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I originally picked up THE YOKOTA OFFICERS CLUB, Sarah Bird’s novel/memoir about growing up as an Air Force brat in the 50s and 60s (among other things) for my mom, so she’d have something to read in the hospital after her recent shoulder-replacement surgery. Although my dad was in the Marines when my parents met, he didn’t make a career out of the military as Bird’s father evidently did, and Bird’s protagonist was a child ten years before I and my brothers were. But it looked like an interesting book, and I’d heard good things about Sarah Bird’s other novels, so into my purse it went the day I took my mom to the hospital. To keep myself occupied that day, I brought along my laptop, thinking I’d get some writing done in the quiet waiting room while she was in surgery.

Hah.

Hospital waiting rooms aren’t what they used to be. Or what you see on TV. The place was packed with scores of anxious people (And do you realize how much louder people talk when they’re anxious?), and two TVs blaring--that particular morning with continuous coverage of a terrible train wreck in the next county that caused chemicals to burn and neighborhoods to be evacuated.

Not an atmosphere conducive to creativity--or calmness. More an atmosphere conducive to wanting something to take me away from that atmosphere. So OUT of my purse came YOKOTA OFFICERS CLUB. Within moments, I was thousands of miles--and several decades--away from that hospital waiting room.

I should have realized when the book opened on a bumpy plane ride what kind of novel I was in for. There are enough dips and lifts and loop-de-loops in the story to keep any reader swiftly flipping the pages. We are immediately introduced to protagonist Bernie Root, eldest daughter of the nomadic and tightly-knit Root family. At eighteen, she’s just completed her first year of college--and her first year away from the closeness and protection of her family. She’s changed a lot during that year, thanks to that separation and the tumultuous society of the late 60s, but she’s surprised to discover, when she joins her family at her father’s most recent post--Okinawa--that her family has changed a lot, too.

We gradually learn that the events that sent her family into a downward spiral actually began when Bernie was a child and her family was stationed in Japan. Something happened there that involved the family’s much loved housekeeper Fumiko, whom they’ve all been forbidden to mention since. The story is a mix of Bernie’s trying to understand the changes that have overcome her family, and solve the mystery of what happened to Fumiko.

Not to say that the book is a mystery. It’s not. It’s a snapshot of a time and a way of life that no longer exist, when things were both simpler and more complicated than they are now. Although labeled a novel, thanks to the book’s dedication and an interview with the author afterward, it’s clear that A LOT of what Bird writes about is less from her imagination than from her memory.

What’s interesting is that the book begins in the present tense, and, as a reader, I normally find present tense pretty annoying to read. But I didn’t even notice it until the book slipped into past tense for the part of the story that begins twelve years earlier in Japan. And the music. Not surprisingly, I loved how the music of the time was woven in to the story, and how often I recognized references to 60s pop culture. (Some of Bernie’s siblings were my age at the time the story takes place.) It was like taking a trip back in time.

Bernie is an engaging, wry, funny, sometimes even snarky narrator, but she has a poet-like eye for the details of the scenes that unfold around her. Both the Okinawa and Yokota Air Bases are recreated so vividly, I can smell the carnival hot dogs and the burning jet fuel. She captures the family dynamics of that time beautifully. And she describes frankly and with both humor and pathos the plight of the prostitutes whose livelihoods depend on the military and whose presence in that society, and this story, is inescapable. But don’t let that scare you away. Overall the book is uplifting, funny, sweet and poignant. I absolutely loved it.

Oh, and don’t worry. I picked up another book for my mom in the hospital gift shop.

So has anyone else read THE YOKOTA OFFICERS CLUB? Who’s a military brat here? (Besides Terri, I mean?) What kind of memories of military life do you remember fondly? (And be sure to check back tonight, when we post the winner of the Valentine’s Day romantic advice contest!)

I love mysteries.  I grew up with my mother’s passion for Dorothy Sayers turning into my own passion for P.D. James.  To this day, I love discovering a good new writer.  Obviously, mysteries are like romances: they’re both genre fiction.  And I love genre fiction.  I find that an author’s ability to surprise me within the boundaries of a genre novel—when I know that love has to result, or death has to be solved—so much more interesting and challenging than an open-ended novel in which the author is free to wander wherever he or she wants. 

