Okay, first: don't miss the free book drawing in Sunday's post. Leave a comment on that post and win a book!
Today I'm gloomy because I accidentally spoiled the book I'm reading for myself. Well, I say accidentally, but I did flip to the end and read the last two lines. I don't suppose I can blame anyone for that but myself. But in my defense, that very rarely actually ruins anything!
But in this book it did. I have to say, I'm torn between whether to tell you the book or the ending--clearly I can't tell you both. Since presumably you can see from my sidebar what I'm reading, though, I'll manage to restrain myself regarding the end.
The book, then, is Secrets of Eden, by Chris Bohjalian. I wasn't expecting a mystery, which it turns out this is--at least in structure. Of course, it's much more about the human drama than about the mystery. Still, though it's already clear to me that the ending is a big reveal, and I'm disappointed with myself.
Happily, I'm still enjoying the book, maybe more than I expected to. Strangely, I feel like I was anticipating a Jodi Picoult book, and the slight sense of redundancy and overwroughtness that comes with it, and am finding myself pleasantly surprised.
I'm experiencing deja vu. Have I said this about Jodi Picoult and Chris Bohjalian before?
Anyway, don't forget to enter the drawing!
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Sunday, February 21, 2010
On My Mind, or Oh Look, a Contest!
I don't buy books. That's the reason I don't have a Kindle; if I can't check books out of the library, what's the point? I don't want to be confined to reading books that I'm sure I'm going to like. Also, I'm cheap. It causes me guilt, since I'm part of the demise of publishing, but there it is.
So I only buy about five books a year, and they're almost always books that I've read before. With the very occasional exception, the rule is this: if I read a book--from the library or borrowed from a friend--and enjoyed it, and then find myself, weeks or months later, thinking about it, wanting to read it again, wanting to lend it to people, that's when I buy it.
I wish I had more time to reread. But just knowing it's on the shelf and I can pick it up when I want to is a pretty big deal.
Lately, there are a couple of books I've been thinking about. One was Chalice, by Robin McKinley. I really can't say that there's anything about it that stands out--in a lot of ways, it's a pretty standard fantasy novel. But it captured a mood, a quietness, that really drew me in. The world-building is really excellent. There are some details of the backstory that are left mysterious, which works really nicely. Plus there's beekeeping, which I rather liked as well.
Besides rereading, I like to lend out books. That's why I think I might have to buy Fool, by Christopher Moore. It's such a clever book--in plot, in language, even in pacing--that I can't be sure that it'll be as great to reread as it was the first time. But I do know that I'm going to shove it into the hands of almost everyone (Kris, I'm looking at you), and that the only way to do that is to own a copy.
And then there's The Family Man, by Elinor Lipman. I'm sure I've said this before, but Linden and I used to say that it was too bad that, when you come to love the characters in the books you're reading, you always have to read about the trials and tribulations they go through, and that you can't just read about good times. Sometimes people write books like that, and they're mostly bad. But this one--The Family Man is about a staid life getting shaken up, but not in an upsetting-but-ultimately-for-the-best way. Really, it's just all kind of startling, funny adventures.
How, though, am I ever going to get a chance to reread one of these books? I have no idea.
Hey, I know! A contest. Readers ahoy: leave a comment on this post. In a week (because I'm a slow poster and I assume I have slow readers), I'll pick a random number and that commenter will get the book of their choice, of the three listed above. I don't promise it will be brand new, but it will be in excellent condition. People I'm married to are excluded from the contest, even if they comment. First time readers welcome, so feel free to (ahem) tell your friends. One comment per poster, please!
It won't help me reread them, but it will spread the joy. And here at LibraryHungry, we're all about spreading the joy.
So I only buy about five books a year, and they're almost always books that I've read before. With the very occasional exception, the rule is this: if I read a book--from the library or borrowed from a friend--and enjoyed it, and then find myself, weeks or months later, thinking about it, wanting to read it again, wanting to lend it to people, that's when I buy it.
