The Finisher, David Baldacci (2014)

I think this is Baldacci's first entrance into the YA market.  With a "fifth grade" reading level and interest level of fifth through 9th I think the writing is a little challenging.  Learning Baldacci's new terminology for the world of Wormwood was a bit complicated.  However, it was well worth the effort involved.  Our heroine and hero are well crafted and the situations facing them nuanced and engaging.  The "Wugmorts" (citizens of Wormwood) are fearful of the surrounding "Quag" and the monsters lurking there.  As a result they are limited in their means and their visions of the world.  

Vega Jane, a 14 year-old, is not quite so fearful and over the course discovered her destiny to escape Wormwood and venture into what is likely to be a series of adventures that will lead back to Wormwood (just my prediction here).  The portraits of small-minded and fearful citizens in Wormwood and the effects of repression provide interesting discussion of contemporary issues facing our world.  I don't want to influence your own interpretations---but I found fertile ground for considering contemporary issues.

Someone, by Alice McDermott

I have been reading relatively light "popular fiction" recently (as my stress at work increases the "weight" of my reading selections decreases).  I listened to this audio book because I was between titles and decided it was time for a break (and it was available).

Now I am going to have to reread parts of it (and probably obtain a paper copy). 

This is a complex tale told in a non-linear style.  In ways it makes the story even more engrossing.  You aren't completely anxious about the well being of the characters and can really appreciate the nuances of character, plot and setting.  The time frame spans the early Twentieth Century.  The main character, Marie, and Irish Catholic girl living in Brooklyn in many ways resonates with my own families.  She is of an age with my mother.  I married into a large Irish Catholic family (with some Germans thrown in).  I have not ties to Brooklyn but I certainly appreciate the great changes that have come into women's lives in the 20th and 21st centuries. 

A well told tale! 

The Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny

I want to rush right out and buy this for my my friends, a couple--one a musician and the other a poet.  It inspired and moved me.  Louise Penny has quickly become one of my favorite authors.  In fact, I keep telling folks that my first retirement trip is going to include a literary tour of Quebec following the Inspector Gamache books.  I just hope I can find Three Pines (or something like it!).

Finally Three Pines is spared a murder!  This mystery takes place at monastery of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups.  A monastery hidden from view for centuries and recently come to public attention through the making of a CD of Gregorian Chants.  But, success breeds dissent and hence Gamache and Jean-Guy Beauvoir go together to investigate the murder of one of the monks.

The secondary plots of the series are nicely developed as well.

Take a day or two to savor this one (and maybe put some Gregorian Chants on as you read)!

Deadline and Field of Prey by John Sandford

Yes--a two-for!  I enjoy John Sandford's books.  I'm a midwestern gal--born and raised in Iowa, just a bit south of the settings of his books.  It may be that I "get" some of the regional quirks and references that others might miss.  Every book takes me back to what is wonderful, and odd about Iowa/Minnesota.

These two books particularly appeal to me.  They unfold in a concurrent time frame.  Lucas (Field of Prey) and Virgil (Deadline) are talking with each other throughout both books.  Sandford does a masterful job of flirting with the reader without creating any road-blocks to understanding or appreciating both books.

Of the two I probably enjoyed Deadline a bit more, but I read it most recently so it may just be a matter of immediate recall.  Virgil is called by his friends in southeastern Minnesota (close to my last location in Iowa!).  He gets pulled into a triple--dognapping, meth manufacturing/distribution, and school board malfeasance.  It is this last that really got me.  As I near the end of my career in education I am more and more aware of the roll of greed and opportunism in our schools.  I don't know if it has always been this way--but I am very aware that public education is at the center of some very unpleasant financial dealings.  Hopefully Sandford has created a fiction way beyond the realities of any real situation. 

Meanwhile, I get a laugh out of the characters and relish the appreciation Sandford has for the finer qualities of many small town midwesterners.  With a few exceptions they are wonderful people who really should be the "heart" of our American values.  Sandford's characters are as flawed and as wonderful as my neighbors and friends. 

If you're looking for great entertainment spend some wonderful hours with Virgil and his collection of interesting characters in Deadline.

Field of Prey  is the stronger thrilling sort of read on which Sandford originally built his writing career. It is a well crafted detective story continuing the tale of Lucas Davenport, his family, and team.  In the last several books in this series he has also been adding a bit about politics.  I appreciate his perspectives and insight on the political process.  He does a good job of avoiding flat characters and helps me think about the effects that politics is having on our national life. 

Both are good reads and compliment each other quite nicely. 

The Circle, by Dave Eggers

I need to change the way I record book recommendations.  A friend recommended this book to me but I didn't write down who it was.  Now I wonder about who it was and am curious about whether it was someone criticizing my involvement with technology or if they thought I'd simply be interested.  Whichever was the motivation, my response is perhaps different that they might have anticipated.  I am reading this not so much as a morality tale about technology but instead a reflection on assessment.

The book has received mixed reviews.  The writing has been criticized as lacking in literary merit.  The criticisms may be justified, but still the book offers opportunities for discussion of the new mania for measuring everything and then rewarding or punishing based on the numbers.

