Since it's National Poetry Month, I thought it would be nice to post Poems of the Week that ranked among my favorites. While looking for James Wright's incredible "Saint Judas," I came across this poem instead. How could I not be intrigued by that title? This poem is a lot of fun to read, humorous and sad at the same time. Enjoy!
In Response to a Rumor That the Oldest Whorehouse in Wheeling, West Virginia Had Been Condemned, by James Wright
P.S. I should mention that throughout the month of April, I'll be quoting my favorite lines of poetry at random on Twitter. Drop me an email if you want a link to my twitter page.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Friday, April 1, 2011
March 2011 in Review
Total Pages Read in March: 1,808
I read a little over 400 more pages in March than I read in February. I read a couple of romances, including one by a new favorite, Julie James. I also attempted to read and understand Faulkner, which had mixed results. I didn't enjoy Light in August very much, but it did help me realize that Faulkner deserves his reputation as one of the all-time great American writers. He's just not hitting the right buttons for me personally.
I read two nonfiction books at the end of the month. Sarah Vowell's new book, Unfamiliar Fishes, was okay but not as good as her previous work. Meanwhile, Homer Hickam's memoir, Rocket Boys, was much better than I had anticipated. As is so often the case, I judged the book before I read it and then was surprised to find I actually liked it.
April is shaping up to be a great reading month, one I'm really excited about. I'm starting off the month with Walker Percy's 1961 classic, The Moviegoer. Already, I like it a great deal. There is a sentence on the fourth page that makes me want to dance with delight. Look for me to quote it in my official review next week. Since April is National Poetry Month, I hope to read at least two books of poetry. Of course, there will be some trashy romances mixed in, as well as at least one horror or fantasy novel.
Most importantly, I have decided to take part in the NPR Monkey See blog's I Will If You Will Book Club. I'm excited about this one, because Linda Holmes and Glen Weldon picked Dream Country, a volume of Neil Gaiman's Sandman graphic novel series. I already have the book in hand, ready to go! I'll let you know how this pursuit goes. I think it'll be fun, and I encourage you to participate also.
I read a little over 400 more pages in March than I read in February. I read a couple of romances, including one by a new favorite, Julie James. I also attempted to read and understand Faulkner, which had mixed results. I didn't enjoy Light in August very much, but it did help me realize that Faulkner deserves his reputation as one of the all-time great American writers. He's just not hitting the right buttons for me personally.
I read two nonfiction books at the end of the month. Sarah Vowell's new book, Unfamiliar Fishes, was okay but not as good as her previous work. Meanwhile, Homer Hickam's memoir, Rocket Boys, was much better than I had anticipated. As is so often the case, I judged the book before I read it and then was surprised to find I actually liked it.
April is shaping up to be a great reading month, one I'm really excited about. I'm starting off the month with Walker Percy's 1961 classic, The Moviegoer. Already, I like it a great deal. There is a sentence on the fourth page that makes me want to dance with delight. Look for me to quote it in my official review next week. Since April is National Poetry Month, I hope to read at least two books of poetry. Of course, there will be some trashy romances mixed in, as well as at least one horror or fantasy novel.
Most importantly, I have decided to take part in the NPR Monkey See blog's I Will If You Will Book Club. I'm excited about this one, because Linda Holmes and Glen Weldon picked Dream Country, a volume of Neil Gaiman's Sandman graphic novel series. I already have the book in hand, ready to go! I'll let you know how this pursuit goes. I think it'll be fun, and I encourage you to participate also.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
When You Like a Book Better than You Thought You Would...
Book Reviewed: Rocket Boys, by Homer H. Hickam, Jr.
Every spring, our county library puts on a program called One Book, One Michiana. For a whole month, local libraries, schools, and businesses hold events and promotions centered on one chosen book. Last year it was To Kill a Mockingbird. This year it was Homer Hickam's memoir, Rocket Boys (also known as October Sky). Originally, I wasn't very happy with this choice. I'm not interested in overly-earnest memoirs, and I couldn't care less about rockets. But when my book club decided to read the book so we could take part in the One Book discussions, I figured I better join them (being the nominal leader and all). Turns out, this book is about a lot more than rockets. And the earnestness didn't even bother me.