I wish I had more time to reread. But just knowing it's on the shelf and I can pick it up when I want to is a pretty big deal.
Lately, there are a couple of books I've been thinking about. One was Chalice, by Robin McKinley. I really can't say that there's anything about it that stands out--in a lot of ways, it's a pretty standard fantasy novel. But it captured a mood, a quietness, that really drew me in. The world-building is really excellent. There are some details of the backstory that are left mysterious, which works really nicely. Plus there's beekeeping, which I rather liked as well.
Besides rereading, I like to lend out books. That's why I think I might have to buy Fool, by Christopher Moore. It's such a clever book--in plot, in language, even in pacing--that I can't be sure that it'll be as great to reread as it was the first time. But I do know that I'm going to shove it into the hands of almost everyone (Kris, I'm looking at you), and that the only way to do that is to own a copy.
And then there's The Family Man, by Elinor Lipman. I'm sure I've said this before, but Linden and I used to say that it was too bad that, when you come to love the characters in the books you're reading, you always have to read about the trials and tribulations they go through, and that you can't just read about good times. Sometimes people write books like that, and they're mostly bad. But this one--The Family Man is about a staid life getting shaken up, but not in an upsetting-but-ultimately-for-the-best way. Really, it's just all kind of startling, funny adventures.
How, though, am I ever going to get a chance to reread one of these books? I have no idea.
Hey, I know! A contest. Readers ahoy: leave a comment on this post. In a week (because I'm a slow poster and I assume I have slow readers), I'll pick a random number and that commenter will get the book of their choice, of the three listed above. I don't promise it will be brand new, but it will be in excellent condition. People I'm married to are excluded from the contest, even if they comment. First time readers welcome, so feel free to (ahem) tell your friends. One comment per poster, please!
It won't help me reread them, but it will spread the joy. And here at LibraryHungry, we're all about spreading the joy.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Chicken Out a la King
I couldn't resist going with the pun for the post title, though I wouldn't say I'm exactly chickening out. I did start to listen to The Gunslinger, though, and I am going to stop listening to it now.
I never read any Stephen King till after college. One day I just realized I'd never read any, and I thought, what the heck. So I checked out a couple. I started with the old stuff, which was a good move on my part, and I enjoyed a lot of them. I even have a couple of favorites--I really loved The Stand, Salem's Lot, and Pet Sematary. A lot more of them I liked but didn't love--Needful Things, It, The Dead Zone. Overall, a good ride.
But then, I sort of got caught up with what he's been writing lately, and woah, Nellie, does that man need an editor. Thousands of pages, not to tell sweeping epics, but to describe every single thing in minute detail. I'm not even going to go into it here, because it makes me tired just thinking about it.
Unfortunately, he still tells a good story, and I really kind of want to read Under the Dome.
But The Gunslinger, this is old stuff. This is from his heyday (did I use that right? Heyday?), and it should be tighter, it should be better storytelling.
Sadly, I'm just not loving it. It's not just horrifying--though there is something especially horrifying in listening to his lingering descriptions of gore being read out loud. It's also kind of boring. I'm about 15% of the way into the book, and all I know is that the Protagonist is chasing the Antagonist through a wasteland that's turned into desert, and that something bad happened in a small town that involved the Antagonist reanimating a dead guy. That's literally everything I know about the story. Oh, except that it's dry, and there's grass, and everyone is craggy and sullen and amoral and mean and that there's no beauty in the world, and little water.
I'm tired of it. I think I'm getting too old for this stuff. I feel like a big mope. I need a good audiobook. I'm taking nominations.
I never read any Stephen King till after college. One day I just realized I'd never read any, and I thought, what the heck. So I checked out a couple. I started with the old stuff, which was a good move on my part, and I enjoyed a lot of them. I even have a couple of favorites--I really loved The Stand, Salem's Lot, and Pet Sematary. A lot more of them I liked but didn't love--Needful Things, It, The Dead Zone. Overall, a good ride.