I also had to laugh at the images created of the multi-tasking demands made on The Circle's employees.  I'm about half way through and the protagonist is now having a fourth screen installed on her desk.  (Which makes me wonder if the author doesn't know about tiling windows on a screen.)  But still...

I'm close to several customer experience employees and know the pressures on them to produce high "numbers" are ridiculous.  The "metrics" being produced each day to evaluate their work are dizzying and oppressive.  In contrast I consider Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's concept of flow.  Based on his work, being focused on numbers actually probably makes it impossible to work within a state of flow.  In my own professional life I am drowning in data and assessment (including huge pressures to "raise" numbers).  Last night some of my World of Warcraft guild members and I were discussing the effects of assessments on the abilities of teachers to include innovative, engaging, relevant activities/content in this instruction.  One of us retold a story of teachers energized by ideas of game-based learning and inclusion of student created machinima (or movies) in the curriculum.  But the teachers quickly shut down when they realized that they wouldn't be able to create multiple choice tests to measure achievement of standards connected to these exciting curriculum/instruction ideas.  We then discussed the problems several of us were seeing in young adults/adults being successful in completion of post-secondary education (or graduation from high school).  I have to believe that there is a link between the difficulty many are having with completing school and our increased emphasis on test scores.  (This would be a side-effect of attempts to reform/improve education that we forget to measure.)

Maybe a random connection (this is the way my mind works) but it perhaps helps build my case--
Act Two. Is That a Tape Recorder in Your Pocket, or Are You Just Unhappy to See Me?, a segment from This American Life first aired on 9/10/2010.  In the second segment of the show the story surrounds the effects of assessment numbers on policing  in New York City.  In short, it was not good!

There's a principle in science "by measuring you distort."  I think it's time in our era of easily obtained numbers that we go back to this fundamental idea.  Another principle that I haven't heard recently is "garbage in--garbage out."

I know I am swimming upstream trying speak out against "data collection"  (especially since that is part of my work responsibility) but I think we need to take a moment to pause and consider if we're guilty of putting the cart in front of the horse in much of our assessment plans.  I'm not convinced that we have learned how to identify data that will actually measure the critical factors leading to success or excellence in most of our endeavors.  Not only that, but I am concerned that focusing all this human capital on getting "the numbers up" instead of working on actually doing/producing something is going to have long term disastrous effects on our economy.

There's also a risk that in search of  perfect ratings that we are in danger of eliminating creativity and genius.  When we become preoccupied with numerical ratings, particularly those from rubrics, we can easily miss the unexpected or creative.  For example, I'm pretty certain that if O'Keeffe's, Van Gogh's, Monet's, or Kadinsky's works had been measured using a rubric developed by a committee that they would have been identified as "does not meet standards."

Harry Hole novels by Jo Nesbo

It looks like I've been deep in detective fiction this fall/winter.  Indeed--that is the case.  Shortly before I fell into Louise Penny's work I discovered that of Jo Nesbo.  Nesbo is a Norwegian author.  In the past I have read Stieg Larsson's books (Swedish).  It appears that Scandinavian detectives/editors are generally pretty miserable.  Harry Hole is a rather desperate alcoholic who is however, a loving brother to his sister with Down Syndrome.  He also cares deeply for his father, but has some difficulty with that relationship.

Through all his drinking and drug binges Harry manages to solve terrible crimes.  Unfortunately, in most cases he leaves a trail of destruction on his way to the solution.  The plots are well crafted and move forward with a sense of urgency.  They are not, however, for the faint-hearted.  There is graphic violence and some relatively explicit sexual scenes.

 Hole solves murders through inspiration.  It can be hard to follow the clues that get him to the solution.  Sometimes it is as if his drinking and drugging are necessary to put him into a state that allows the subconscious to work.

Although Hole is not a character that you will like, he is fascinating.  I will finish the series and also pick up his children's books, the Doctor Proctor  series.

Reading these alternately with Louise Penny's books has been quite a study in contrasts.  The Nesbo's rough, grimy tales alternately with Penny's comparatively gentle, refined works have perhaps counterbalanced each other.

Chief Inspector Gamache Series by Louise Penny

Everyone once and a while I run across a new-to-me author who has a substantial body of work.  That means I start at the beginning and read!  (And why I can be quiet for so long on this blog.)  I picked up Louise Penny's books because of coverage on NPR.  I'm delighted I did.

Penny's detective novels are richly written.  In each she brings in themes connecting to art, history, literature, and nature.  The solutions to the mysteries typically are nuanced and subtle portraits of communities, families, and minor psychological problems.  She does not typically include "mass-murderer" psychopaths as the antagonist.  Instead, they are the flawed human beings we run across in our lives who have just gone a step further than do most.

Gamache himself is a fascinating character.  He is physically imposing, loving toward his wife and family, but with some weaknesses and flaws that make him believable and admirable.  The approaches he uses to solving the murders are patient, methodical, and thoughtful.  Penny also uses a device in which the characters discover something, but she does not reveal the discovery until later in the book.

I have not visited Quebec, the settings of her novels, but will as soon as life permits.  In fact, I believe my first retirement trip will be to Quebec with books in hand.  Of course I will plan the trip for fall so that I may continue southward through the fall colors in New England and to Boston to visit Reverend, Doctor Nancy Taylor at Boston's Old South Church.