In the late 1950s, Hickam was a teenager in Coalwood, West Virginia, a coal-mining company town. His dad was a foreman, loved and hated in equal measure by the other miners in town. After the Russians sent Sputnik into orbit, Hickam became obsessed with space. He gathered a group of friends with the goal of finding a way to emulate Hickam's hero, rocket scientist Wernher von Braun. They began to build rockets. At first, they blew up fences and failed more than they succeeded. But as they began to test different models and fuel types, they found success. Eventually, their experiments took them to the National Science Fair.
This story has a lot of other things going on, too. It's a coming of age story more than anything. There are the usual problems you might expect in a mining town - accidents, labor strikes, etc. There's Hickam's very strained relationship with his father, as well as the very tense situation between his parents. People around Hickam battle major illnesses and tragedies, and eventually, he realizes his town is dying around him. There's something here for everyone.
I liked this book much more than I thought I would. It probably won't make my Top Ten list at the end of the year, but I definitely enjoyed it while it lasted. Hickam gives you a real feel for the town and its inhabitants, and he makes you care about them. I love reading about small rural towns; this book could have just focused on that and I would have been happy. So you can imagine my surprise at discovering I actually liked reading about all the rocket stuff. It amazes me that people can be this clever, willing to work so hard to find the right fuel mixtures, the right mathematic equations. Reading this book, I couldn't help but marvel and envy the ingenuity of these kids. I sure don't have that kind of go-get-'em that they have.
So if you live in Michiana and want to participate in One Book, you can't go wrong with giving this one a shot.
Every spring, our county library puts on a program called One Book, One Michiana. For a whole month, local libraries, schools, and businesses hold events and promotions centered on one chosen book. Last year it was To Kill a Mockingbird. This year it was Homer Hickam's memoir, Rocket Boys (also known as October Sky). Originally, I wasn't very happy with this choice. I'm not interested in overly-earnest memoirs, and I couldn't care less about rockets. But when my book club decided to read the book so we could take part in the One Book discussions, I figured I better join them (being the nominal leader and all). Turns out, this book is about a lot more than rockets. And the earnestness didn't even bother me.
In the late 1950s, Hickam was a teenager in Coalwood, West Virginia, a coal-mining company town. His dad was a foreman, loved and hated in equal measure by the other miners in town. After the Russians sent Sputnik into orbit, Hickam became obsessed with space. He gathered a group of friends with the goal of finding a way to emulate Hickam's hero, rocket scientist Wernher von Braun. They began to build rockets. At first, they blew up fences and failed more than they succeeded. But as they began to test different models and fuel types, they found success. Eventually, their experiments took them to the National Science Fair.
This story has a lot of other things going on, too. It's a coming of age story more than anything. There are the usual problems you might expect in a mining town - accidents, labor strikes, etc. There's Hickam's very strained relationship with his father, as well as the very tense situation between his parents. People around Hickam battle major illnesses and tragedies, and eventually, he realizes his town is dying around him. There's something here for everyone.
I liked this book much more than I thought I would. It probably won't make my Top Ten list at the end of the year, but I definitely enjoyed it while it lasted. Hickam gives you a real feel for the town and its inhabitants, and he makes you care about them. I love reading about small rural towns; this book could have just focused on that and I would have been happy. So you can imagine my surprise at discovering I actually liked reading about all the rocket stuff. It amazes me that people can be this clever, willing to work so hard to find the right fuel mixtures, the right mathematic equations. Reading this book, I couldn't help but marvel and envy the ingenuity of these kids. I sure don't have that kind of go-get-'em that they have.
So if you live in Michiana and want to participate in One Book, you can't go wrong with giving this one a shot.
Monday, March 28, 2011
A New Sarah Vowell Book Is an Event...For Me, Anyway
Book Reviewed: Unfamiliar Fishes, by Sarah Vowell
Sarah Vowell is one of the only writers I actively follow, meaning I jump on every new book by her the day it comes out. Last Tuesday, when Unfamiliar Fishes was officially released, I occupied the very first hold position at my library. I waited two months after placing that hold, so as soon as the book came in on Tuesday, I pushed aside everything else I was reading. I finished it in two days. Such is the power of the Vowell.
Since I first read Asssassination Vacation as a teenager, then went back to read her books of essays, I've been obsessed with her funny, intelligent writing style. She takes history subjects I think I have no interest in - Puritans, President Garfield - and makes me care about them. I still think Assassination Vacation, about the first three presidential assassinations in America, is her best book. Every page presents some new, bizarre fact that grabs me. I was a little disappointed that her last book, The Wordy Shipmates, didn't interest me in quite the same way. Same goes with her new book, Unfamiliar Fishes.