But then, I sort of got caught up with what he's been writing lately, and woah, Nellie, does that man need an editor. Thousands of pages, not to tell sweeping epics, but to describe every single thing in minute detail. I'm not even going to go into it here, because it makes me tired just thinking about it.
Unfortunately, he still tells a good story, and I really kind of want to read Under the Dome.
But The Gunslinger, this is old stuff. This is from his heyday (did I use that right? Heyday?), and it should be tighter, it should be better storytelling.
Sadly, I'm just not loving it. It's not just horrifying--though there is something especially horrifying in listening to his lingering descriptions of gore being read out loud. It's also kind of boring. I'm about 15% of the way into the book, and all I know is that the Protagonist is chasing the Antagonist through a wasteland that's turned into desert, and that something bad happened in a small town that involved the Antagonist reanimating a dead guy. That's literally everything I know about the story. Oh, except that it's dry, and there's grass, and everyone is craggy and sullen and amoral and mean and that there's no beauty in the world, and little water.
I'm tired of it. I think I'm getting too old for this stuff. I feel like a big mope. I need a good audiobook. I'm taking nominations.
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Two for Two
I can't believe it took me this long to start reading Children of God. For anyone who has read The Sparrow, run out and get this book.
What turned me off initially was--well, without giving too much away (I hope; please someone tell me if this is too much of a spoiler), you find out at the beginning that someone you thought was dead in The Sparrow is not dead. That seemed like such an annoying change in history to allow a sequel that I just couldn't credit it.
This time, I knew that going in, and it didn't bug me. It makes sense that this character could still be alive, and it was the only annoying thing about the story. It all makes sense, and is, like The Sparrow, so thoughtful and intelligent that I'm really caught up in it. It's a rare book that has such an excellent balance between story, character, and--theme? meaning? philosophy, I guess.
Absolutely loving it.
What turned me off initially was--well, without giving too much away (I hope; please someone tell me if this is too much of a spoiler), you find out at the beginning that someone you thought was dead in The Sparrow is not dead. That seemed like such an annoying change in history to allow a sequel that I just couldn't credit it.
This time, I knew that going in, and it didn't bug me. It makes sense that this character could still be alive, and it was the only annoying thing about the story. It all makes sense, and is, like The Sparrow, so thoughtful and intelligent that I'm really caught up in it. It's a rare book that has such an excellent balance between story, character, and--theme? meaning? philosophy, I guess.
Absolutely loving it.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
We Have a Winner!
The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, by Katherine Howe. Awesome book. I'm not too into the Salem Witch Trials (really, who is?), mostly because I find it kind of scary. But I'm starting to suspect that I'm a fan of academic intrigue-type books (cf. Allegra Goodman's Intuition). I'll take recommendations for more of those, if anyone has them.
This book was a treat. It was both tense and leisurely, modern and historical, exciting and satisfying. I can't seem to explain it without making it sound like it's something it isn't--it has supernatural elements, but it's not science fiction or a ghost story or anything. It has historical interludes and a running plot in the past, but it's definitely not an historical novel.
I think I liked that some parts of Connie's life went well while others were troubling. I liked that, while there was a lot of tension, there was no police-involved, run-for-your-life pacing. It's not a grand, sweeping story, nor a small story. It's a nice, medium-sized story.
The plot--for the curious--revolves around a Harvard history grad student who's been called upon to fix up and sell off her late grandmother's crumbling house in Marblehead. She ends up on the trail of the titular Physick Book, or spellbook. The details of academic research (just enough of them, not too many) are engaging. I like the tension around academic politics and striving. There's a young man, and a distant but loving mother.
This is not my most eloquent review--I'm sick right now and going to go lie down ASAP. But I wanted to share this, because I enjoyed this book so much.
And now, finally, I'm starting Children of God, and so excited about it. Tally-ho!
