Harry Potter for grownups, or realistic fantasy

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Lots of books get described as Harry Potter for grownups. Deborah Harkness' work is the closest I've seen to truly fitting the bill. (Other contenders include Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, which I haven't read yet, and Lev Grossman's Magician books, which I read and liked but consider to be far more Narnia-infused than Potterian, despite the action surrounding teen magicians at a special magical academy.) When A Discovery of Witches came out, I read it and liked it though I fear I may have read it too fast -- it just felt like the crises were too many and piled on top of each other too quickly.

But I knew I was going to read Shadow of Night, the second in a planned trilogy, especially since the protagonists -- witch Diana Bishop and her vampire lover Matthew de Clermont -- were planning to travel back in time to 1590, the Elizabethan era. The book publishes in July but I got my hands on an advance review copy (one of the benefits of being a librarian) and devoured it in just a few days. Then I went back and bought a copy of A Discovery of Witches -- despite the fact that we have two copies in our branch of the library alone. And enjoyed re-reading it thoroughly; my earlier concerns about it just being Too Much seem to have disappeared. Perhaps a couple doses of George R.R. Martin gave me some perspective. Or maybe it really was my own fault for reading it too fast.

If you're vampire-curious, these are far, far better written than the Twilight series or the Sookie Stackhouse novels. If you like some romance in your reading, these have that, too, without many of the conventions and, yes, cliches that define so much romance fiction. If  you like old manuscripts and ancient conspiracies, set in academic libraries and old family castles, they've got that -- and I don't even want to mention Dan Brown in the same sentence, these are So. Much. Better.

So why call them Harry Potter for grownups? Because they fit into the same realm of realistic fantasy, a sort of yang to the yin of fantastic realism. While much of what gets labeled fantasy fiction takes place in some alternate universe or a mythical planet, the Harry Potter books, and these, take place in a world we recognize easily as our own -- only it happens to also be occupied by supernatural beings (which we always kind of hoped would be the case, right?). In J.K. Rowling's world, and Harkness', we can easily imagine ourselves living our daily lives, interacting with these witches and wizards and vampires and daemons. In Harkness' books, daemons are creative but often unstable, or as one witch puts it, "rock stars and serial killers." In the second book, Christopher Marlowe is a daemon, and a remarkably unstable one at that. Some people, like Queen Elizabeth, know about the existence of vampires and witches and the witchhunting craze at the time takes on even more sinister cast when there are real witches in danger of persecution simply because of who they are.

She also handles the attractions and dangers of time travel in the most deft way I've read since Connie Willis' Doomsday Book. From speech to clothing to the possibility of screwing up your own future existence -- or, in this case, revealing the fate of a being who thinks he is immortal -- it's all handled with the same straightforward approach. Magical realism has had quite a heyday. With vampires, werewolves and zombies all the rage, I'm ready now for realistic magic and I'd put Harkness at the front of the pack.

Recent reading roundup: The Brits, then and now

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Just in time for the Fourth of July -- or maybe in anticipation of the London Olympics? -- OK, it was completely by accident -- I recently finished two books whose authors are Brits and which concern mostly British people in harrowing situations. * Other than that, they couldn't be more different.

One is nonfiction, the other is a novel. The nonfiction book was just published, the novel came out eight years ago. One is a disturbing account of a young woman who falls victim to a sociopath. The other is a historical adventure romp that should appeal to people who like Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe novels -- and/or the movie version of Last of the Mohicans. Yes, that happens to describe me.

I read the nonfiction book first, a contemporary true crime account called People Who Eat Darkness (note to publishers: why oh why would you give a book a title that is both generic and difficult to remember???). I've recently gotten into the true crime genre but almost exclusively on the historical end. More recent crimes just don't interest me enough to read an entire book about them - most of the appeal is learning about a whole time period or society rather than just getting tons of detail about an ugly crime. But this book got a good review on Salon so I figured I'd give it a try. Especially since it was helpfully in the library's collection.

The author, Richard Parry, is a British journalist based in Tokyo. One story he covered during his tenure there was the disappearance of a young British woman, Lucie Blackman and the subsequent trial of the man accused of killing her.

It's very well done, especially on the inevitable but still heartbreaking cultural divide and incomprehension between Blackman's desperate family and the Japanese authorities tasked with investigating her disappearance. Blackman was working as a hostess in a Japanese bar, one of scores of Western women who flirt and drink with Japanese men at bars in the Roppongi district of Tokyo. She was far from the first to encounter the man eventually charged with killing her -- and that's the other heartbreaking part of the story, how many opportunities were lost to stop the sociopath before he encountered Lucie.

Parry also excels at his portrayal of Blackman's family. Her parents had already been through a bitter divorce and Lucie's disappearance drove them even further apart. Lucie's father, Tim, spent a lot of time in Japan and courted the media in the search for his daughter. Her mother, Jane, was far less public -- and eventually made Tim's efforts the target of her own rage, trying to discredit and destroy the Lucie Blackman Trust he established and cast him as a villain in the drama. Parry is straightforward but fair in his depiction of the two grieving parents, who can't even rely on each other for support in the midst of a parent's worst nightmare. As anyone who's ever grieved knows, each person reacts differently and not always rationally -- and that's just normal grief, not the horrifying media-glare version the Blackmans endured.