Unfamiliar Fishes is a look at the history of Hawaii and its relationship to the United States. Missionaries arrived in Hawaii in the early 19th-century with the hope of converting its inhabitants to Christianity. They were mostly successful in this goal, but the changes they wrought had some unsavory impacts on the island nation. In an interview Vowell did with the AV Club, she mentions that she saw Fishes as a kind of sequel to The Wordy Shipmates. After all, these missionaries are descendants of those original Puritans who wanted to carve out a new world and ended up pushing out the natives. Vowell clearly comes to her research with an agenda, but because these books are simply little looks into important and strange events, this hardly matters. What matters is how interestingly she presents the information. Frankly, I found Unfamiliar Fishes to lack a little in the interest department. I did not have the same kind of emotional or intellectual fascination with this book that I had with Assassination Vacation.
That being said, a so-so Sarah Vowell book is still better than most things out there. I had absolutely no knowledge of Hawaiian history before starting this book, but I felt pretty well-versed in the island's last 200 years by the time I finished. It's a fascinating subject. And reading about Hawaii during a yucky late-March cold snap definitely had its perks. It wasn't my favorite Vowell book in the world, but it was still a pretty great way to spend two days.
Note: Sarah Vowell is one of the few writers I recommend without limit. She certainly won't be for everyone, but when I pass her essays or books on to family members and friends, they usually find at least something to like there. If you are a Vowell newbie, I suggest starting with her excellent essay collection, Take the Cannoli, which is nerdy and hilarious. I also think Assassination Vacation is a good place to start. That book is all kinds of awesome and informative. She's also one of the only writers whose audio books I can stand. She reads her own work, and she does a fantastic job. If you put on one of her audio books while cleaning the house or doing your hair, you are bound to have more fun than originally planned.
Sarah Vowell is one of the only writers I actively follow, meaning I jump on every new book by her the day it comes out. Last Tuesday, when Unfamiliar Fishes was officially released, I occupied the very first hold position at my library. I waited two months after placing that hold, so as soon as the book came in on Tuesday, I pushed aside everything else I was reading. I finished it in two days. Such is the power of the Vowell.
Since I first read Asssassination Vacation as a teenager, then went back to read her books of essays, I've been obsessed with her funny, intelligent writing style. She takes history subjects I think I have no interest in - Puritans, President Garfield - and makes me care about them. I still think Assassination Vacation, about the first three presidential assassinations in America, is her best book. Every page presents some new, bizarre fact that grabs me. I was a little disappointed that her last book, The Wordy Shipmates, didn't interest me in quite the same way. Same goes with her new book, Unfamiliar Fishes.
Unfamiliar Fishes is a look at the history of Hawaii and its relationship to the United States. Missionaries arrived in Hawaii in the early 19th-century with the hope of converting its inhabitants to Christianity. They were mostly successful in this goal, but the changes they wrought had some unsavory impacts on the island nation. In an interview Vowell did with the AV Club, she mentions that she saw Fishes as a kind of sequel to The Wordy Shipmates. After all, these missionaries are descendants of those original Puritans who wanted to carve out a new world and ended up pushing out the natives. Vowell clearly comes to her research with an agenda, but because these books are simply little looks into important and strange events, this hardly matters. What matters is how interestingly she presents the information. Frankly, I found Unfamiliar Fishes to lack a little in the interest department. I did not have the same kind of emotional or intellectual fascination with this book that I had with Assassination Vacation.
That being said, a so-so Sarah Vowell book is still better than most things out there. I had absolutely no knowledge of Hawaiian history before starting this book, but I felt pretty well-versed in the island's last 200 years by the time I finished. It's a fascinating subject. And reading about Hawaii during a yucky late-March cold snap definitely had its perks. It wasn't my favorite Vowell book in the world, but it was still a pretty great way to spend two days.
