compared to the Middle East. Men who happened to be in the right place at the right time were suddenly rich because of luck and politics, but because they thought it was their own business skill they all spent and invested like crazy, until suddenly the oil prices crashed and all these oil-millionaires went broke.

This edition of the book includes a look at where the players were ten years later, and it is fascinating, but mostly quite sad. For a school year or two, these young men were treated like heroes and gods, they could do no wrong and were allowed to get away with pretty much anything-- but as soon as they lost in the semi-finals and the season was over, that was gone and they were replaced by the next group of kids who had worked and dreamed of playing for Permian since they were children. Even the few who were able to play college football talk about how nothing was ever quite like playing for Permian.

Title:	Friday Night Lights
Author:	H. G. Bissinger
Date published:	1990
Genre:	Nonfiction
Number of pages:	367
Notes:	borrowed from Sapphire

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In this follow-up to Bloodring and Seraphs, Thorn once again finds herself battling the powers of Darkness. Even though she just helped the Seraphs defeat the Fallen Seraph Forcas, and freed the cherub Mistress Amethyst and her Seraph mate, they also barely contained a major darkness-- a dragon imprisoned under the Trine. In addition, a new mage has come to town-- supposedly to teach Thorn all the training she missed when she was forced to leave Enclave at such a young age, but he is arrogant and unpleasant, and she can tell there is something he is hiding from her.

For some reason, this book didn't seem quite as exciting or enthralling ad the first two; in some ways, it feels like a rehash of the things that have happened before. Once again, demon spawn attack the town, and they are organized, not just a mindless swarm. Thorn and her friends manage to fight them off with heavy casualties, and as before Thorn agonizes over whether or not to summon the Seraphs to help them fight, since that may cost the lives of the townsfolk. Thorn is also agonizing over her irresistible attraction to the Kylen, Thadd, and still won't make any decision about Eli's continued interest in her-- even though he reveals some interesting things about human-mage interactions and the joy or fear that can result. Thorn also continues to agonize (notice a pattern?) over her ex-step-daughter Ciana, who continues to do powerful things with the Seraph pin she wad given for protection-- who, apparently, is no longer quite human, along with her uncle Rupert, although we're never told exactly what they've become.

Eventually, there's another big drawn out battle. Thorn gets some new champards pledging to fight alongside her, and they do their best in a battle against all the odds. Thorn eventually comes face to face with the dragon-- and rather than a hideous beast, a "Big Bad Ugly," it is an angel of light, a fallen seraph, who tries to get her to join him. Thorn slips into the river of time again, and continues the fight there, resisting the power and seduction of the dragon Azazel. Eventually, after a lot of death and destruction and loss, the dragon is defeated.

The ending seemed particularly unsatisfying. There is some indication that one of the seraphs has been playing Thorn, manipulating her to accomplish his own ends-- but no explanation or more details. Similarly, we don't get any more answers (or even that many more hints or suggestions) about the true nature of the seraphs and cherubs, or what the mages are and why they came into existence. The book just ends with Thorn and her remaining champards recovering from battle, Thorn still not sure where things are going next or how she will sort our her relationships to them all. I almost thought Hunter was setting up yet another sequel with this open-ended conclusion, but I don't think that is the case either.

Title:	Host
Author:	Faith Hunter
Date published:	2007
Genre:	Fantasy
Series:	Rogue Mage Novels
Number of pages:	340

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This book picks up a few weeks after Bloodring ends, with Thorn now exposed-- and licensed by the Archseraph-- as a Mage. Even though she basically saved the town, most of the people don't know it, and at least half the town is afraid of her, eventually calling her to trial in front of the town council. From her fight underground in the last book, she knows there is at least one seraph imprisoned under the Trine, and maybe a cherub, although Thorn seems to think she imagined that part; and a Darkness has some of her blood, which it is using to try to seduce and control her. Thorn keeps trying to contact Lolo, the mage who sent her into hiding, but instead her scrying keeps turning to truth spells, and she is having visions of her childhood when she was taken prisoner by a Fallen seraph, and also sees a vision of Lolo as a young woman. As you might expect, eventually Thorn has to do battle with the Darkness under the Trine again, and this time not only does she survive (despite almost dying a couple of times), she discovers that she is an "omega mage"-- whatever that is.