But the corollary to this is that it’s darn HARD to write a really good genre novel!  We all know that.  It’s as hard to write a perfect example of a Harlequin Presents as it is to write a single title romance like one of Lisa’s.  It’s not a question of size, or publisher, or anything like that—it’s a question of a voice so strong that we’re lured into the story, forgetting that we’ll know how it ends, seduced by the details, by the flow of plot, by our own surprising joy in the story.

Done with the soap box—on to the discovery!  I read a rave in Publishers Weekly about a relatively new series of misfit detectives living in London during World War II.  These two young policemen, John May and Arthur Bryant, run the London Police Department’s Peculiar Crimes Unit.  Peculiar Crimes!  I could have ordered it just on the idea alone.  This book is written by Christopher Fowler, who apparently had a career in horror before moving to crime, but I’m happy to announce that he uses his gothic touches to add atmosphere and not for prolonged gruesome scenes.  Mr. Fowler has an incredible, idiosyncratic, wonderful voice.  I felt transplanted back to a theatrical performance during the Blitz, in a whirlwind of theatrical egos, weird murders, great dialogue and even better description.  Here’s a snippet of dialogue:

“He’s ruining my entrance.  I said to him, ‘Darling, I wouldn’t let any man step across my entrance, let along an old cow like you,’ and he said, ‘I can’t see how you would know, dear, you’ve never been with a man in your life’...He said, ‘I’ve played the Duke of York’s, Her Majesty’s, the Queen’s,’ and I said, ‘The Queen’s is an ice rink, dear, no wonder you’re so frigid.”

The second book (Seventy-Seven Clocks) is even better.  I’m gobbling up the third one now and loving it!

I guess what I have to say is, if you love history and you love mysteries (and the first isn’t necessary), I’ve found a wonderful new Valentine’s Present for you!  What about you?  Anyone discovered a great new voice in genre fiction lately, a Valentine’s Present for all of us?  Tell us who it is!

I hate when this happens.  It’s only February 3rd and I’ve already read the best book of the year.  Okay, maybe that’s not fair because it’s so early in the year but I can promise you that Susan Elizabeth Phillip’s NATURAL BORN CHARMER will top a lot of “Best of...” lists for 2007. 

Writers are a notoriously jaded and nit-picky lot so it’s rare that we’ll admit that we adore every word that comes out of an author’s mouth.  But for me, Susan Elizabeth Phillips (or SEP as she’s known to her legion of equally adoring readers) has always been that author.  I first fell in love with her work when I read FANCY PANTS, a book where she performed the impossible feat of making golf (and golfer Dallie Beaudine) incredibly sexy.  Her fabulous earlier books like HOT SHOT and HONEY MOON had equal elements of romance and women’s fiction.  In 1994 she launched her wildly popular “Chicago Stars” series with the perennial romance classic IT HAD TO BE YOU.  Since then those Chicago Stars coaches, players, and agents (Heath Champion anyone?) have been scoring regularly, both with Susan’s heroines and her readers. 

It’s only fitting that Super Bowl weekend would bring us the latest installment in the series--NATURAL BORN CHARMER.  I don’t want to ruin a single delightful surprise from this book but it does boast one of the cutest “meets” I’ve ever seen in a romance when Dean Robillard slams on the brakes of his Aston-Martin after he spots Blue Bailey stomping down the road in a giant beaver costume.  I never could resist a smart man with a smart mouth and their resulting banter reminded me of a Katherine Hepburn/Cary Grant flick.  The tone of their relationship is set when she tells him, “You look like an ad for gay porn” and he tells her, “You look like a national disaster.”

Some of you may remember Dean as Annabelle’s “buddy” from MATCH ME IF YOU CAN.  As a hero, he’s a delicious study in contradictions:  a drop-dead gorgeous man who never looks at himself in the mirror; a smart man known more for his brawn than his brains; a generous man afraid to give away even a tiny portion of his heart.  He’s flawed and funny and oh...did I mention drop-dead gorgeous? 