Note: Sarah Vowell is one of the few writers I recommend without limit. She certainly won't be for everyone, but when I pass her essays or books on to family members and friends, they usually find at least something to like there. If you are a Vowell newbie, I suggest starting with her excellent essay collection, Take the Cannoli, which is nerdy and hilarious. I also think Assassination Vacation is a good place to start. That book is all kinds of awesome and informative. She's also one of the only writers whose audio books I can stand. She reads her own work, and she does a fantastic job. If you put on one of her audio books while cleaning the house or doing your hair, you are bound to have more fun than originally planned.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Poem of the Week: "Chester," by John Koethe
I found this poem while lazily searching through the Poetry Foundation archive. I like it because it 1) features a cat, 2) says something I've often felt myself, and 3) has a really awesome quote from the top. Also, the poem's title is a family nickname for our super-adorable, very funny cat, Winchester. Enjoy! Chester, by John Koethe
Saturday, March 26, 2011
This Week in Trashy Reads 2011 #4
Trashy Read 2011 #4: The Lost Duke of Wyndham, by Julia Quinn
I'm not sure why I love Regency romances so much. I don't have any particular fondness for that point in history, nor do I care much for the ideas of dukes and inheritance and whatnot. In fact, I get down right tired of wealthy heroes with property and servants, in both historicals and contemporaries. So why do I love historical romances by people like Lisa Kleypas and Loretta Chase so much?
It's all due to the inherent escapism the genre provides. Not only am I entering a romance, which is as escapist as genre fiction gets, I'm going far enough back into time that I can suspend all belief of the story's happenings. I don't have the time-period-accuracy hang-ups to keep me from just enjoying the book. Sometimes, someone will say something that makes me roll my eyes and say, "Not back then, silly." But overall, I am willing to completely do away with believability just to have a good story. I want the characters to be well-established, for their motivations and actions to be believable. But when I'm reading this kind of book, that's all I'm in it for - characters and fun. You'll never see me reading super-serious romance (okay, Laura Kinsale excepted) because I'm into it purely for the escapism.
That's why I can read a book like Julia Quinn's The Lost Duke of Wyndham and not throw the book across the room. I don't have to believe in all the silly plot points. I just have to believe in these characters. And I do, even though I don't find them nearly as enjoyable as, say, Daphne and Simon from Quinn's own The Duke and I. I like that Grace comes from a respectable but fairly-low background, and I like Jack's charm well enough. They made a good couple, and I really felt for their predicament. They just didn't win me over as much as I would've liked.
That being said, this is a pretty good book, especially at its basic roots. Jack Aubrey gets recognized by the dowager Duchess of Wyndham as the possible son of her own dead, favorite child. Jack is dragged kicking and screaming into a world of nobility with which he wants nothing to do. The only thing he enjoys about this ordeal is the friendship of Grace, the dowager's companion. The group ends up having to travel to Ireland, the place of Jack's birth, in order to find out if his birth was legitimate. In the meantime, Grace and Jack have fallen in love and feel great pain at the realization that if Jack ends up being the lost duke, he can never be with Grace, as she is not much better than a servant. I was surprised by how much I actually cared about this plot wrench. After all, it's completely true. Of course, everyone gets what they want in the end, and all is well. But I did feel enough anguish on the behalf of Grace and Jack that it made the ending worth it.
Overall, it was a breezy if not terribly fulfilling read. Apparently, there is a second book that takes place at the same time from the point of view of Thomas Cavendish, the man who held the title of Duke of Wyndham before his missing cousin ruined everything. Thomas starts off as being kind of annoying, but he really grew on me by the end, as did his eventual love interest, Amelia. I doubt I'll read this second book (it's gotten some terrible reviews), but I will continue to dive into Julia Quinn's backlist. She knows how to entertain me.
Note: This is the third trashy read (out of four total) I've read this year featuring a hero with some kind of learning problem. And it's the second case of dyslexia. In this book, the hero's dyslexia kind of came out of nowhere in the last quarter of the book, which had me rolling me eyes. But when done right, this is an incredibly effective plot device, as it's a very real problem with which real people struggle. That being said, how often can it be used before it gets to be a cliche in the genre? It's like hero daddy issues, but not as hilariously over the top.
Next in Trashy Reads: Who knows? Erin McCarthy has a new racing book, The Chase, coming out next month. It's safe to assume that I'll be reading that sometime in April or May.
I'm not sure why I love Regency romances so much. I don't have any particular fondness for that point in history, nor do I care much for the ideas of dukes and inheritance and whatnot. In fact, I get down right tired of wealthy heroes with property and servants, in both historicals and contemporaries. So why do I love historical romances by people like Lisa Kleypas and Loretta Chase so much?