This book was a treat. It was both tense and leisurely, modern and historical, exciting and satisfying. I can't seem to explain it without making it sound like it's something it isn't--it has supernatural elements, but it's not science fiction or a ghost story or anything. It has historical interludes and a running plot in the past, but it's definitely not an historical novel.
I think I liked that some parts of Connie's life went well while others were troubling. I liked that, while there was a lot of tension, there was no police-involved, run-for-your-life pacing. It's not a grand, sweeping story, nor a small story. It's a nice, medium-sized story.
The plot--for the curious--revolves around a Harvard history grad student who's been called upon to fix up and sell off her late grandmother's crumbling house in Marblehead. She ends up on the trail of the titular Physick Book, or spellbook. The details of academic research (just enough of them, not too many) are engaging. I like the tension around academic politics and striving. There's a young man, and a distant but loving mother.
This is not my most eloquent review--I'm sick right now and going to go lie down ASAP. But I wanted to share this, because I enjoyed this book so much.
And now, finally, I'm starting Children of God, and so excited about it. Tally-ho!
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Harry Potter Doesn't Save the World
The Magicians, by Lev Grossman, takes a grown-up take on the basic premise of Harry Potter--a hidden magical world, or at least school, where young magicians are whisked away to train. I'm about a quarter of the way through the book, and our overachieving, bored-with-reality teenage protagonist Quentin has stumbled into and passed the entrance exam to Brakebills, and is now a third year student at the prestigious magic college. The normal world (muggles, mundies, whatever you want to call them) feels like a pale imitation of reality now--this is where things shine brightly.
What a promising premise, right? Only the book reads like anybody's college experience--my own college experience. So far, it's mostly about getting a fancy-pants education, trying to fit in at a school that's very different from anywhere you've ever been, being academically competitive, etc. And there's not much else there. If they were studying chemistry instead of magic, pretty much nothing would be different--including the mysterious story of one character's brother's death at the school.
I just don't think this is enough to sustain a story like this. Maybe if it was intended for high school students, it would make more sense, but it lacks the perspective of a kid. It's a book for adults, but it doesn't have anything to say to me as an adult.
I presume that something else must happen. I'm about 75 pages into the book--I mean, something has to happen, right? Alice's brother died mysteriously a few years ago; Quentin doesn't know what kind of magic he'll practice. That's about all I have to go on, other than one of their classmates is gay, everyone's super-competitive, he's got an exclusive little group of friends now.
What it comes down to is that I don't know what this book is about, and I'm not loving it enough to find out. Maybe I'll try again someday, when I'm up for something leisurely, but right now I'm dying to sink my teeth in something.
So: let's see if The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane is what I've been looking for. I'm pretty sure there's a college (Harvard) and some magic in it. Wouldn't it be crazy if this was everything I wanted The Magicians to be?
What a promising premise, right? Only the book reads like anybody's college experience--my own college experience. So far, it's mostly about getting a fancy-pants education, trying to fit in at a school that's very different from anywhere you've ever been, being academically competitive, etc. And there's not much else there. If they were studying chemistry instead of magic, pretty much nothing would be different--including the mysterious story of one character's brother's death at the school.
I just don't think this is enough to sustain a story like this. Maybe if it was intended for high school students, it would make more sense, but it lacks the perspective of a kid. It's a book for adults, but it doesn't have anything to say to me as an adult.
I presume that something else must happen. I'm about 75 pages into the book--I mean, something has to happen, right? Alice's brother died mysteriously a few years ago; Quentin doesn't know what kind of magic he'll practice. That's about all I have to go on, other than one of their classmates is gay, everyone's super-competitive, he's got an exclusive little group of friends now.
What it comes down to is that I don't know what this book is about, and I'm not loving it enough to find out. Maybe I'll try again someday, when I'm up for something leisurely, but right now I'm dying to sink my teeth in something.