It’s rare that you fall equally in love with the heroine of a romance but Blue Bailey is about as likeable and irresistible as they come.  Her untidy ponytail, snappy comebacks, and scuffed-up biker boots hide a keen wit and a tender heart.  When Dean asks her, “Who says you’re not pretty?” she replies with, “Oh, it doesn’t bother me.  I have so much character that adding beauty to the mix would be greedy.” And when his mother points out, “You’re not his usual type of girlfriend,” Blue zings right back with, “Once again, my three-digit IQ separates me from the pack.”

A common theme of every Susan Elizabeth Phillips book (and perhaps one of the most primal themes of the romance genre itself) is the creation of a family where there was none before.  Susan explores this theme beautifully in CHARMER as both Dean and Blue are forced to confront and lay to rest the ghosts of their childhoods.  These subplots and secondary characters enhance the romance that’s at the heart of the book instead of detracting from it.  Perhaps her greatest strength as a writer is her ability to create empathy for EVERY character in the novel.  She can write an insecure, overweight 11-year-old girl as well as she writes an embittered old woman hiding a heart of gold or a hunky football player.  She unearths a universal truth in this scene:  “As Dean gazed around the table, he saw a travesty of the American family.  It was like Norman Rockwell on crack.” Well, when it comes right down to it, aren’t ALL of our families like Norman Rockwell on crack?  It’s the fact that we love them in spite of it that makes us noble creatures worthy of a happy ending. 

As a writer, I’m in awe of descriptions like, “With her big blond wig, diamond chandelier earrings, and free floating pastel caftan, she looked like a parade float sponsored by a senior citizens’ bordello.” Susan writes smart books for smart readers and I laughed out loud several times during the book, even catching a few obscure cultural references like Blue calling Dean “Deanna” when he comes up to her and says, “You look pissed.” (That would be empath Deanna Troi for all of you non-Trekkers out there.)

You’ll have to forgive me if this blog sounds more like a valentine than a review but once again, SEP has created a cast of unforgettable characters who will live on in my heart forever.  To me, that’s the happiest ending of all. 

NATURAL BORN CHARMER won’t officially hit the bookstores until Tuesday so until then, why don’t we discuss our favorite Susan Elizabeth Phillips books? 

And make sure and join us on February 20th and 21st when Susan will be paying a very special visit to Squawk Radio!  Until then, you can visit her over at http://www.susanelizabethphillips.com

Do you want to talk like a pirate? Sail the seas and loot rich sailing ships? Wear stolen jewels, spit and fart, and apply mascara with Johnny Depp?

Hey, who doesn’t? That’s why all of us potential pirates need a book called PIRATTITUDE — So You Want to be a Pirate? Here’s How! by John “Ol’ Chumbucket” Baur and Mark “Cap’n Slappy” Summers. Even before Disney made the movie PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, these guys had a real sense of how cool pirates are. They christened September 19 Talk Like A Pirate Day, “an original concept created in a moment of temporary insanity.”

But this book is more than a moment of insanity. If you read it cover to cover, the insanity lasts more like a couple of hours.

What is pirattitude? Cap’n Slappy and Ol’ Chumbucket define it as “the swagger in your walk, the growl in your voice, the wicked gleam in your eye … You’re harming no one, but no one is going to harm you, either.” Things that have pirattitude are beer, pizza, duct tape, and Godfather I and II. Things that have no pirattitude are drinks with umbrellas, veggie pizzas with wheat crust, artichokes and goat cheese, hot glue guns, and Godfather III. See? Pirattitude is easy to recognize.

Want to know how to talk like a pirate? Cap’n Slappy and Ol’ Chumbucket have helpful quizzes:
Which phrase best fits the description of being the opposite of “Avast thar, ye scurvy dogs!”
a) Keep going, gentlemen, don’t stop for little ol’ me!
b) Wait, I have good news for you about our Heavenly Father!
c) Stop that! I am not a cuddler!
d) Run for your lives! We’re being attacked by children with daisies!

Want to know how to insult like a pirate? Cap’n Slappy and Ol’ Chumbucket have lists, one of modifiers and the other of nouns. So you pick one or two from the modifier list, stick them with a noun, and you can call your boss a barnacle-bottomed, kelp-festooned bilge monkey. (Note: For continued employment, Squinty Chains Stormwatcher does not recommend this.)