It's all due to the inherent escapism the genre provides. Not only am I entering a romance, which is as escapist as genre fiction gets, I'm going far enough back into time that I can suspend all belief of the story's happenings. I don't have the time-period-accuracy hang-ups to keep me from just enjoying the book. Sometimes, someone will say something that makes me roll my eyes and say, "Not back then, silly." But overall, I am willing to completely do away with believability just to have a good story. I want the characters to be well-established, for their motivations and actions to be believable. But when I'm reading this kind of book, that's all I'm in it for - characters and fun. You'll never see me reading super-serious romance (okay, Laura Kinsale excepted) because I'm into it purely for the escapism.
That's why I can read a book like Julia Quinn's The Lost Duke of Wyndham and not throw the book across the room. I don't have to believe in all the silly plot points. I just have to believe in these characters. And I do, even though I don't find them nearly as enjoyable as, say, Daphne and Simon from Quinn's own The Duke and I. I like that Grace comes from a respectable but fairly-low background, and I like Jack's charm well enough. They made a good couple, and I really felt for their predicament. They just didn't win me over as much as I would've liked.
That being said, this is a pretty good book, especially at its basic roots. Jack Aubrey gets recognized by the dowager Duchess of Wyndham as the possible son of her own dead, favorite child. Jack is dragged kicking and screaming into a world of nobility with which he wants nothing to do. The only thing he enjoys about this ordeal is the friendship of Grace, the dowager's companion. The group ends up having to travel to Ireland, the place of Jack's birth, in order to find out if his birth was legitimate. In the meantime, Grace and Jack have fallen in love and feel great pain at the realization that if Jack ends up being the lost duke, he can never be with Grace, as she is not much better than a servant. I was surprised by how much I actually cared about this plot wrench. After all, it's completely true. Of course, everyone gets what they want in the end, and all is well. But I did feel enough anguish on the behalf of Grace and Jack that it made the ending worth it.
Overall, it was a breezy if not terribly fulfilling read. Apparently, there is a second book that takes place at the same time from the point of view of Thomas Cavendish, the man who held the title of Duke of Wyndham before his missing cousin ruined everything. Thomas starts off as being kind of annoying, but he really grew on me by the end, as did his eventual love interest, Amelia. I doubt I'll read this second book (it's gotten some terrible reviews), but I will continue to dive into Julia Quinn's backlist. She knows how to entertain me.
Note: This is the third trashy read (out of four total) I've read this year featuring a hero with some kind of learning problem. And it's the second case of dyslexia. In this book, the hero's dyslexia kind of came out of nowhere in the last quarter of the book, which had me rolling me eyes. But when done right, this is an incredibly effective plot device, as it's a very real problem with which real people struggle. That being said, how often can it be used before it gets to be a cliche in the genre? It's like hero daddy issues, but not as hilariously over the top.
Next in Trashy Reads: Who knows? Erin McCarthy has a new racing book, The Chase, coming out next month. It's safe to assume that I'll be reading that sometime in April or May.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Books and TV
Story Reviewed: "Fire in the Hole," by Elmore Leonard (from the collection When the Women Come Out to Dance)
I love TV. As someone who tries so hard to be intellectual and bookish, it's embarrassing just how much I love the medium of television. Now, I agree with the rest of the world that 97% of what's on on any given day is total crap. But I also think that too many people dismiss the entire medium without taking into account all the great programming out there. There's nothing quite like Mad Men (my favorite show) out there in books or movies, art or music. It exists in a kind of isolated awesomeness. Same goes with cancelled shows you can now only enjoy online or on DVD, like Freaks and Geeks, or the often beautiful and emotionally-satisfying Friday Night Lights (which will air its last season on NBC starting next month). TV is capable of providing very solid entertainment; and as someone who loves lingering, complicated narratives, the long-form series on TV satisfy me in a way that movies do not. I am way more attached to my favorite TV shows than I am to my favorite movies.
Not surprisingly, I am also way more attached to my favorite books than my favorite TV shows. But sometimes, these two mediums connect in interesting ways. I have been following the bloody FX show Justified since it's very beginning last spring. I always knew that the series was based on some Elmore Leonard books and stories and that the pilot had basically been lifted wholesale from Leonard's short story, "Fire in the Hole." However, it wasn't until the AV Club did this feature on Elmore Leonard (a mystery writer that even my lit profs followed religiously) that I finally decided to read this story.
