The Circus of Dr. Lao, by Charles G. Finney (Bison Books)
Who doesn’t love the magic and wonder of a circus? For the residents of Abalone, Ariz., however, in a reissue of Charles G. Finney’s hypnotic short novel what comes down the town’s dusty streets hardly seems to measure up to the mystery evoked by the word “circus.” There’s a faltering figure, described as a “little old Chinaman,” leading a pathetic, rickety procession of three wagons.
And yet. And yet.
Soon the townspeople’s tongues are wagging over what they see. Correction: what they think they see. Is that a bear in one of the wagons? Or is it a man? Or a Russian? What about the wagon driver: Is he just some poor old fellow dressed in a costume with goat horns on his head or is he a “real honest-to-god satyr driving a gold-plated mule down the main drag of a hick town?”
The townsfolk are mesmerized by this strange, shifting reality and by the performers, including the Medusa (“It is very distressing for us,” Dr. Lao confides, “always to have one or two customers turned to stone at every performance”), an insulting fortune-teller (when a widow asks about her romantic future, he tells her to imagine “an old cornstalk turning brown, dying, but refusing to fall over. … That is you”), and the creature known as the chimera, a beast whose mismatched body parts offer consolation to a poor spectator with all sorts of prosthetic devices.
Finney was an Arizona newspaperman, and “The Circus of Dr. Lao” was his first novel, published in 1935. It’s a glorious little book (later adapted into a 1964 movie) about the way that classical myths can gild our bland, tedious lives. We never really learn why this circus stops in Abalone rather than New York City or Chicago. My guess is that Finney wanted to show how myth, “that weird netherworld of unbiological beings,” can arrive in even the most forgotten corners. You don’t need to be near the centers of things to have interesting things happen to you, and that should give hope to most of us. Nick Owchar, Los Angeles Times
The Nerdist Way: How to Reach the Next Level (In Real Life), by Chris Hardwick (Berkley)
There are nerds, and then there are nerdists. Chris Hardwick is here to help the former transition to the latter.
The stand-up comedian, TV host and brains behind the mega-popular Nerdist podcast, Twitter feed and blog provides a road map to self-actualization for the pocket-protector set in “The Nerdist Way: How to Reach the Next Level (In Real Life).”
“If you are a part of (the) now-glamorous Nerd Herd subculture but still feel like you’re waiting to claim your gold cup at the top of the social food chain, then I am here to help you,” Hardwick writes. “I shall attempt, through the primitive form of communication known as ‘writing,’ to help you milk your Nerdy attributes into a delicious and useful pulp.”
Let’s start with a few definitions.
According to Hardwick, a nerd is “someone who homes in on a topic to an almost quantum detail, much of the time at the expense of healthy social interaction.”
A Nerdist, on the other hand, Hardwick writes, is “an artful Nerd,” someone who “doesn’t just consume,” but “creates and innovates.”
In “The Nerdist Way,” the “Web Soup” host, relying on techniques that have worked in his life, encourages readers to leverage their nerd-tastic attributes into getting the most out of their lives.
Yes, the book is written by a nerd for nerds, but really, all of the self-improvement methods Hardwick suggests would work for almost anybody looking to manage anxiety, get healthier and more physically fit, or advance his or her time-management skills.
And it’s funny. Hilarious, really.
Nearly every serious point is followed by either a clever pop-culture reference or one of Hardwick’s trademark self-deprecating cracks.
“Every year on my birthday I start a new playlist titled after my current age so I can keep track of my favorite songs of the year as a sort of musical diary because I am a teenage girl,” he writes in a section about maintaining a positive outlook and structure in one’s life.
A self-help book has never been so funny.
Or potentially beneficial — to nerds and garden-variety humans alike. Mike Householder, The Associated Press
I Am Half-Sick of Shadows, by Alan Bradley (Delacorte Press)
Flavia de Luce is a mystery lover’s dream: She’s exceptionally bright and logical, and she has a taste for chemistry that both comes in handy when solving crime and provides an outlet when life’s hassles — which for 11-year-old Flavia take the form of two older sisters — get her down.
Her latest adventure takes place at Christmastime. Her father, to earn money desperately needed to save Buckshaw, the family estate, has opened their home to a movie crew filming the latest vehicle for famous actress Phyllis Wyvern.
Meanwhile, Flavia has devised a plan to catch Father Christmas in the act, after deciding that he must exist: After all, her sisters always lie, so their claim that Father Christmas is a myth is suspect, and no one else in the family would bring Flavia exactly what she wants for Christmas, when everyone else gets “such dud gifts.”
Flavia’s belief in Santa Claus might be considered uncharacteristic or cloying considering her advanced scientific knowledge; that her plan to catch him involves birdlime (a sticky compound usually smeared on branches to catch birds) turns what might have been too precocious into a wickedly delightful subplot.
The promise of a private performance by the movie stars at Buckshaw attracts all the residents of nearby village Bishop’s Lacey, and a snowstorm traps them all there overnight. And then, sometime during that night, Phyllis Wyvern is murdered. Everyone’s a suspect.
It’s a classic closed circle mystery, and Bradley executes it perfectly — Agatha Christie would be proud. By the time Flavia discovers the body, the book is practically half over, and one realizes that all the pieces needed to solve the mystery have already been put in place, and all it takes is a little back story and a bit of research for Flavia to solve the mystery, which she does in an outrageous and thoroughly enjoyable climactic scene involving a rooftop chase and fireworks.
This is the fourth Flavia de Luce mystery, but like any good serial, it still provides an excellent introduction to the de Luce family and their surroundings. Bradley provides just enough callback to previous volumes to provide context without stepping over into spoilers. Michelle Weinder, The Associated Press