My favorite line, though, came toward the end of the book when Parry is describing a self-published manifesto by the defendant (and in a further torture for Lucie's family, his trial took six years, because hearings were held every few months and because the Japanese judicial system rarely encounters a defendant who does not, eventually confess to his crimes). Obara's book, "The Truth About the Lucie Case," contains some valid questions about the prosecution and evidence, Parry acknowledges. "But the body of material was so vast, so promiscuously inclusive and unfocused, that any value it had was overwhelmed in a slurping swamp of weirdness and tedium." If you've ever encountered someone who's gone down the rabbit hole on making their case -- and has the wherewithal to publish their findings -- you know exactly what he's talking about.

The second book was a much lighter, easier read -- I polished it off in a day while waiting for the AT&T guy to come and fix our internet service. It's called Jack Absolute by C.C. Humphreys and it's adventurous historical fiction in the Bernard Cornwell/Sharpe vein. It's also in the library's collection. And it's got a great premise: that the character Jack Absolute from The Rivals by Richard Sheridan, was a real person. The book opens shortly after the play is produced (the book's conceit is that Sheridan and Absolute are friends, and Sheridan wrote about a real episode from Absolute's life and used his name, thinking his friend had died in India). As the novel begins, our man Jack, a retired captain in the Light Dragoons, is trying to make his way to the Caribbean where he has recently acquired a plantation he hopes will restore his family's fortune. Instead, he is coerced back into the Army to serve as a spy for the British forces trying to quash the American Revolution.

It's interesting to see the American Revolution from the other side -- Benedict Arnold makes an appearance while still fighting for the rebels but he's obviously a turncoat-in-the-making -- and Absolute is an attractive and entertaining character. My only quibble with the book is that I figured out who the concealed enemy spy was more than 100 pages out and I'm not usually too sharp on those plot twists. So if I can figure it out it must be really obvious. Still, I plan on reading the other two books in the series and must admit I'm disappointed that they're both prequels. Humphreys appears to have moved on to other subjects in the meantime, so I don't know if I'll ever find out what happens next to Jack Absolute.

* Since writing this it has come to my attention that C.C. Humphreys was born in Canada and now lives in Canada so maybe I shouldn't call him a Brit. He did grow up in Britain, though, according to the jacket copy and he certainly has worked there and the book is, in fact, all about Brits.

Between the covers, without pain

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It's surprising who has read the Fifty Shades books, or at least the first one. Me, for instance. And other people I know whom I think of as No Dummies. I remain torn on this issue, kind of liking the out-of-nowhere fan-fiction origins -- the literary equivalent of winning the lottery only with a tad more initiative involved. On the other hand, the fan fiction aspect is slightly annoying; more so is the Old Skool romance, virginal-heroine-must-redeem-the-tortured-dominant-hero theme whose problems are explicated to a far smarter degree than i could ever do in this post from the Rumpus. Not to mention the general annoyingness of the heroine, along with the not-very-inspired writing (many have suggested drinking games based on how many times Anastasia chews her lip -- an action that just makes world-traveling sophisticated billionaire Christian Grey INSANE WITH LUST). But my primary issue with the success of these books, really, is that there is so much out there in the broad area of the romance genre that is so much better written. I know this is true of many, many bestsellers. Why does Dan Brown sell so much better than writers who are so much better? And I won't even go into the James Patterson Fictional Industrial Complex.

So as alternatives for people who are curious about books written primarily for women and that include differing amounts of nookie -- and because at the Library we are embarking on a Summer Reading program for adults with the theme Between the Covers (with four weekly prize drawings! Prizes from Key West Island Books, the Tropic and Bad Boy Burrito!) -- I am hereby offering my suggested alternatives for books you can read on your ereader ... and not be cringing at the writing. Or the stupidity of the heroine, for that matter.

Most of my trashy romance reading is historical. However if Fifty Shades has you curious about contemporary romances, I can recommend Jennifer Crusie (my favorite of hers is called Bet Me, but they're all pretty good). I like Lisa Kleypas, too; the one that got me hooked is called Smooth Talking Stranger. Kristan Higgins is also very well regarded; I have to admit I haven't actually read her but I saw her at the ALA conference last year and she was charming.

If you're not averse to the vampire thing, many library patrons and some staffers like Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse books (the basis for the HBO series True Blood though they differ significantly) and Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series (which I haven't read but understand are pretty high on the smut-ometer and pretty gory, too). For supernatural and romance, but not much smut at all, check out Deborah Harkness's All Souls Trilogy, at least the first two installments. The first is called A Discovery of Witches, the second is Shadow of Night. I liked them so much after reading the second that I went and bought the first and wrote a whole blog post just about them.

On historical romances:

Joanna Bourne's spymaster series. The covers are appalling, the books are a lot of fun.

Eloisa James -- in real life she is Mary Bly, a Fordham literature professor ... and daughter of Robert Bly, of Iron John fame. She's also married to an Italian cavaliere (some kind of knight).

Lisa Kleypas again -- I prefer her historicals to her contemporary novels, especially the series about the Hathaway family. Bonus facts: She is a Wellesley grad -- and a former Miss Massachusetts!

Loretta Chase -- many people who read a lot of romance consider Lord of Scoundrels to be the greatest recent historical romance. I like another of hers better. It's called Mr. Impossible -- and it's in that same old Regency time period but set in Egypt.

Julia Quinn -- They're fun, especially the Bridgerton series. I'm still warming up to her latest, about the Smith-Smythes. (Fun fact: Quinn once went on the TV game show The Weakest Link -- and took home $79,000.)

Madeline Hunter -- Another academic -- I saw her at ALA and she said then she was still in the closet as a romance writer and won't tell anyone her real name.

Elizabeth Hoyt -- Another one I saw at ALA who was funny and charming. Her current series is set in the slums of Victorian London. Fairly high on the smut-ometer.

For anyone at all interested in romance as reading, or as a phenomenon or just looking for an entertaining website to read during working hours, I highly recommend Smart Bitches Trashy Books. The reviews are often hysterically funny (including some of old titles from the real bodice-ripping days of the '70s and '80s), and there's lots more, including links to sale titles on Amazon, etc.

Not smutty at all but nice reads that probably did as much as Jane Austen to establish the Regency as THE time setting for historical romance are the works of Georgette Heyer. Once you've read her you can see how much a lot of other historical romance writers are copying her -- then adding smut. Those were the only romance books we had in my house when I was a kid -- my grandmother and mom both read them and eventually, so did I. I love seeing them in the library, in those good old-fashioned buckram covers though I'm also nostalgically fond of the cheesy '70s covers I first knew, like the one illustrating this post. And they're sometimes available at good prices as ebooks. My favorite is The Nonesuch. Another good one is The Tollgate. (Fun fact: ABE Books announced that Heyer is one of their Top Ten all-time sellers: ahead of Charles Dickens, James Patterson and even the mighty J.K. Rowling.)

Need more suggestions? NPR recently had a post on recommended romance reading from Eloisa James that includes some of these authors and some different ones. If it's the kink in the 50 Shades phenomenon that intrigues you, check out the titles mentioned in this recent piece from Time magazine, along with others in their Summer Books series.

And the winner is ...

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Summer is here, the poll is closed and my summer doorstop tome is decided: I'll be reading Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray. Becky Sharp triumphed over Don Quixote by a whisker but that's what you'd expect from her, isn't it? Thanks everyone for voting -- and special thanks for choosing a book that I imagine is available for cheap or free in ebook edition, thus making its tome-ishness easier to handle. I'll be reporting back once I've read it -- and I'll resist watching the Mira Nair film adaptation, starring Reese Witherspoon, till I'm done.

Happy summer reading, everyone! And speaking of summer reading, we have programs at the Key West Library this year, for children and, for the second year running, for adults. So stop by, pick up a reading log and get your read on.

Fewer than 50 links about That Book

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I read Fifty Shades of Grey. Hey, it was for my job! So I could discuss the most popular book in the nation with patrons! Nothing to do with dirty bits and kinky sexual practices. Honest!

And I'm afraid I'm late enough to this show that I don't have much say about the book that hasn't been said. No, it's not very well written. But neither, in my opinion, are many other bestselling works of fiction (I'm still waiting for the International Court of Literary Justice to convene and give me back the four hours I spent reading Angels & Demons). Mostly, it struck me as oddly retro, a throwback to the romances referred to these days as Old School -- of the Kathleen Woodiwiss/Rosemary Rogers 1970s-80s school. No rape scenes, thank God, but a lot of the touchstones were there. The heroine is virginal and insecure. The hero is dominant (literally, in this case), but tortured by his past, yet still able to recognize virginal heroine's stunning beauty when no one else had noticed. And also induce her to multiple orgasms the first time out. And like a lot of the older romances, it's epic in length -- three books at more than 500 pages each. And I feel confident that the vast majority of its readers understand this is a fantasy. Lots of us think of ourselves as insecure but goodhearted people -- and wouldn't it be nice if the one person who recognized our qualities was an incredibly goodlooking billionaire who flies his own helicopter and practices global philanthropy and is extremely good at sex, even if he has some serious issues -- that only you can help him get past? Like I said, fantasy. Just like vampires, dragons, elves and whatever that guy does in all those Clive Cussler novels that fly off the library shelves. (5/23 update: See last link below for an opposing view on this issue.)

So instead of opining further about the book or trying to diagnose the social factors behind its unlikely and astonishing success, I'll simply share a few links worth reading if you're curious.