175. A book that shall remain nameless

I knew this one would be a gamble--the plot sounded bizarre, with the potential to be either really cool or really bad. I did read the whole thing but was appalled by the shoddy writing (eg "the gaze of which was directed at him") and the consistent stupidity of the characters. The aforementioned stupidity is even more galling because we're told, repeatedly, that these same characters are the most elite fighting/intelligence force in the world, dangerous, to be reckoned with, blah blah. Yet they forget basic things like, say, setting up a guard or sentry when they're investigating a crime scene inside a house. Hey, let's all pile into the basement, where our foe (introduced, I kid you not, as "arch-criminal and nemesis") can easily surprise us!

Perhaps most galling to me is the fact that this author has published several books through a mainstream publishing house with wide distribution. Yet it's clear that no one attempted even cursory editing or copy-editing to fix blatant contradictions, horrible sentences ("he complained about the bad food and complained miserably about how bad the food tasted"), and basic grammar and writing issues.

174. "The Apprentice" by Lewis Libby

Lewis Libby's debut novel, The Apprentice, is one of those books that's difficult to review immediately; I feel like I need more time to process it, but I'm also not sure more time would help.

The story revolves around an apprentice innkeeper who, during the course of a snowstorm, faces moral dilemmas, murder, suspicion, political intrigue, and first love. The writing is poetic at times and overly clunky at others; even though readers learn many of the characters' names, Libby continues to refer to them as "the apprentice," "the girl who had worn the yellow cloak," "the tiny girl," etc., which makes for awkward narration. The resolution is deliberately ambiguous, which contributes to my own ambivalence about the novel.

173. "Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin" by Frank Bailey, Ken Morris, and Jeanne Devon

Blind Allegiance to Sarah Palin: A Memoir of Our Tumultuous Years is Frank Bailey's mea culpa for his part in the excesses, abuses, and vindictiveness of Palin's Alaska administration. During his four years with Palin, Bailey worked on her gubernatorial campaign, served on her cabinet, pursued her enemies, weathered her moods, and acted on her personal vendettas.

Bailey was the type of person to whom Palin most appealed: a committed Christian and staunch Republican who believed she could effect important change for her state. The book chronicles the many decisions he made that he now regrets, and the "slippery slope" mentality that allowed him to go from being committed to integrity to violating his own ethical and moral standards. He talks about how his family suffered, how much time he devoted to Palin, how she demanded absolute loyalty from her supporters but was always willing to sacrifice them to save herself. Using e-mails, he documents how she consistently betrayed staff members who followed her and her husband's directives, if those staff members were caught and threatened to embarrass her administration. He talks about the toll on her family, her apparently cavalier attitude toward her children, and her decision to accept the VP nomination even though it meant revealing her 17-year-old daughter's pregnancy to the world.

Bailey comes across as believable, sincere, and in some ways still naive. He defines himself as a "Fox News conservative" and is open about how he violated his own faith and moral principles. He takes responsibility for his own actions and choices. Without assigning blame or sounding bitter, he wonders about the thought processes that enable Palin and her husband to operate the way they do.

This is an eye-opening book. Highly recommend for anyone who still thinks Palin has any Presidential qualities, is anything more than a lip-service Christian, is a good mother, or has any integrity.

172. "Just Kids" by Patti Smith

Singer and writer Patti Smith recounts her love affair and lifelong friendship with artist Robert Mapplethorpe in Just Kids. She met him on her first day in New York City in the late 1960s, and during subsequent encounters, they quickly formed a strong bond that endured Mapplethorpe's exploration of his homosexuality, his "hustling" for money, their poverty, and their mutual artistic aspirations and successes.

Mapplethorpe died of AIDS complications in 1989. Knowing this makes for nail-biting reading about his sexual practices, but it's clear that he wasn't an anomaly in the young, broke crowd of artists of which he and Smith were part. While she never worked as a prostitute, she dated several men who did, and her own survival seems almost miraculous. She talks movingly about Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, as well as other acquaintances and friends who died young and tragically.

One weakness in the book, at least for me, is that Smith assumes her readers are familiar with the entire motley cast of characters that hung around the Chelsea Hotel in the early 1970s. While I recognize many of these names, many others are completely foreign to me, and this made the narrative difficult to follow at times.

Overall, however, this is an honest, poignant memoir of youth, exploration, love, and loss. Enjoyable, provocative, and powerful.

171. "The Skull Mantra" by Elliot Pattison

I had trouble getting through Elliot Pattison's The Skull Mantra, not because of any flaw with the book itself--it's well written, vividly depicts the harsh beauty of Tibet, and provides a sensitive, valuable introduction to the region's traditional culture and religion--but because of the bleakness of life in the Chinese gulags.

Shan, the main character, is a former police detective sentenced to an indefinite period of labor in Tibet. One of the few Chinese prisoners in a brigade of Tibetans, he comes to embrace the teachings and philosophy of the brigade's abbot. His loyalty becomes a tool against him, however, when his work crew discovers a headless body buried under some rocks. The colonel in charge of the county's military defenses enlists Shan to investigate the murder, even as the rival Department of Public Safety conducts its own investigation. He tells Shan that any attempt to escape or failure to solve the crime will result in mass executions in his brigade. Mysterious encounters with rebels and monks, visits to remote monasteries, and the discovery of a secret colony hewn out of the cliffs serve as valuable clues to a crime that extends far beyond what Shan could have imagined.

In the end, the book has what my college friend Becca called a "redemptive" ending, and despite my struggles with the harshness of the Chinese treatment of Tibet, I plan to read the next installment in the series.