THE FAILURE FACTORY, August 2009?

We have a slot to fill in August 2009. The color scheme on the HMTP indicates that this slot should be filled with a non-fiction book. I have begun to seek possible candidates; the first one is below:

The Failure Factory: How Unelected Bureaucrats, Liberal Democrats, and Big Government Republicans Are Undermining America's Security and Leading Us to War, by Bill Gertz.

The title says it all. I think it would fit in nicely with the Conspiracy Theory track we began with THE CREATURE FROM JECKYL ISLAND and GUNS GERMS AND STEEL. It may provide important insight on how the world works. We already know where it is headed. This may help us understand how it may get there.

HMTP Updates & Corrections

As promised, changes have been made to the HMTP:

1) August 2009 has been resored to the calender. No title has been slotted for this date.
2) HERE I STAND has been moved to Dec '08 and IN THE BEGINNING has been bumped to Jan '09.
3) The page counts for THE NEW ANNOTATED SHERLOCK HOLMES have been corrected to more closely balance the number of pages to read per month.
4) The RANKED LIST page has been updated to include AN EVIL GUEST.

IN THE BEGINNING Delayed

CBD has notified me that the release date of IN THE BEGINNING by Walt Brown has been postponed, and that the book is now on back order. CBD now expects the book on 12/19/08.

Walt Brown's site still sates that they expect it to be released by late November. I do not think that this late November date accounts for the newly announced delay. November was the original expected date of release.

This will affect the HMTP. The discussion date for IN THE BEGINNING was scheduled for December 2008. In the short term, I propose that we drop HERE I STAND into the December slot and bump IN TH EBEGINNING out to January. We will then make a decision as to how far to postpone IN THE BEGINNING at the next meeting when more information may be available.

A Bird In Hand...
It seems that our desire to read the hottest releases is causing havock with our schedule. We had to delay AN EVIL GUEST DUE due to late delivery and had to adjust the tricky Pay Paul scheme for THE GLORY AND THE DREAM once already. In the future we may need to wait until we have the books in hand before we commit them to the HMTP schedule; or, at least, schedule new releases a few months after their expected dates.

AN EVIL GUEST by Gene Wolfe

Once again I can say that I have read every Gene Wolfe novel. AN EVIL GUEST is written in the same silky prose that elevated PIRATE FREEDOM to such heights. I would place this among Wolfe's finest books. And by that I mean PEACE and THERE ARE DOORS. For me, Gene Wolfe is a different writer for each of his novels. For this one, he is a screenwriter for a 1940's light comedy. The dialog is witty and the characters engaging. As I was reading, I got to the point where I didn't care what happened next because I was enjoying the moment so much. I tried not to finish GUEST too fast, only reading one chapter a day, but then one day I read fifty pages, and today seventy. The book has one major fault: it is far too short. How I would love to still be reading it; to look forward to another chapter of Wolfe's prose streaming directly into my brain like a Tasp. But now, for lack of self-control, I have no more new Wolfe to read. But what fun it was while it lasted. I hesitate to recommend this book too highly, fearing that you will go out and read this book before you have waded through hundreds of other enjoyable books. This book will spoil your reading enjoyment of these other books, for it is so fine that you can never forget the feeling you had when you were reading it, and the lesser books will be diminished in your eyes. So, I recommend that you do not read this book. Go. Live your life, read other books, enjoy them. For me reading can now only be an exercise in futility, seeking to match the experience had while reading AN EVIL GUEST. For you it is not too late.

HERE I STAND by Roland H. Bainton

I have finished HERE I STAND by Roland H. Bainton. Despite the fact that I had been anticipating reading more about Martin Luther, this book was very difficult for me. I never felt that I was in-sync with the author. It reads like it is a translation from the German; maybe it is. Every page seemed to take a real effort to complete; because of that, I did not enjoy this book. I learned far more about Luther, and think that I got a better feel for what he must have been like as a man, from Will Durant's THE REFORMATION. Bainton's book reads less like biography and more like history. I sensed a real detachment from the subject. Is there a better-written biography of Martin Luther that we might read?