Book 23: Remainder by Tom McCarthy

number of frogs: 0

As I came up to street level, out onto the concourse in front of the station, rush hour was getting underway. Commuters were streaming past me, heading back down the steps into the tube. I stood there for several minutes trying to work out which way Younger and Younger's office was while hurrying men and women dressed in suits streamed past me. It felt strange. After a while I stopped wondering which way the office was and just stood there, feeling them hurrying, streaming. I remembered standing in the ex-siege zone between the perpendicular and parallel streets by my flat two days earlier. I closed my eyes and turned the palms of my hands outwards again and felt the same tingling, the same mixture of serene and intense. I opened my eyes again but kept my palms turned outwards. It struck me that my posture was like the posture of a beggar, holding his hands out, asking passers-by for change.
The feeling of intensity was growing. It felt very good. I stood there static with my hands out, palms turned upwards, while commuters streamed past me. After I while I decided that I would ask them for change. I started murmuring:
"Spare change...spare change...spare change..."
I continued this for several minutes. I didn't follow anyone or make eye contact with them -- just stood there gazing vaguely ahead murmuring spare change again and again and again. Nobody gave me any, which was fine. I didn't need or want their change: I had eight and a half million pounds. I just wanted to be in that particular space, right then, doing that particular action. It made me feel so serene and intense that I felt almost real.

For Remainder;

Book 22: Trauma by Patrick McGrath

Number of frogs: 0

I got up out of the chair and left the apartment. Descending the staircase I remembered a story about a man in an asylum. This man believes that his psychiatrist, whom he has met only once, is busy working on his case, finding the solution to his problem. It keeps him going. Then, after some months, he sees him again. The psychiatrist pats him on the back and asks what his name is, and what seems to be the problem. This was my mood. I felt as though I'd been putting my faith in some absent being who was working on my problem. When my mother died, I realized that nobody was working on my problem, in fact no one even knew what my problem was.

Book 21: Moment of Truth in Iraq by Michael Yon

Number of frogs: 0

Iraqis love and greatly value their children. This makes children especially vulnerable as targets for terrorists. That is a brutal fact. The official had gone on to say that on a couple of occasions in Baqubah, al Qaeda invited to lunch families they wanted to convert to their way of thinking. In each instance the family had a boy about eleven years old. When the families sat down to eat, their boy was brought in with his mouth stuffed. The boy had been baked. Al Qaeda served the boy to his family. My repeated attempts to verify the story failed to produce concrete proof, although many had heard similar stories. But the rumors showed how terrible al Qaeda's repuration for atrocities had become among the local people.
Ali told me people had been afraid in their own homes because of al Qaeda. And so Abu Ali and the local 1920s were the latest al Qaeda paradox. Al Qaeda, which nearly ripped Iraq apart, was driving former enemies into what I believe could be long-term alliances with U.S. forces. The 1920s knew that our people had moral fiber and were completely unafraid to close with al Qaeda in combat at any chance. The 1920s had come to respect U.S. forces for the punishment and losses U.S. soldiers could take, yet still keep clobbering 1920s, al Qaeda, and JAM, all at the same time. That respect helped create common ground. We all knew that we had to destroy al Qaeda.
Al Qaeda had made the 1920s in Baqubah our ally.

Book 20: House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

Number of frogs: zero living, but one shadow-puppet frog, a couple of Feng Shui bullfrogs, and a crystal bullfrog thrown across the room and shattered by Hunter S. Thompson.

In once continuous shot, Navidson, whom we never actually see, momentarily focuses on a doorway on the north wall of his living room before climbing outside of the house through a window to the east of that door, where he trips slightly in the flower bed, redirects the camera from the ground to the exterior white clapboard, then moves right, crawling back inside the house through a second window, this time to the west of that door, where we hear him grunt slightly as he knocks his head on the sill, eliciting light laughter from those in the room, presumably Karen, his brother Tom, and his friend Billy Reston - though like Navidson, they too never appear on camera - before finally returning us to his starting point, thus completely circling the doorway and so proving, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that insulation or siding is the only possible thing this doorway could lead to, which is when all the laughter stops, as Navidson's hand appears in frame and pulls open the door, revealing a narrow black hallway at least ten feet long, prompting Navidson to re-investigate, once again leading us on another circumambulation of this strange passageway, climbing in and out of the windows, pointing the camera to where the hallway should extend but finding nothing more than his own backyard - no ten foot protuberance, just rose bushes, a muddy dart gun, and the translucent summer air - in essence an exercise in disbelief which despite his best intentions still takes Navidson back inside to that impossible hallway, until as the camera begins to move closer, threatening this time to actually enter it, Karen snaps, "Don't you dare go in there again, Navy," to which Tom adds, "Yeah, not such a hot idea," thus arresting Navidson at the threshold, though he still puts his hand inside, finally retracting and inspecting it, as if by seeing alone there might be something more to feel, Reston wanting to know if in fact his friend does sense something different, and Navidson providing the matter-of-fact answer which also serves as the conclusion, however abrupt, to this bizarre short: "It's freezing in there."