It was totally worth it. I love the pilot episode of Justified, and reading this story brought into focus all the reasons why. There's the sheer badassery of the main character Raylan Givens, a U.S. Marshall who's a little too good with a gun. There's the setting of the backwoods Kentucky crime scene. Best of all, there's all sorts of underlying tensions beneath the surface of Raylan's relationship with Boyd Crowder, the story's villain. Boyd runs a neo-Nazi group, and he's super-self-righteous. The marshalls want him for murder and a handful of other crimes. Raylan and Boyd have known each other since high school, back when they used to dig coal together at the mines.
In the meantime, there's the murder of Boyd's brother by the brother's wife, Ada, a strange kind of accidental, rural femme fatale. When all these plot strings tie together at a final scene at Ada's house, you feel like the story was two or three times longer than it actually is. Leonard never directly points to the actual relationship between Raylan and Boyd. It all comes out through dialogue and action. The story's final line, a piece of dialogue spoken by Raylan to his boss, packs a great punch.
I really enjoyed reading this story, just as much as I enjoy the TV show. Whole chunks of dialogue and backstory are taken from this story to the pilot verbatim. But the ending has a different outcome, and there's more gaps you have to fill in yourself as the audience. Overall, I have to recommend "Fire in the Hole" and Justified equally. They are both exciting, simmering tales about where one comes from and how people can take divergent paths and still end up in the same place. I am definitely going to have to check out more Elmore Leonard in the future.
I love TV. As someone who tries so hard to be intellectual and bookish, it's embarrassing just how much I love the medium of television. Now, I agree with the rest of the world that 97% of what's on on any given day is total crap. But I also think that too many people dismiss the entire medium without taking into account all the great programming out there. There's nothing quite like Mad Men (my favorite show) out there in books or movies, art or music. It exists in a kind of isolated awesomeness. Same goes with cancelled shows you can now only enjoy online or on DVD, like Freaks and Geeks, or the often beautiful and emotionally-satisfying Friday Night Lights (which will air its last season on NBC starting next month). TV is capable of providing very solid entertainment; and as someone who loves lingering, complicated narratives, the long-form series on TV satisfy me in a way that movies do not. I am way more attached to my favorite TV shows than I am to my favorite movies.
Not surprisingly, I am also way more attached to my favorite books than my favorite TV shows. But sometimes, these two mediums connect in interesting ways. I have been following the bloody FX show Justified since it's very beginning last spring. I always knew that the series was based on some Elmore Leonard books and stories and that the pilot had basically been lifted wholesale from Leonard's short story, "Fire in the Hole." However, it wasn't until the AV Club did this feature on Elmore Leonard (a mystery writer that even my lit profs followed religiously) that I finally decided to read this story.
It was totally worth it. I love the pilot episode of Justified, and reading this story brought into focus all the reasons why. There's the sheer badassery of the main character Raylan Givens, a U.S. Marshall who's a little too good with a gun. There's the setting of the backwoods Kentucky crime scene. Best of all, there's all sorts of underlying tensions beneath the surface of Raylan's relationship with Boyd Crowder, the story's villain. Boyd runs a neo-Nazi group, and he's super-self-righteous. The marshalls want him for murder and a handful of other crimes. Raylan and Boyd have known each other since high school, back when they used to dig coal together at the mines.
In the meantime, there's the murder of Boyd's brother by the brother's wife, Ada, a strange kind of accidental, rural femme fatale. When all these plot strings tie together at a final scene at Ada's house, you feel like the story was two or three times longer than it actually is. Leonard never directly points to the actual relationship between Raylan and Boyd. It all comes out through dialogue and action. The story's final line, a piece of dialogue spoken by Raylan to his boss, packs a great punch.
I really enjoyed reading this story, just as much as I enjoy the TV show. Whole chunks of dialogue and backstory are taken from this story to the pilot verbatim. But the ending has a different outcome, and there's more gaps you have to fill in yourself as the audience. Overall, I have to recommend "Fire in the Hole" and Justified equally. They are both exciting, simmering tales about where one comes from and how people can take divergent paths and still end up in the same place. I am definitely going to have to check out more Elmore Leonard in the future.
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