The plans set into motion by a Darkness in the last book take a big step forward. A Darkness under the Trine has captured a seraph and a mage (or perhaps corrupted some mages and turned them rogue), and is using these captives to birth an army of powerful, dark soldiers. They've also used the blood of Lucas, Thorn's ex-husband who was previously kidnapped and then rescued, in these demon spawn-- because Lucas is descended from the Mole Man, a hero generations ago who gave his life and blood to chain a great dragon under the Trine, and the Seraphs have sworn to protect the progeny of the Mole Man. This Dark army is bolder than ever, even coming so far as to come against Mineral City itself in a coordinated, planned attack, which is rare for the wild, uncontrolled dark creatures.

As before, Thorn gets pulled into a battle and goes under the Trine in an attempt to free the Seraphs and Cherub who are trapped. She almost dies more than once, she barely escapes being bound to the Fallen seraph Forcas, and she also finds herself joining with the seraphs to fight in the river of time, a spiritual or other-dimensional realm that the seraphs are surprised she can enter-- although it turns out they need the help of the one they call "little mage."

Among the many other things going on in the book, Thorn is contacted by members of the EIH, or Earth Invasion Heretics, who think that the Seraphs aren't actually angels from the book of Revelation, but some alien race come to conquer Earth. Parts of the story are told from the seraphs and cherub imprisoned under the Trine, and while the descriptions of these beings and their conversations together seems to fit with them actually being angelic creatures, there is just enough leeway that after finishing the book I started to wonder about this.

Fast-paced and enjoyable, this book was hard to put down-- although the ending is a little unsatisfying, as it is obviously setting things up for another sequel.

Title:	Seraphs
Author:	Faith Hunter
Date published:	2007
Genre:	Fantasy
Series:	Rogue Mage Novels
Number of pages:	356

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Thorn St. Croix is a stone mage who draws her power from the leftover energy of creation, and she lives in a Post-Apocalyptic world unlike any I have ever read about or seen in a movie before. About a hundred years ago, seraphim came and rained down plagues and destruction, just like in the book of Revelation; but the Most High God never showed himself, so the people that are left don't know which religion is "right", and the seraphim don't concern themselves too much with humans, unless they start rioting and destroying each other; and to counter the angels, there are also demons and devil spawn that come out at night. In a world of "neomages" and Kylen, human and seraph cross breeds, Thorn must hide her identity and suppress her skin (which glows) in order to pretend to be human. Twice she sees a bloodring around the moon, a bad omen, and then strange things start happening, and it all seems to be centered on the nearby mountain, where a powerful Dark creature is taking hostages and working on some kind of evil plan.

Thorn lives somewhere in the Appalachian mountains, in a small town called Mineral City. She was raised in a mage Enclave in New Orleans, but when she came into her powers as a teenager, she began to hear all the thoughts of all the other mages, and it was driving her crazy-- so she was sent away for her protection, with amulets to protect her and make her look human.

Thorn's ex-husband is kidnapped, her step-daughter has been seeing a Daywalker, and eventually Thorn gets drawn into a huge fight with the darkness under the Trine, summoning seraphs to help in the fight. It all makes for a pretty fun, exciting read.

I don't think it's ever explained where the mages came from, just that they were "unforeseen." But, for some reason, they don't have souls. And the presence of seraphs or kylen makes a mage go into an irresistable heat. But Thorn works her magic through stones, drawing on the energies of creation, and she uses scripture verses as words of power when she fights.

I picked this book up because I had previously bought the second in the series when I saw it in a discount bin and thought it looked interesting (not realizing it was a sequel). I think the cover for this edition is pretty bad: it's not very appealing, and it's annoyingly inaccurate. Thorn is red-haired, and makes use of knives and swords (demon spawn are hard to kill and guns aren't much use), but she never dresses in tight black leather. She either wears layers of leggings and sweaters to hide all her stone amulets and wrist knive sheathes and for warmth (there's a mini-ice age going on), or she wears her black mage "dobok" for battle.

Title:	Bloodring
Author:	Faith Hunter
Date published:	2006
Genre:	Fantasy
Series:	Rogue Mage Novels
Number of pages:	319

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This is the first time I can remember reading a book with a soundtrack playing along in my head. The musical is wonderful, so as I got to distinct events, the music was in my head. Quite interesting. Jean Valjean goes to prison as a young man for trying to steal a loaf of bread for his sister and her numerous children. He stays longer because of escape attempts, and when he finally gets out nobody will receive him because of his criminal's passport. A bishop takes him in for a meal and a night's sleep, but Valjean steals something valuable, is caught, and taken back to the bishop who says he forgot the silver. He 'buys his soul' for God, and after that Jean Valjean is a changed man who seeks to care for those around him, live honestly and make up for past evil.

Over and over, Valjean is shown to be a man who is strong beyond reason. He gets under a horse cart which has trapped a man and lifts it up by himself. He climbs a high wall by pushing himself up the corner where it meets another wall. He saved men in the quarries by various acts of strength. He saves Marius' life by carrying him through horrible conditions in the sewer for a great distance. And yet .. more than his physical strength .. the reader sees his character. This is, of course, shown most strongly in his care of Cosette, the daughter of Fantine, who he rescues and raises as his own with great affection and care. A man who was consistently treated as less than human in the quarries returns grace and mercy. Humanly speaking, that is not possible. This man exemplifies what a transformed life can be .. a second chance, used to the fullest, for the good of all those around him. Javert is another very intrigue character. He is a policeman and very just. For him all things fall easily into categories. One of which is that all criminals are evil and cannot be good. Throughout Jean Valjean's life, Javert continues to search for him to send him back to prison. When Valjean does something extraordinary, Javert can no longer fit him into the 'evil' box .. and something inside Javert crumbles. Valjean is the criminal turned benefactor, and Javert is the upright man who can no longer comprehend the world. What striking juxtaposition. A book worth reading again!

Title:	Les Miserables (abridged)
Author:	Victor Hugo
Date published:	1961
Genre:	Fiction
Number of pages:	321
Notes:	repeat reading

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Watching Joss Whedon's "Dollhouse" this spring made me think of Neuromancer and want to read it again, because what happens in the Dollhouse made me think of Molly and what little we are told of her history: how she worked at what the characters call a "meat palace" (like a doll but with a "cut out chip" and "software for whatever a customer wants to pay for"), to make money for all her enhancement surgery (blades under her nails, inset lenses over her eyes, enhanced reflexes, etc)-- but she starts remembering. Of course, that is just one small bit (half of a page) of what is a fascinating ride full of strange, fascinating, dark characters. Reading this book the second time, it was nice to have some idea where the narrative is heading; when you read it the first time, you're just as disoriented as Case, Molly, and the other characters are-- you don't know who has hired them or what job they are supposed to pull or why, and as the hints start coming it still takes a long time to find out who or what Wintermute might be.

This book creates a fascinating, dark world where human bodies are what everyone is upgrading, modifying, and accessorizing. Case is a "cowboy" who jacks into the matrix to hack in and pull jobs or heists; Molly is a razor-girl, a fighter. They're both hired by Armitage, who in turn has been hired and manipulated by an AI named Wintermute. In this high-tech world run by multinational corporations, there are strict limits on what AI software is allowed, and there are Turing police to enforce them. After gathering other recruits and the tools for the run (including a ROM construct of a dead cowboy Case used to know, the Dixie Flatline), Case and Molly head up to Freeside, the space satellite owned by the ancient and inbred Tessier-Ashpool clan-- who also happen to own Wintermute.