Book 19: The Face That Must Die by Ramsey Campbell

Number of frogs: 0

He shoved open the inner door. It cost him a few moments to realize that the door to the passage opened inward, and to grab the handle. Behind him the inner door halted half-open. It was being held.
He wrenched at the handle. Between the doors, the vestibule was claustrophobic as an airlock. His nervousness hindered the door. As he dragged it open, a large hand reached over his shoulder and laid itself flat on the wood.
He saw its hairs, black as an ape's. He saw the penumbra of moisture which outlined it on the door. It was inches from his face. He limped into the dim passage, clenching his eyes to see, and heard the man padding after him. He wouldn't be intimidated; the man had none of his friends with him now. He turned and stared straight into the man's eyes.
The face looked absurd on the large head: a small patch crowded with all the features, surrounded by luxuriant flesh. It gazed at Horridge for a moment, then it frowned. But it knew well enough why he was staring. It was the face he'd seen outside the house on Aigburth Drive, and spying from the window.

I give the Millipede Press edition of The Face That Must Die (which includes the "fractured photographic montages" of JK Potter):

Book 18: Garnethill by Denise Mina

Number of frogs: 0

They could hear him ringing off. Maureen darted back to the settee. Liam came back into the living room and slammed the phone down on the side table. He looked furious. "She's gutted," he said. "She told her mother she'd smoked hash once and now she thinks Maggie's a drug-soaked gangster's moll."
Benny was puzzled. "Why did she tell her mother that?"
"Because she asked," said Liam with a superior air. "And Maggie's family don't lie to each other all the time."
"My God," said Benny. "They must hate each other."

A good book, with an original voice. But the author is a bit of a wanker - an interview in the back of the book, she refers to Patricia Cornwell's crime novels as "crap, really right-wing fiction." ?!?!?
Despite that, Garnethill earns:

Book 17: The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall

Number of frogs: 0, not even conceptual ones.

The idea of the floor, the carpet, the concept, feel, shape of the words in my head all broke apart on impact with a splash of sensations and textures and pattern memories and letters and phonetic sounds spraying out from my splashdown. I went under, deep, carried by the force of my fall and without the thought or image or any recollection of oxygen or breathing at all.
I came up coughing, gasping for air, the idea of air. A vague physical memory of the actuality of the floor survived but now I was bobbing and floating and trying to tread water in the idea of the floor, in fluid liquid concept, in its endless cold rolling waves of association and history.
********
Something huge rushed fast in the water under my body, pulling me in a mini whirlpool twist of unravelling thought drag in its wake. The thing from the static. Jesus. I kicked faster, scrabbling against liquid, trying to pull up a solid thought of dry land in my mind. But I could only beat out splashes and scatter sprays of mind fragments. Then another undertow and I'm pulled and buffeted, the thing passing under again and I'm knocked and rolled and ducked under by a fierce ripping after-wake.
Coming up for air coughing out: shark. The word coming in a tangle-breathed shudder and then me screaming: help. Shark. Help me.

Incredible stuff.

The Raw Shark Texts receives:

Book 16: The Blade Itself by Marcus Sakey

Number of frogs: 0

I don't know, I feel as if all those who raved about this book don't read crime novels often - seems like I've read a similar story many times.
I only give The Blade Itself:

Book 15: Lush Life by Richard Price

Number of frogs: 0

Eric had turned down the ride from the detectives, had walked in a daze from the jail to his building, through the small vestibule reeking of cat piss, damp, incense, and a hint of decomp, walls, stairs, doors, everything aslant to the earth, climbed the five flights to his floor, past the defunct hallway toilets, to his apartment, stepped inside, then he threw the double lock, took a shower without turning the lights on, puked in the toilet, took a second shower, brushed his teeth, came out into the parlor naked, turned on the TV, nothing on the screen registering but the gibber of voices as calming to him as a double vodka, which he got up and made for himself, then drained in a swallow before he could even get back to the couch, the shit-ass futon couch, then just sat there glass-faced, debating whether to get up and pour himself another. That was when he noticed the printout of his one fifth-done screenplay, his bullshit screenplay, Pushcart Pauline meets the dybbuk on Delancey, which was lying atop the steamer trunk/coffee table. He picked up the first page, tried to read it, but the words just slid off his eyes incomprehensible, as meaningless and blithery as whatever was coming out of the television; what the world needs not; dropped it back onto the velvet shawl that served as a tablecloth or whatever the hell it was supposed to be other than his supposed girlfriend's way of marking even this as somehow hers; got up, fell back down, got up, was abruptly revisited, saw, heard that deceptive pop, that sharp snap, the buzz of that steel bee, followed by the slow falling back of Ike, as slow as a flip-book, onto the pavement, Eric imitating it now and clipping a shoulder blade on the corner of the steamer trunk but no matter, he had it coming, that and more, got to his feet, walked past his girlfriend's bookshelves packed with literature both academic and sleazy on prostitution and bondage, with Southeast Asian phrase books and sex-tourist guides, with assorted fetish magazines and reproduced Tijuana Bibles, every fuck book, textbook, eight-page comic and titty magazine bristling with her hand-scrawled notations; unhinged the security grate on the window, went back to the bathroom, wrapped a towel around his waist, waded through the lone closet, the allegedly shared closet, jam-packed with zippered bags full of whatever they don't wear in Manila, found the hibachi on a high shelf lined with her boots, her shoes, brought it out to the fire escape, returned to the kitchenette, had another drink, rummaged through all the labeled pouches and widemouthed jars of her dried lentils and beans and spelt and fuckball until he found the small bag of briquettes, grabbed a box of kitchen matches. He was headed back to the fire escape when the sharp and sudden rap at his apartment door shot through him like an arrow, spun him like a top.

Lush Life:

Book 14: Fieldwork by Mischa Berlinski

Number of frogs: 0 (just a passing mention, once, of "the sound of bullfrogs"

When Martiya was in college, Tim Blair had taken her to a butterfly house. It was like a large greenhouse, with two sets of double-swinging doors to ensure that the butterflies never escaped. Now, Martiya had always liked butterflies just fine, pretty little things with brightly colored wings fluttering gently across a flowery meadow; but she had never really been around more than one or two butterflies at a shot, and as soon as she entered the butterfly house, she realized that when considered in large quantities, butterflies were insects. Big flapping bugs, with huge antennae, and buggy snouts, who wanted to land in her hair and crawl all over. That was pretty much when she knew it wasn't going to work with Tim, when he wanted to stop and play with each and every butterfly, and read the informative placards, and say "Hey Martiya! Check this guy out! He's got stripes!"; and all Martiya wanted to do was flee. Living with the Dyalo, Martiya was beginning to fear, was just a little like visiting the butterfly house: a few days in a village, an afternoon discussing an interesting rite, a field-clearing ceremony or two -- that was fine. But what she hadn't thought about back in Berkeley was that there would be Dyalo around all the time, doing tribal things all the time , talking in their weird language all the time.
And she could hardly blame them, really: they were here first. This was, after all, their home. She had come to them.

Fieldwork:

DVD 12: La Vie En Rose

Number of frogs: deux!

I'm tempted to dock the movie a star since I just read that Marion Cotillard is, believe it or not, a 911-truther.
But I won't.
La Vie En Rose:

Book 13: Bad Men by John Connolly

Number of frogs: 0 (I wish I had been there, with the thousands of yummy moths.)

To those looking in upon the island from outside, its history may appear bloody and strange. Yet those of us who have lived here for many years, and whose fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers lie buried in the island's cemetery, have grown used to the strangeness of Dutch Island. Here, paths through the forest disappear in the space of a single week, and new paths take their place, so that a man may one day walk a trail familiar to him, yet find himself directed toward new surroundings by the end of it. We are used to the silences and we are used to the sounds that are native only to this small patch of land. We live in the shadow of its history, and walk by the gift of those who have gone before us.

Bad Men receives:

DVD 11: Michael Clayton

Number of frogs: 0

"I am Shiva, the God of Death."

Michael Clayton receives: