05.30.08
Guilty Secret #1: Criminology
Famous Crimes Revisited: from Sacco-Vanzetti to O.J. Simpson
by Dr. Henry Lee & Dr. Jerry Labriola
Okay, I confess: I read way too much true crime as a teenager. I loved the gruesome details even more than I loved the science and psychology. Now that I look back as an adult, I realize part of the appeal was in reading about a more orderly version of the real world, where the monsters were captured and punished.
Of course, life as a grownup shows the world to be considerably more complicated than that. So while I’m no longer a fan of the lurid-crime-details style of Ann Rule and assorted copycats, I enjoy memoirs and reflections by forensic scientists; I feel more confident in humanity knowing that there are people taking a logical look at the most chaotic parts of life.
05.16.08
Dispatches from the “Weird YA” Shelf
Tangerine
by Edward Bloor
Edward Bloor is one of the most unusual authors I’ve ever read. More goes on under the surface of the story that in other YA novels (heck, more than many adult novels too), but it never feels like he’s going out of his way to try and be clever. No puns, no codes, no dreadful allegorical naming; the story just is what it is. The narrators of these tales are more than capable of showing the reader around the strange world where they reside, equally easy and matter-of-fact about matters from the quotidian to the surreal. Read the rest of this entry »
