Category Archives: Books

PROMPT: Completely Surprised

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Daily writing prompt
What’s a book that completely surprised you?
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I suspect this meant to imply “in a good way,” but I would like to express the view that this is often not good. It’s often because the book is inaptly titled and its blurbs and tag lines deceptively written. When I first started doing reviews I used to get (and am sure I still do but these days ignore them,) “I see you liked X, this is X meets Y!” [Where “Y” is something that is incredibly popular, and “X” was a book I had reviewed positively.] The first time I was intrigued enough to check one of these out, I found a book that bore no resemblance to X, Y, or to good writing of any kind.

The moral of the story is, if someone is selling a marketing plan about how to build blurbs, elevator pitches, titles, and other marketing information that are completely detached from the real product, ignore them. It is in no way a winning strategy for selling books. Nothing good comes of trying to trick someone.

BOOK: “Ninja Weapons” by Charles V. Gruzanski

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Ninja Weapons: Chain and ShurikenNinja Weapons: Chain and Shuriken by Charles V. Gruzanski
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Online – Internet Archives

The first item to get out of the way is that this book doesn’t have a particularly apt title. The book was originally released with the more accurate (but less sexy) title, “Spike and Chain,” and then this edition came out in early 90’s when fascination with all things ninja was high. An accurate title would be “Masaki-ryu Chain Fighting Basics with Information on Throwing Blades on the Side.” But, of course, that would be a horrible, wordy, and tremendously unsexy title. Still, the bulk of the book is a description of the postures and fundamental techniques of fighting with a short weighted chain (called manriki-gusari [10-power chain] in Masaki-ryu or by the more literal kusari-fundo [chain (w/) weight,] elsewhere) and then there is a section on shuriken (throwing spikes and stars) to pad the book out into a three-digit page count needed to be a proper book back in the day.

I should point out that I don’t mean this all as a criticism. I am much more pleased with a book on Masaki-ryu weighted-chain technique than I would be with one that rambled on speculating about the vast number of weapons associated with the ninja. But it’s important to know what the book is about because if you are looking for a guide to the weapons used by ninja, you would probably find this weak sauce. First, there’s little to no mention of ninja in the text. Second, the story given for the development of the manriki-gusari is that of a gate guarding samurai, Dannoshin Toshimitsu Masaki, who didn’t want to have to sully the Imperial grounds with blood and so took up the chain as an alternative to sword fighting. Finally, while shuriken were said to be used by ninja, they were not exclusively so and the history in this book also cites Edo period samurai with developing the art.

If you are interested in Japanese weighted chain weaponry, and specifically Masaki-ryu, this is an excellent book for you. If you’re interested in throwing blades, you might be a little disappointed with how thin that part is, but it does discuss a lot of the fundamentals in a concise and practical way. If you are looking for a book on all the weapons used by ninja, this is not the one for you.

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PROMPT: Overrated

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Daily writing prompt
What’s a classic book that you think is overrated?
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Joyce’s Ulysses springs to mind. I do love some of the language, but — overall — reading it was a bit like getting my teeth drilled. (But I have been known to have a different perspective upon giving a book a second chance.)

There are many long works that I thought could have used an editor (e.g. Moby Dick and Atlas Shrugged,) but still I see their literary appeal.

BOOK: “New Comic Limericks” ed. by Ivanette Dennis

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New Comic LimericksNew Comic Limericks by Ivanette Dennis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This anthology consists of 63 pages of whimsical limericks with amusing cartoon illustrations by Louis Marak. There aren’t laugh-out-loud yucks to be had here, but the wordplay of these poems is clever and the limericks are more well-crafted than most. It should be pointed out that there is nothing risqué in the collection either. The most best-known limerick writers included are Ogden Nash, Edward Lear, Gelett Burgess, and Charles Barsotti. [Incidentally, the most famous writers included are Rudyard Kipling, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., and Robert Louis Stevenson.]

The pieces take a wide variety playful approaches to the limerick from eye rhymes, slant rhymes and the shape poetry of Charles Barsotti.

If you’re interested in limericks and wordplay, there is a lot to learn from the examples presented in this anthology.

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BOOK: “Lonesome Cities” by Rod McKuen

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LONESOME CITIES LTD EDITLONESOME CITIES LTD EDIT by Rod McKuen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Google Books Page

Rod McKuen is the posterchild for poets who were loathed and brutalized by critics, yet who had massive popular followings. He is the Minecraft Movie of poets. McKuen was also a songwriter and recording artist. Poet and lyricist seem almost identical career fields (one makes money for being a simplified version of the other [the poor] one,) but I suspect in their differences one finds a big chunk of the resolution to the aforementioned disparity. At the end of this collection is a chapter entitled “13 Songs” that contains a baker’s dozen of poems that are pop lyric-esque. Until I got to these, I thought McKuen may have been getting an unfair wrap for being schmaltzy and pedestrian, but when I got to them, I could see the truth in the criticism.

This is not to say McKuen would have been as harshly judged today as he was in 1968 when this book came out. He was a bisexual man who is most famous for writing “Seasons in the Sun” (an unambiguously schmaltzy song made popular by Terry Jacks in a much more up-tempo version,) and in an era in which academics were “total squares.”

At any rate, this collection, which is largely organized by city, is a fun read.

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BOOK: “The Writing Life” by Annie Dillard

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The Writing LifeThe Writing Life by Annie Dillard
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Publisher site – Harper

This essay lays out what it takes to write through discussion of Dillard’s first-hand experience writing. Issues discussed include the ability to not only hack away at one’s work but sometimes to wholly abandon it to restart from a blank page, the time it takes, and the need for a space of one’s own and solitude. The final chapter takes a twist, telling the story of a stunt pilot who lived in the same area as Dillard, a story that I took as an allegory for the writing life.

I’d highly recommend this book for writers, but also for those who like to read well-crafted writing.



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BOOK: “Food Rules” by Michael Pollan

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Food Rules: An Eater's ManualFood Rules: An Eater’s Manual by Michael Pollan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Author’s booksite

This book consists of sixty-four rules for healthier eating / escaping modern quasi-food, most with a brief explanation or discussion of exceptions and pitfalls. It is arranged in three parts according to Pollan’s famous food haiku — i.e. “eat food // mostly plants // not too much.” While a lot of the rules are (by the author’s admission) redundant, the clever statement of varied rules keeps them from feeling stale.

Some of my favorites are:
2.) “Don’t eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food.”
7.) “Avoid food products containing ingredients a third-grader cannot pronounce.”
13.) “Eat only foods that will eventually rot.”
18.) “Don’t ingest foods made in places where everyone is required to wear a surgical cap.”
31.) “Eat wild foods when you can.”
36.) “Don’t eat breakfast cereals that change the color of the milk.”
39.) “Eat all the junk food you want as long as you cook it yourself.”
40.) “Be the kind of person who takes supplements — then skip the supplements.”
47.) “Eat when you are hungry, not when you are bored.”
52.) “Buy smaller plates and glasses.”
57.) “Don’t get your fuel from the same place your car does.”

I’d recommend everyone read this book. It’s a quick and amusing read with punchy statements of food wisdom that stick in the brain.

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BOOK: “Night Lights” by Molnár József & Péter Szilas

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Night lights (Our Budapest)Night lights by Jozsef Molnar
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Publisher – Atlantisz

Budapest was a city on the cutting edge in the 19th century. This fact is often lost to people who today see it as a city that’s doing okay getting to its feet in the wake of the Cold War, but it’s worth noting that it was a major world capital before that. This is exemplified by the fact that Budapest had the first subway train (Line No. 1., opened in May of 1896.) It’s also seen in the subject of this book, the development of streetlights and lighting of public spaces.

This pamphlet / book of 56 pages is put out by Budapest’s City Hall and includes a great many color photos of important structures, historic and modern, from around the city (all taken at night to display said lighting.) The text covers the history of Budapest’s public lighting from a 1777 decree by Maria Theresa (ruler of the Hapsburg monarchy, 1740-1780) that set the stage for the first street lighting to the post-World War II floodlighting of major sights (e.g. Parliament and the Vajdahunyad Palace.) So, the book covers the period from gaslighting (and oil lighting) through the modern electrical grid, as well as the transition between.

I’d recommend this little book for those interested in the development of cities. It’s fascinating considering what the world was like in the absence of infrastructure that we now take for granted.

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PROMPT: Completely Obsessed

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Daily writing prompt
What’s a thing you were completely obsessed with as a kid?
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Reading and — I’m sure prior to my ability to do that — being read to.

[Note: I would define the “kid” years as those between infancy and teenage years. So, my obsession with reading was bookended by an obsession with boobies.]

BOOK: “Angel at the Earth’s Extremes” by Chūya Nakahara [trans. & ed. by Jeffrey Angles]

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Angel at the Earth's Extreme: Collected PoemsAngel at the Earth’s Extreme: Collected Poems by Nakahara Chuya
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Publisher Site — Penguin Classics

Release date: August 4, 2026

Chūya Nakahara was a Japanese poet who lived in the early twentieth century and who wrote in both classic Japanese forms (notably Tanka) as well a modern Western-influenced styles, particularly from the French avant-garde movement — e.g. Dadaism. Though he lived only to the age of thirty, Chūya left a substantial body of poems. He only published one collection during his lifetime, and had edited a second that came out posthumously, but the volume under review includes many previously uncollected poems as well.)

While only the Tanka poems early in the book are of classical Japanese form, Japanese literary influence shows up throughout, such as via seasonality. I took particular note of a focus on Autumn, followed [not chronologically, but in terms of volume,] by Winter, which may give insight into the tone of the volume. Of course, I didn’t count season words, so it might be a reflection of what resonated in my reading. But there is also a certain haiku-esque feel that appears in the author’s descriptions and juxtapositionings.

I enjoyed the language of these poems, particularly in description of sensory experience, which I presume owes both to Chūya and to the translator, Jeffrey Angles. Some examples include: “moonlight makes no sound // as it pools on the grass…”; “Rustling like rice husks, // Rough and dry as a loofa“; “dark against the night sky, // fig leaves stir in the wind // through the gaps, sky appears // –a beautiful woman // missing her front tooth, // standing gracefully // under the nighttime sky.“

I’d highly recommend this book for poetry readers.

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