The end result of all the plotting and maneuvering is strangely beautiful and a little bit mysterious. The mother of the Tessier-Ashpool clan was a visionary, and saw that all the surgeries that could extend your life and going in and out of cryogenic suspension wasn't real immortality, and even though she was murdered by her brutal husband (he disagreed with her philosophy), she still managed to set up two very different AIs: Wintermute, adaptable and decision-making, manipulating events and people; and Neuromancer, who we only meet briefly near the end, who understands people and personality in a way that Wintermute cannot. And in the process, this dead woman plant the seeds for a new phase of evolution, or maybe something even grander.

There's lots of interesting things here (also plenty of violence and sexuality, dark, broken people doing disturbing things). It is strange to read it now and wonder how many words Gibson coined, and to notice the analogies that might not make sense to someone now because of how technology has changed-- like the sky "the color of television, tuned to a dead channel", which we know is static and grey, not the bright blue of "no signal" that is more common now. It's also pretty obvious what a huge debt "The Matrix" owes to this book-- not just the flipping and jacking in to the matrix, or the "simstim" that lets Case virtually ride along with Molly and feel everything she feels (including excruciating pain when she gets injured), but even the Rastafarian Zionite Maelcum and his tugboat spacecraft that ferries Case and the rest, and helps in the end-- to save "Steppin Razor", as he calls Molly, but not to get in the way of Babylon destroying itself.

Great, fascinating book, well-written-- much here to think about, but the language is also well-crafted (the imagery when Case is hacking through some particularly bad ICE is pretty cool). I'm glad I read it again, I think I understand it a little better now; makes me want to read more Gibson, which I'm not sure was the case the last time I read it.

Title:	Neuromancer
Author:	William Gibson
Date published:	1984
Genre:	Cyberpunk, Science Fiction
Number of pages:	271
Notes:	second reading

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The things you can learn from fairy tales! For instance, in reading these stories I discovered:

• Poor but beautiful peasant maidens who wish to marry well should get themselves cursed by an evil witch, and then they are bound to end up married to a king or a prince (although there may be some discomfort along the way)
• Young kings shouldn't go hunting or wandering in forests, as they are bound to run across a witch and bad things will happen to them as a result
• If a gnome, an animal, or a saint talks to you in the woods, it is best to be kind and generous to them
• Naive, fearless simpletons will either end up rich, married to princesses and heirs to kingdoms; or they will trade away their wealth for something worthless
• Saints and miracles intermix freely with magic
• Things are more likely to end well for you if you are the youngest sibling of three

It was a lot of fun to read these stories. Some were mostly-familiar versions of well-known tales, others were unfamiliar stories with echoes of the more familiar fairy tales, and others were just strange. In some cases, reading the stories again gave me a new perspective on them. For instance, there is the story of the old fisherman who catches a fish, and when the fish tells him that he is an ensorceled prince, the old fisherman releases him and goes on his way. But his wife wants something, and there begins a succession of ever greater houses and palaces and positions of power until the wife finally wants to be like God, and the old fisherman and his wife end up in their hovel again. I had always thought this meant they had met the limits of the powerful prince-fish's patience, but re-reading it this time I saw an alternate interpretation-- perhaps the fish actually gave them what they had asked for; it's just that they-- and we-- understand so little of what it means to live like God.

I borrowed this book from Abiel a few years ago (actually swapped it for one of mine), and she moved away before we managed to trade books back! I enjoyed reading the stories over several months, just a few stories at a time so I could take them in slowly.