Cap’n Slappy and Ol’ Chumbucket help you translate terms for the doctor’s office:
-Nurse=Me angel of mercy
-Turn your head and cough=Surrender or die!
-Proctological exam=Visit the poop deck

And give suggested Pirate Sermons:
-Walking on Water — and Other Things to Do When You’re Drunk
-Thar Be Too Much Goddam Blasphemin’ Goin’ On!
-Hell and Other Places That Seem Nice When Compared to Service in the British Navy

Want to dress like a pirate? Cap’n Slappy and Ol’ Chumbucket have tips:
If you have a pierced ear, a big thick gold hoop is very helpful. But not too big. This isn’t Talk Like Liberace Day.

Want to know what your pirate name is? Cap’n Slappy and Ol’ Chumbucket have a chart, and I’ve been amazed by how well the names fit the personality. For instance, Lisa Kleypas is Slippery Spyglass Slappy. Anyone who knows Lisa’s deeply hidden personality knows this is perfect!

Once you know your pirate name and how to talk, walk, dress, and behave like a pirate, Cap’n Slappy and Ol’ Chumbucket have an application for employment on their ship, The Festering Boil. One question shows that they have a true understanding of what’s important on a pirate vessel:
#8 - Are you a woman disguised as a man to stow away on a pirate ship for adventure? Yes/No
Please note: A “Yes” answer does not necessarily eliminate you from consideration. It simply allows Cap’n Slappy to get cleaned up for your interview.

Ahhhh, romance!

My family found PIRATTITUDE at the bookstore, promptly bought five copies (gifts!), and all the way home, my daughter Arwen (or ARRRRwen as we now call her) read us excerpts. We laughed loud enough to make drivers in other cars swerve away. Sadly, the only thing this book lacks, and it is a grievous lack, is a picture of Johnny Depp. But please note, I have searched far and wide and reviewed every picture to bring you just the right photo of our man Cap’n Jack Sparrow. For some reason, I chose pictures with long swords and telescopes and mizzenmasts and flames … I’m sure there’s no symbolism there.

So, me squawkin’ maties, now ‘tis time to see if ye’ve larned the proper PIRATTITUDE. This is a test!

Cap’n Slappy and Ol’ Chumbucket list the top ten pick-up lines for male pirates (Prepare to be boarded!), female pirates (Come shows me how ye bury yer treasure, me lad!), and gay and lesbian pirates (Wanna take a trip to the Isle of Streisand?)

Make up a proper pirate name, identify yerself, and harpoon us with yer witty pirate pick-up lines!

Note #1: me own ball-and-chain has suggested, “Avast, bawdy wench! Wanna walk my plank?” accompanied by a leer and wink.
Note #2: It’s getting him nowhere.
Note #3: All right, me hearties, if we swill enough grog and plunder enough doubloons, Cap’n Slappy and Ol’ Chumbucket might stump over an’ encourage us by snarling at us in Pirate Speak. That is, of course, if they can figure out how to sign in, technology not bein’ good PIRATTITUDE.

It’s winter in Minnesota and I am keenly missing my bragging rights to living in the nastiest, coldest place in the lower forty-eight. Embarrass, Minnesota is frankly an embarrassment and today, for the love of all that’s holy, it rained. So, in order to put me into the proper winter mood, I cracked open the second scariest book I’ve ever read… Peter Straub’s GHOST STORY.

“What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”
“I won’t tell you that, but I’ll tell you the worst thing that ever happened to me...the most dreadful thing...”

So begins GHOST STORY, set in a small, snowed-in town in upstate New York. GHOST STORY is permeated by foreboding, uneasy glimpses of the supernatural, secret knowledge of hidden vices, and the inexplicable sense that one can never out-live the sins of one’s youth.

Four old men huddle together as a storm isolates them from the rest of the world. With the storm comes a specter of their collective pasts, a gorgeous, fascinating woman named Eva in whose accidental death fifty years before, Ricky Hawthorne, Sears James, Edward Wanderly, Lewis Benedikt and John Jaffrey all had a hand. They all hand, too, in conspiring to cover up her death by pushing her and her car into a nearby lake. But as it sank her face appeared in the rear window, leaving the then young men to realize that they haven’t covered up an accidental death, they’d murdered a woman.

Fifty years later, these men are haunted by the visitation of another gorgeous and evil entity and send for Ed’s nephew, Don , a writer whose claim to fame is a horror story they soon discover is based on Don’s own experience with the dead woman. Together, cut off from the world, they try to exorcise the demons hunting them from both within and without.

