REVIEWS

Fiction “I have 30 books planned, after my second book was Darwen Arkwright and the since there are 30 Major published. When I finished Peregrine Pact my presentation to 200 kids, a A. J. Hartley (GRS’92,’96) League Baseball teams.” boy raised his hand and asked, Penguin Group “So, how many books have you !"#$%&' %( )( it seems in ing for children made you a better writer? published?” I explained that although A. J. Hartley’s book for young Surprisingly easy. I strive to make both only two had been published, several adult readers. Mirrors reveal types of writing clear and concise, more were in the works. I thought more than reflections. Teachers although it is nice to be able to use I had done a great job answering can’t be trusted. And the new bigger words and longer sentences in his question, but I knew he wasn’t kid at school is more unique my technology writing. Writing for kids impressed when he said, “So…you’re than his name. has made me a better writer, because really not that famous at all, are you?” Darwen Arkwright is a seem- I’ve learned to focus on simple, direct ingly normal 11-year-old boy. At ways of saying things. That’s important These stories would work nicely as ani- least, he would be in his home- in any kind of writing. mated or live-action television shows— town of Lancashire, England. any possibility of that? But living with his aunt, Honoria How often do you get to Fenway Park? I’d love to see my main characters, Vanderstay, in his new home in Not as often as I’d like—a few times Mike and Kate, on TV, visiting , he couldn’t be any more a year. I’m usually too busy working ballparks and solving mysteries. My out of the ordinary. His accent, on baseball books at home. Plus, I agent is investigating it, but nothing yellow-gold eyes, and love of spend a lot of time watching my sons has clicked yet. cricket and soccer give his new play baseball on their high school and classmates at Hillside Academy neighborhood teams. I’ve read that you were inspired by reason to bully him. the Hardy Boys books of your youth. Early on it becomes clear Are your fans both boys and girls? Does What other books and writers have that there’s another reason for the appeal go beyond baseball fans? inspired you? Darwen’s uniqueness. While The Ballpark Mysteries audience One of them was Harriet the Spy. I waiting for his aunt to finish is really both boys and girls. When loved the idea of spying on other people shopping, he spies I’m speaking at schools, the girls ask and writing down observations in a an odd-shaped the most questions. But I get the notebook. I even went as far as to buy bird flying through most fan mail from boys (especially a miniature pen and small notebook to the mall. No one reluctant readers) and their parents, carry around with me to write Harriet- else seems to who are thrilled to have found books like notes. Another series that made notice the not- that connect with them emotionally. a strong impression on me was The quite-bird-not- There’s a shortage of exciting, engag- Mad Scientists’ Club, which details the quite-bat zipping ing books for boys in that age group. adventures of a club of boys who used toward one store. science and smarts to play tricks on He follows the Do readers send you story ideas, and if so, the people in their town and do cool creature until it do you use any? things, like win a hot air balloon race disappears inside a store called I do get requests to write about my and build a miniature submarine. Of Mr. Octavius Peregrine’s Mirrors. readers’ favorite baseball teams, like course, I also liked mysteries, like The wise shopkeeper notices that the Rockies or Brewers. I’ve the Encyclopedia Brown and Hardy the boy harnesses special powers had a few suggest some mystery ideas, Boys series. (especially if he could see that and even had one child write a mystery Flittercrake) and gives him one of for me. He wrote the “mystery of the What are you working on now? his mirrors. Mets,” since he’s a Mets fan. I’m working on more Ballpark Darwen hangs his new mirror He even created his own cover art, Mysteries. Three are written (books on the inside of his bedroom table of contents, illustrations, and five, six, and seven, set in Kansas City, closet door. And that’s where “about the author” page. And it was Chicago, and San Francisco), and I’m the adventure truly begins. Each a pretty good mystery! currently writing book eight, set in night, the mirror turns into a Miami. I’m under contract for one “portula” to another world only What’s the funniest question a kid has more, which I’ll start when I finish the he can see, where a moonlit forest ever asked you? Miami book. But I’m not sure yet where and a serene, bubbling fountain My favorite school visit experience was that book will take place. Perhaps beckon him to explore. That also my most humbling. It happened or , but we’ll see. first night, he passes through the

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552-57_BostoniaSummer12_03.indd2-57_BostoniaSummer12_03.indd 5353 55/30/12/30/12 44:44:44 PMPM mirror to Silbrica and befriends Moth, all its grueling ups and downs, from A Billion Wicked Thoughts: What the a fairylike creature known as a dellfey, winter training camp in Spain to July’s World’s Largest Experiment Reveals who serves as his tour guide and Tour de France. about Human Desire cultural interpreter. She warns him Despite its glossy heft, this is not Sai Gaddam (GRS’09) and that her peaceful home is in danger. your typical coffee-table book. Johnson Ogi Ogas (GRS’07) With each visit to Silbrica, Darwen doesn’t skimp on the narrative, which Dutton meets new gruesome and fearful follows in sweaty, often technical detail )*+& ,& + computational neuro- characters. There are the Scrobblers, the travails and challenges of the team, scientist and biodefense researcher. with green flesh, tusk-like teeth, and its crew, and its director and CEO, Gaddam is a data mining consultant a penchant for catching children in Jonathan Vaughters. Introducing a who designs nanoscale processors. nets, who ride on motorbike-type range of personalities, he chronicles Together they have written a book contraptions, the headless Gnashers, a series of races, including the Vuelta about sexual desire, specifically—very whose mouths are filled with rows of a España, the USA Pro Cycling Chal- specifically—what turns people on and shark-like teeth. And a menacing black lenge, the Grand Prix Cycliste de why. But their meandering scientific Shade that passes swiftly through the Québec, and the Tour de France. romp is the first to rigorously reap forest swallowing every life it touches. The text details the geography, the data of what they call the world’s Darwen barely escapes each setbacks, and day-to-day logistics of largest experiment on human behavior: encounter as he struggles to under- most everyone involved, from the the internet. stand why these horrible creatures are athletes themselves to race organizers, Although the discipline known as methodically destroying Silbrica and, mechanics, cooks, and spectators. sexology was born in 1886 with the in turn, the dellfeys’ home. He also has Interwoven are photographs reflecting appearance (in a cold shower of Latin) a sneaking suspicion that they are after the drama of the races, from aerial of the landmark tome Psychopathia something on his side of the mirror. He panoramas to wheel-level views to the Sexualis, the and his new school friends, budding anguished face of a cyclist undergoing origins of archaeologist Rich and Alex, a talkative physical therapy. desire “remain performer with a penchant for flam- The photos of the courses as they mysterious and boyant earrings, form a “Peregrine wind through lush valleys, snow- controversial,” Pact” to solve the mystery. capped mountains, and rolling the authors write. Hartley spins a heart-pounding desert are vibrant and dramatic, and, Despite the efforts page-turner that constantly keeps you combined with the thorough written of Kinsey, Masters wondering what else will emerge from account, the effect of this 200-page and Johnson, Silbrica’s beautiful and beguiling forest. volume is to put us right there with the and others, It might also make you take a long look teams, to conjure their physical world the question of why we like the as you pass a mirror late at night on the to the point where we can almost feel things we like has never, they say, chance that something’s staring back. the chill in the mountain air. Lithe and been adequately answered. Direct Leslie Friday toned in their blue argyle jerseys, the observation, on a broad scale, is not cyclists look like members of some an option. Citing a 1973 Swarthmore Nonfiction superior species. College study in which 90 percent But Johnson takes care to humanize of students placed anonymously in Argyle Armada: Behind the Scenes them. After winning the U.S. team a dark room ended up touching one of the Pro Cycling Life championship in the 2011 Tour de another, the authors point out that Mark Johnson (GRS’89,’95) France, cyclist Christian Vande Velde, the internet, with sites for every VeloPress with celebratory beer in hand, takes imaginable (and unimaginable) !"# $%"&' (%" follow pro cycling, the microphone: “From being the sexual hunger, preference, fetish, and Johnson’s large-format book is a little engine that could to standing the diversion, is “like a much, much larger sumptuous banquet of intimate whole effing team on the podium in version” of that experiment. “Put a reporting, internationally spiced Paris. It’s been huge. I’m sure it’s been billion anonymous people in a virtually and lavishly served. For the rest of us fun to watch for you guys, but this darkened room. See what they do when it is, at the very least, a feast for the Tour sucked. It’s been hard. It’s been their desires are unleashed.” eyes. A writer and photographer who terrifying. But you know, it’s been fruit- From here the authors are off has covered cycling for national and ful, and we’ve been on the giving end, and running through a riveting international publications so cheers to everybody. compendium of kinks, squicks (kinks since the 1980s, Johnson This has been awesome.” likely to gross you out), and fantasies was embedded with Johnson’s book is likely running the gamut from girls gone American cycling Team to find its way to the coffee wild, cheating wives, and gay frat boys Garmin-Cervélo for its tables of many pro cyclists. to horny Amish women—the list, of 2011 season, and he takes The rest of us can settle course, goes on and on. But with nearly us along for the ride in back and enjoy the ride. SS 150 pages of footnotes, this readable

