Inverarity is not a Scottish village

The only female detective in Botswana hangs out her shingle.

This remarkably fresh and charming best seller took the world by storm upon its publication. It has since earned two Booker Judges' Special Recommendations and was voted one of the "International Books of the Year and the Millennium" by the Times Literary Supplement.

Mma "Precious" Ramotswe sets up a detective agency in Botswana on the edge of the Kalahari Desert, making her the only female detective in the country. At first, cases are hard to come by. But eventually, troubled people come to Precious with a variety of concerns. Potentially philandering husbands, seemingly schizophrenic doctors, and a missing boy who may have been killed by witch doctors all compel Precious to roam about in her tiny van, searching for clues.

Chosen as a Top Ten Mystery by the Organization of Independent Booksellers, U.S.A., The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency is that rare novel that imparts a sage wisdom while inspiring hearty laughter and lasting smiles.

( I'd be less cautious in my enthusiasm if the author weren't a white dude. )

Verdict: A series of light entertainment featuring Botswana's finest lady detective — what's not to love? The "mysteries" here are strictly low-rent, at least in the first book: Precious Ramotswe is a Jessica Fletcher or a Miss Marple, but with fewer murders to solve. Like many mystery series, its attraction is the main character and the setting, and, to my eye, Alexander McCall Smith renders decent service to both.

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Ghosts and alcoholism drive a writer crazy during a winter stay at a sinister hotel.

First published in 1977, The Shining quickly became a benchmark in the literary career of Stephen King. This tale of a troubled man hired to care for a remote mountain resort over the winter, his loyal wife, and their uniquely gifted son slowly but steadily unfolds as secrets from the Overlook Hotel's past are revealed, and the hotel itself attempts to claim the very souls of the Torrance family. Adapted into a cinematic masterpiece of horror by legendary director Stanley Kubrick, featuring an unforgettable performance by a demonic Jack Nicholson, The Shining stands as a cultural icon of modern horror, a searing study of a family torn apart, and a nightmarish glimpse into the dark recesses of human weakness and dementia.

( The Overlook Hotel is a metaphor that eluded Stanley Kubrick. )

Verdict: The Shining is one of King's better books, possibly one of his best. It's quintessential King. The horror is both supernatural and human, there is quite a bit of subtext, and (unlike many of King's novels) it actually has something like a decent ending. If you've only seen the Stanley Kubrick movie, you should read the book for more depth and less artsy visuals, and a character who's more believable in his madness than Jack Nicholson's demonic ranting. If you haven't liked King's later books, this would be a good starting point to sample his classic horror novels, back when he was writing drunk better than most writers write sober.

Also by Stephen King: My reviews of Blaze, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, Lisey's Story, and Cell.

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A fictional memoir based on a real-life spy, brilliant literary fiction with a gay flair but not much excitement.

Victor Maskell has been betrayed. After the announcement in the Commons, the hasty revelation of his double life of wartime espionage, his photograph is all over the papers. His disgrace is public, his position as curator of the Queen’s pictures terminated… Maskell writes his own testament, in an act not unlike the restoration of one of his beloved pictures, in order for the process of verification and attribution to begin.

( Kind of like John Le Carr� without the suspense. )

Verdict: I remain lukewarm about most literary fiction, and decidedly lukewarm about John Banville, who writes circles around most genre writers but fails to give me characters I care about or a story that engages. This fictional memoir is a finely-crafted piece of historicized fiction, and Banville is a writer to study and appreciate for his gifts, but even though I like spy stories, I was left admiring but not enjoying The Untouchable.

Also by John Banville: My review of The Sea.

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It sucked.

I've never read Alan Moore's comic. Was his story this ridiculous? It couldn't have been.

This movie was just a big cheese-fest of insulting stupid, with A-list actors trying to keep a straight face amidst the overwhelming special effects.

It was not quite Transformers-level badstupid, but it was baaaaad.

A children's series about a traditional board game manages to be compelling, if uneven, and drew me into go like it did thousands of other fans.

The idea behind Hikaru no Go began when Yumi Hotta played a pick-up game of go with her father-in-law. She thought that it might be fun to create a manga based on this traditional board game, and began the work under the title of Nine Stars (九つの星 Kokonotsu no Hoshi), named for the nine "star points" on a go board. She later worked with Takeshi Obata (the illustrator) and Yukari Umezawa (5-Dan, the supervisor) in the creation of Hikaru no Go. She won the 2000 Shogakukan Manga Award and the 2003 Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize for Hikaru no Go.

( You know all those weeaboos who want to be Naruto? This series made me want to be Hikaru Shindo! )

Verdict: I only got into this manga because of my old interest in go, and reading it actually made me take up the game again. Apparently I was not the only one, as Hikaru no Go was a hit across Asia and just about everyone in the go world is a fan. Yumi Hotta, despite never being a particularly adept player herself, is a go celebrity. So this is one of those series with some indefinable quality that transcends the perfectly traditional premise and the mediocre plotting. Start reading it, and maybe you'll find you want to play the Divine Move too!

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The Alaskan outback is not the place to work out your daddy issues.

What would possess a gifted young man recently graduated from college to literally walk away from his life? Noted outdoor writer and mountaineer Jon Krakauer tackles that question in his reporting on Chris McCandless, whose emaciated body was found in an abandoned bus in the Alaskan wilderness in 1992.

Described by friends and relatives as smart, literate, compassionate, and funny, did McCandless simply read too much Thoreau and Jack London and lose sight of the dangers of heading into the wilderness alone? Krakauer, whose own adventures have taken him to the perilous heights of Everest, provides some answers by exploring the pull the outdoors, seductive yet often dangerous, has had on his own life.

( Alaska has plenty of snowflakes; you really aren't that special. )

Verdict: Into the Wild is an interesting story, and I've enjoyed previous books by Jon Krakauer. Krakauer tries to paint Chris "Alexander Supertramp" McCandless in a sympathetic light without glamorizing his untimely but hardly unpredictable demise, but you can't help shaking your head at this poor dumb kid. Every young man goes through a period where he thinks he's a superhero and does some stupid shit. Some of them die. Chris McCandless found a slightly more adventurous way to do it.

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Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus, is a classic that is more compelling historically than it is for its literary value.

Mary Shelley began writing Frankenstein when she was only 18. At once a Gothic thriller, a passionate romance, and a cautionary tale about the dangers of science, Frankenstein tells the story of committed science student Victor Frankenstein.

Obsessed with discovering "the cause of generation and life" and "bestowing animation upon lifeless matter", Frankenstein assembles a human being from stolen body parts. However, upon bringing it to life, he recoils in horror at the creature's hideousness.

Tormented by isolation and loneliness, the once-innocent creature turns to evil and unleashes a campaign of murderous revenge against his creator, Frankenstein.

Frankenstein, an instant best seller and an important ancestor of both the horror and science-fiction genres, not only tells a terrifying story but also raises profound, disturbing questions about the very nature of life and the place of humankind within the cosmos: What does it mean to be human? What responsibilities do we have to each other? And how far can we go in tampering with Nature?

( IT'S ALIVE! And other lines that do not appear anywhere in the book. )

Verdict: A great if improbable story with hamhanded morality, told by an immature writer, Frankenstein is dramatic and as timeless as the archetypes Mary Shelley borrowed. It deserves to be read, though Shelley's prose and storytelling can best be described as "florid." Do read the original, as like most classics, there are interesting details and plot twists that the many, many adaptations have left out. It's far from the best Victorian (okay, technically, Regency) novel I've ever read, but it's kind of fun if a little head-banging at time.

Also, see the movies. But not Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl.

Frankenstein is on the list of 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, though I did not read it for the books1001 challenge.

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Orchids, alligators, and Indians, and a scammer with a heart of... nah, he's still just a scammer.

A modern classic of personal journalism, The Orchid Thief is Susan Orlean’s wickedly funny, elegant, and captivating tale of an amazing obsession.

From Florida’s swamps to its courtrooms, the New Yorker writer follows one deeply eccentric and oddly attractive man’s possibly criminal pursuit of an endangered flower. Determined to clone the rare ghost orchid, Polyrrhiza lindenii, John Laroche leads Orlean on an unforgettable tour of America’s strange flower-selling subculture, along with the Seminole Indians who help him and the forces of justice who fight him. In the end, Orlean–and the reader–will have more respect for underdog determination and a powerful new definition of passion.

( A sharply handsome guy in spite of the fact that he is missing all his teeth and has the posture of al dente spaghetti. )

Verdict: A fascinating, weird book about fascinating, weird people, most of whom seem to live in Florida. Orchids are really only the beginning of the story. Orlean includes the obligatory chapters on the history, biology, and genetics of orchids, but the people are a lot more interesting, from John Laroche, the "orchid thief," to the audaciously opportunistic Chief Billie of the Seminoles, to Leonard and Julius Rosen, who sold thousands of acres of Florida swampland to Midwesterners looking for a nice place to retire. The Orchid Thief is a nice piece of non-fiction with stories too improbable to be fiction.

Humans encounter a planet-sized alien intelligence in this philosophical Polish sci-fi classic.

At last, one of the world’s greatest works of science fiction is available - just as author Stanislaw Lem intended it.

To mark the 50th anniversary of the publication of Solaris, Audible, in cooperation with the Lem Estate, has commissioned a brand-new translation - complete for the first time, and the first ever directly from the original Polish to English. Beautifully narrated by Alessandro Juliani (Battlestar Galactica), Lem’s provocative novel comes alive for a new generation.

In Solaris, Kris Kelvin arrives on an orbiting research station to study the remarkable ocean that covers the planet’s surface. But his fellow scientists appear to be losing their grip on reality, plagued by physical manifestations of their repressed memories. When Kelvin’s long-dead wife suddenly reappears, he is forced to confront the pain of his past - while living a future that never was. Can Kelvin unlock the mystery of Solaris? Does he even want to?

( Psychological science fiction of great sophistication and little excitement. )

Verdict: If you like the conjunction of philosophy + psychology + science fiction, and especially if you like Big Dumb Object SF where you get many questions but few answers, then Solaris is the best example of its kind. A thoughtful but very slow-paced novel, one that deserves its literary credibility, but it's easy to see why it's not exactly a genre favorite. Without the trippiness of Heinlein, the science-and-tech wizardry of Asimov, or the engineering geekery of Clarke, it's still a good read for aficionados of classic sci-fi.

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