GHOST STORY is simply a classic of the genre. Every page unfolds with creepy urgency, a terrifying feeling of inevitability that sweeps the reader along to the very last page.

And it really makes you feel the cold, too.

I happen to be the sort of person who loves armchair travelling.  I’ve read pretty much all those books about Provence, and then the tidal wave of books about Tuscany that followed.  I’m still a sucker for books with Paris in the title (anyone else read A Year in the Merde?).  But let’s face it:  most of them aren’t that good.

As someone who actually lives in Tuscany for two months of the year (since Florence is in Tuscany), I can tell you flat out that most of the stories in those cute books about English or Americans living in Tuscany are crap.  Either that, or the adorable shop people described in the books were spitting on the floor after the infidels left their store.  Take it from me (who’s married to one):  Florentines, and by extension, Tuscans, are not open to deep friendship with foreigners.

Oops...off topic.  My point is that I particularly love travel books that don’t indulge in gross sentimentalization of the “natives,” whoever those natives happen to be.  Sex Lives of the Cannibals is an acerbic, ruthlessly truthful (you can tell) memoir about a couple who went to spend two years in a remote South Pacific Island in the Republic of Kiribati.  Island paradise, right? 

Ha!  If you have any desire to travel to far-away places without actually getting there, buy this book.  It’s one of the funniest, most bizarre and—need I say it again?—TRUTHFUL books of this genre I’ve ever read.

THE BEST CHRISTMAS PAGEANT EVER by Barbara Robinson begins, “The Herdmans were absolutely the worst kids in the history of the world. They lied and stole and smoked cigars (even the girls) and talked dirty and hit little kids and cussed their teachers and took the name of the Lord in vain and set fire to Fred Shoemaker’s old broken-down toolhouse.”

It’s the story of a Christmas pageant, the kind that goes on in every church every Christmas every year, and that’s the charm of it. Because when the Herdmans (all six of them) get involved in the Christmas pageant, the story that I’ve heard every year of my life takes on new meaning. That’s because the Herdmans have never heard the Christmas story before, and so when they hear it, the words aren’t just words, they mean something.

Like when Imogene, who through threats and extortion, manages to snag the role of Mary, and she hears Jesus was born in a barn, wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manager, says, “You mean they tied him up and put him in a feedbox? Where was the Child Welfare?” When she hears the Wise Men brought the baby Jesus precious oils and fragrant resins (frankincense and myrrh), hollers, “What kind of cheap king hands out oil for a present?” The Herdmans ask who’s going to play Herod, and when they hear he isn’t in the pageant, they’re mad because they wanted to beat him up for trying to kill the baby Jesus. And in fact, they go to the library to find out what happened to Herod, and later the librarian says, “I might as well retire. When Imogene Herdman came in and said she wanted to read about Jesus, I knew I’d heard everything there was to hear.”

The dress rehearsal was awful, with Imogene saying Mary should have got to name her own baby, and when she hears that the angel said, “His name shall be called, Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace,” Imogene says, “My God! He’d never get out of first grade if he had to write all that!”

The mother who is putting on the Christmas pageant says, “It’s going to be the best Christmas pageant we’ve ever had!” and her daughter thinks it’s like General Custer saying, “Bring on the Indians!”

The thing is, it is the best Christmas pageant ever. Imogene looks like Mary must have, ragged, tired, scared and out of place. She burps Jesus, because, “That’s the whole point of Jesus — that he didn’t come down on a cloud like something out of “Amazing Comics,’ but that he was born and lived … a real person.” The Herdmans who play the Wise Men bring the family’s Christmas ham from their food basket as a gift for the baby Jesus. The Herdman who plays the Angel of the Lord, yells, “Hey! Unto you a child is born!”

THE BEST CHRISTMAS PAGEANT EVER is one of those books I love to read this time of year. It makes me laugh, it makes me cry, and it makes me remember what Christmas is all about.

Do you have a favorite holiday book? Not just Christmas, but whatever holiday you celebrate? The kind of book that tells the story of the holiday, makes you laugh, makes you cry, make you a little kinder and a little more hopeful? Tell us about it.