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552-57_BostoniaSummer2012.indd2-57_BostoniaSummer2012.indd 5454 66/14/12/14/12 110:180:18 AMAM and often quite funny volume (“The The book defines the several prepared, and this packed volume best way to a man’s heart is to saw architectural characteristics that offers crucial information and simple through his ribs.”) is much more than distinguish a Cape house. For starters, survival tips and corrects common, a Dogpile or Google harvest. these homes tend to be small and potentially lethal misconceptions. The authors weave their internet rectangular in shape, with the width With 11 chap ters devoted to observations throughout with insights “being slightly longer than the depth.” different disasters and additional on the evolutionary nature of desire, Other distinctions include steep gable sec tions on using social media and the possible roots of fantasies of sexual roofs, large central creating disaster plans for pets as well coercion and sadomasochism, and an chimneys (usually as people, Schneider prefaces each examination of reasons why in study opposite the front section with a harrowing real-life after study, men’s brains assert their door), and mini- story, a scientific primer, a definition reptilian side. mal or complete of terms, and a straightforward What are readers to make of all lack of exterior translation of, say, a tornado watch this? The authors conclude that “our ornamentation. versus a tornado warning, hurricane sexual software, originally designed The book categories, or rip current “outlooks.” to play the odds, now allows us to examines more In sober, direct prose, the succession play the field, searching for partners than 100 his- of lists (what to do when your car stalls who match our unique sexual tastes toric Cape houses still existing in on a flooded road, what to do during with unprecedented precision.” They southeastern Massachusetts. Beauti- a wildfire if you are at home, what to remind us that “the greatest hurdle fully photographed by the author, do if you’re caught in a rip current) is to sexual harmony” is ignorance of each tells its own unique story. peppered throughout the fact that the opposite sex, and its There’s the Elkanah Higgins house WEB EXTRA with hair-raising sexual preferences, are “fundamentally in Eastham, which has been in the Through facts: a landslide can July, Bonnie different from ourselves.” same family since it was built in Schneider move at 35 miles As for the increasingly pervasive 1783; the Sproat-Ward house, c. 1712, will answer per hour, unnoticed human need to forage for sexual built in Lakeville for a Revolutionary your weather tsunami waves can adventure online, the authors urge us War general, whose secret rooms and questions advance at the speed not to worry—we are in control. “We hidden openings allowed inhabitants at bu.edu/ of a commercial jet bostonia. can accept our fantasies,” they write, to “fire on unfriendlies”; and the plane, and heat causes “without becoming slaves to them.” SS Joseph N. Howe house, built in 1830 more fatalities per year than floods, in Milton—a rare Cape built of granite, lightning, tornadoes, and hurricanes The Evolution of the House: not wood. combined. An Architectural History Richmond’s exterior and interior We learn that in 1980 in the central Arthur P. Richmond (SED’65) images of these homes make the reader and eastern United States, extreme Schiffer Publishing, Ltd. want to experience them firsthand, heat caused an estimated 10,000 !"#$ %&'#$"%( #%%)$*+&*,- coffee- which is possible since many are today deaths, and that a lightning bolt can table book celebrates that most humble seasonal museums. John O’Rourke travel horizontally many miles from of domestic dwellings, the Cape Cod a thunderstorm, hence the term “bolt house. Richmond acknowledges that he Extreme Weather: A Guide to Surviving from the blue.” has no formal training in architecture, Flash Floods, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, Heat Schneider doesn’t limit her advice but says he did extensive research and Waves, Snowstorms, Tsunamis and Other to weather-besieged folks in houses, drew on numerous historical sources Natural Disasters large buildings, or cars; there are to trace the evolution of the one-and-a- Bonnie Schneider (COM’91) sections on surviving disasters on half story homes that are synonymous Palgrave Macmillan boats, at campsites, and on the beach. with such seaside towns as Barnstable, .&/, *#0, *1 read these 225 pages She tells us when we can rely on our Dennis, Orleans, and Wellfleet. The carefully and Schneider may turn out cell phones and when we can’t, and how author of Harbors of Cape Cod & the to be one of the best friends you’ll ever to safely reenter homes and buildings Islands has an intimate knowledge have. A meteorologist at CNN since after the damage is done. of the region, a history buff’s love of 2005, she has reported on the If this, well, torrent of detail, and an accomplished eye as most catastrophic weather information doesn’t make a photographer. He notes that his events of the past decade. you want to settle on high book is not just about a specific house The ever-present threat ground and pull the covers style, but “also about history and the of epic, deadly disasters, over your head, it affords the people who lived in these homes. It is from tornadoes to floods to opportunity to be proactive. about the farmer, yeoman, fisherman, earthquakes to wildfires, Schneider offers a handy, mariner, schoolteacher and minister, should inspire more than concise outline of basic and other folks that comprised the fear. We should, to the extent disaster supplies to stow at fabric of the community.” possible, be educated and home, in the car, and at the