Title:	The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimmm, Volume I
Author:	Jack Zipes (translator)
Date published:	1987
Genre:	Fairy Tale
Number of pages:	416
Notes:	loan from Abiel; read over many months

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This is the first time in a long time that I've picked up a play to read just for fun, but I saw this book on the shelf and it just called to me. Stoppard's writing is witty and brilliant and entertaining and moving. This play juxtaposes people in two different time period but in the same location-- in an English estate in the early 1800s, where renovations are being done to update the place to the latest fashions, and in the present day, where scholars are doing research on the historical materials from the earlier time periods. Hannah is studying the renovation of the gardens as a microcosm of the shift from Enlightenment to Romanticism; Bernard is convinced there is a connection to Byron; and Valentine Coverley is hoping to use the centuries of grouse hunting logs as a dataset for his mathematical research. One of the most fascinating characters is Thomasina Coverley, a young girl who is a mathematical genius and intuits the second law of thermodnyamics long before anyone else (she sees that Newton's equations run the same forwards and backwards, but that a heat engine does not), and who sees that mathematical formulas can describe nature, like an apple leaf-- but she wants to learn to dance, to know what love is.

The layering of time and place here is brilliant; the landscape is being crafted by man, and then redesigned into the latest ideal of what is stylish or "picturesque." The contemporary and historic scenes are layered on top of each other, sharing the same room and even the same, overlapping props. As the play progresses, the papers and books and various objects get piled on top of each other, the layers of all the historical details and records that are left behind, the "trivia" that scholars dig into to try to find something of significance, to make a story of. Reading the play, it's a little hard to keep track of who all is in the room at the same time, when the two timelines start to overlap more (with even conversations overlapping), but the one time I saw the play performed this worked just brilliantly.

It's also fun to watch the scholars trying to make sense of the pieces they have left, the way they interpret things and try to make sense of it-- this is particulary entertaining because the audience has seen the history they are researching. Bernard says at one point, "There is a platonic letter which confirms everything-- lost but ineradicable, like radio voices rippling through the universe for all eternity." In this case, we find out later in the play that there actually was a letter, exactly like he described.

I love the way that Stoppard's stage notes and descriptions of scenes and characters are suggestive, but not exact or demanding-- it may be done this way or that. There is an overlapping character, Augustus/Gus Coverly in both time periods, who is apparently meant to be played by the same actor, and at one point he appears (in period costume, for a party), but the audience isn't supposed to know which Augustus it is until we see who responds to him.

Some favorite lines...

Thomasina: If you could stop every atom in its position and direction, and if your mind could comprehend all the actions thus suspended, then if you were really, really good at algebra you could write the formula for all the future; and although nobody can be so clever as to do it, the formula must exist just as if one could.

Hannah: A century of intellectual rigour turned in on itself. A mind in chaos suspected of genius. In a setting of cheap thrills and false emotion. The history if the garden says it all, beautifully. There's an engraving of Sidley Park in 1730 that makes you want to weep. Paradise in the age of reason. By 1760 everything had gone ... the whole sublime geometry was ploughed under by Capability Brown. ... And then Richard Noakes came in to bring God up to date.

Valentine: There was someone, forget his name, 1820s, who pointed out that from Newton's laws you could predict everything to come - I mean, you'd need a computer as big as the universe but the formula would exist.
Chloe: But it doesn't work, does it?
Valentine: No. It turns out the maths is different.
Chloe: No, it's all because of sex. ... That's what I think. The universe is deterministic all right, just like Newton said, I mean, it's trying to be, but the only wrong thing is people fancying people who aren't supposed to be in that part of the plan.
Valentine: Ah. The attraction that Newton left out.

Thomasina: Well! Just as I said! Newton's machine which would knock our atoms from cradle to grave by the laws of motion is incomplete! Determinism leaves the road at every corner, as I knew all along, and the cause is very likely hidden in this gentleman's observation. ... The action of bodies in heat.

Valentine: She didn't have the maths, not remotely. She saw what things meant, way ahead, like seeing a picture. ... That you can't run the film backwards. Heat was the first thing which didn't work that way. Not like Newton. A film of a pendulum, or a ball falling through the air-- backwards, it looks the same. ... But with heat-- friction-- a ball breaking a window-- ... It won't work backwards. ... She saw why. You can put back the bits of glass but you can't collect up the heat of the smash. It's gone.

Title:	Arcadia
Author:	Tom Stoppard
Date published:	1993
Genre:	Drama
Number of pages:	97
Notes:	repeat reading

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