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552-57_BostoniaSummer2012.indd2-57_BostoniaSummer2012.indd 5656 66/7/12/7/12 66:26:26 PPMM office. After this crash course in what Canal, linking the Atlantic nation on a shoestring to report for the can go wrong, why, and how, securing and Pacific Oceans. He brought Bishop Phoenix on a “cultural shift” he that three-day water supply, battery- to Washington at a generous (and believed the media was largely ignoring powered radio, flashlight, and whistle controversial) salary as secretary was “a no-brainer.” As Faraone, whose doesn’t seem like too much trouble. SS of the Isthmian Canal breathless entries spare few, Commission, where his puts it, “Television journalists, The Lion and the Journalist: The Unlikely duties included massaging their faces dusted with goo Friendship of and favorable coverage out of and blush, were reluctant to Joseph Bucklin Bishop the press for the costly muddy their shoes” in the Chip Bishop (COM’67) project and recording its movement’s camps. Lyons Press official his tory. Bishop Faraone, who earned a “! "# "$%"&' wishing I could see ultimately moved to master’s in journalism at you,” Theodore Roosevelt once wrote Panama, becoming “the BU, doesn’t give a damn if his to the journalist Joseph Bucklin president’s eyes and shoes are muddy or his bed is Bishop, demonstrating the personal ears on the isthmus,” his made of concrete. He hit the affection they shared along with their relative writes. road, yielding this collection of Phoe- political outlooks. Having friends in Roosevelt and his reporter re- nix dispatches and black-and-white high places, especially one who became mained close after their public ser- photo montages. Despite his stark, a force-of-nature president, would vice. The ex-president not only made unapologetic prose—“I’ve always hated benefit Bishop throughout his career, Bishop his authorized biographer, cops”—and bottomless outrage, he as his great-grandnephew Chip but also agreed to his suggestion that reports with an even hand. Reading Bishop makes clear in this breezily they publish an edited compilation his spirited account of clashes both readable history. of letters Roosevelt had written to internal and external among occupiers Roosevelt and Bishop’s acquain- his children. Published in 1919, after from Boston to Seattle has the effect of tance dated to the 1890s and Roose- Roosevelt’s death, Theodore Roosevelt’s searing documentary footage. Picture velt’s tenure as New York City police Letters to His Children was a runaway a Medium Cool–style take on Occupy, commissioner. Bishop, then an editor best seller and TR’s gift from the grave with cops occasionally given credit for for New York’s Evening to his friend, who would be being human. Post, befriended him and financially secure for the Sleepless and pro tein-deprived, backed his crusade to rest of his life. Chip Bishop, Faraone keeps up a dizzying pace, wipe out police corruption a Cape Cod marketing and holding forth in blogs, tweets, radio and cronyism. Later, communications consultant, interviews, and news articles on the Bishop had the Rough keeps his account of these Occupy front lines. His most colorful Rider’s political back as intersecting lives admiring reporting emerges from Boston, his Roosevelt ascended to without lapsing into syco- home turf, where the district attorney governor, vice president, phancy; for example, he subpoenaed Twitter hashtags as 99 and on the assassination dutifully records Bishop’s Percent activists fell in with the general of William McKinley, the written references to a cheer of First Night. “Authorities could Oval Office. He co-led Roosevelt’s newspaper owner who’d fired him have found any number of suspicious New York campaign when the as “the Jew.” activities under way,” writes Faraone president ran for his own term in This enjoyable book carries the with characteristic, and endearing, 1904. Their friendship and political imprimatur of noted historian Douglas sarcasm. “The peace vigil could have alliance survived a disagreement Brinkley, who wrote the foreword. easily been mistaken for a satanic over Roosevelt’s handling of the 1902 Rich Barlow séance, and who knows what was in coal miners’ strike, which threatened those holiday brownies?” to freeze many to death. Bishop 99 Nights with the 99 Percent: But he is poker-faced in his felt Roosevelt overlooked the mine Dispatches from the First Three descriptions—for example, a police owners’ pigheadedness, a criticism he Months of the Occupy Revolution raid on Occupy Boston in which “the made directly to his friend in a letter. Chris Faraone (COM’04) prevalent emerging image was that Their association also transcended Write to Power of a member of the group Veterans their personality differences—the (")"*+, '-,+. 99 nights with the for Peace being arrested while his brash, physical, but patrician bull of a Occupy movement so we didn’t have to. American flag was trampled.” president versus the small, bald, farm- A feisty, entertaining correspondent, Perhaps most commend able about bred journalist from Massachusetts. or in his words, “occu-journalist,” he this book is its embrace of dogged But they shared a passion for reforming dedicates the book to “anybody who advocacy journalism—a craft largely political institutions at home and has ever had to sleep outside a building reserved for the young and tenacious, extending the nation’s reach abroad, in which million-dollar condos sit and one that is growing fainter and less notably in TR’s ambition to build the empty.” His decision to crisscross the rigorous by the day. SS p

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