So: let's see if The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane is what I've been looking for. I'm pretty sure there's a college (Harvard) and some magic in it. Wouldn't it be crazy if this was everything I wanted The Magicians to be?
Friday, January 22, 2010
That Didn't Last Long
PLR, that's right, out the freaking window. I had come to the conclusion that I could work two library books at the same time as a book that I own. But I was not enjoying The Magicians, and so I decided to return it and get something different. And this is where it all spiraled out of control.
Well, first of all, I'm not even sure comics should count. But the next Fables book was definitely something I've been wanting to read, so I grabbed that, and also The Truth-Teller's Tale, by Sharon Shinn, which I have almost inexplicably been panting after for months, mostly because it seems as close as I'm going to come to getting to read The Safe-Keeper's Secret for the first time again. That tells you something about how that book has stuck with me--again, pretty inexplicably--it's a very small, domestic book.
But anyway, those, plus The Mysterious Benedict Society seemed like enough. But then I saw the Flight anthologies on the comics shelf, and if you haven't seen these, they're charming. Each one is just a collection of short comics, loosely based on the theme of flight, and they're exactly the kind of venue for short, simple comic book storytelling that I'm pleased to see. So I got one of those, and I might have to ask for another one for my birthday sometime.
But I'd been thinking, after my wrap-up last year, that I've been reading too much YA, letting myself slide into the easy place of fantasy for a lot time. It occurs to me to kind of forgive myself for that, since finding time to read at all with the baby is pretty impressive, and finding time to read impressive things would be impossible. But I wanted to get a Grown Up book to replace The Magicians. The one I wanted, The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, was checked out--or so I thought. But the children's room librarians were chatting about it as I watched Adam sprint back and forth between the picture books, and suddenly I was talking to them, and one of them ran upstairs and found me the speed-read copy and here I am, with more books than I can carry.
I'm still reading and loving Candy Freak from my personal shelf, and I still intend to read one of my own books at any given time. But my good intentions--gone. Poof. Kaput.
Up next: why I'm not enjoying The Magicians.
Well, first of all, I'm not even sure comics should count. But the next Fables book was definitely something I've been wanting to read, so I grabbed that, and also The Truth-Teller's Tale, by Sharon Shinn, which I have almost inexplicably been panting after for months, mostly because it seems as close as I'm going to come to getting to read The Safe-Keeper's Secret for the first time again. That tells you something about how that book has stuck with me--again, pretty inexplicably--it's a very small, domestic book.
But anyway, those, plus The Mysterious Benedict Society seemed like enough. But then I saw the Flight anthologies on the comics shelf, and if you haven't seen these, they're charming. Each one is just a collection of short comics, loosely based on the theme of flight, and they're exactly the kind of venue for short, simple comic book storytelling that I'm pleased to see. So I got one of those, and I might have to ask for another one for my birthday sometime.
But I'd been thinking, after my wrap-up last year, that I've been reading too much YA, letting myself slide into the easy place of fantasy for a lot time. It occurs to me to kind of forgive myself for that, since finding time to read at all with the baby is pretty impressive, and finding time to read impressive things would be impossible. But I wanted to get a Grown Up book to replace The Magicians. The one I wanted, The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, was checked out--or so I thought. But the children's room librarians were chatting about it as I watched Adam sprint back and forth between the picture books, and suddenly I was talking to them, and one of them ran upstairs and found me the speed-read copy and here I am, with more books than I can carry.
I'm still reading and loving Candy Freak from my personal shelf, and I still intend to read one of my own books at any given time. But my good intentions--gone. Poof. Kaput.
Up next: why I'm not enjoying The Magicians.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
GodGrrl
I know you're not going to believe this, but I'm rereading Girl Meets God.
I don't think I've ever reread a book I actively disliked before. I knew it was well-written; in fact, I think one of the reasons I disliked it so passionately before is because I so wanted to like it. I love spiritual memoirs, especially those that come from the type of place that this one comes from: an Orthodox Jew (by conversion; her mother was not Jewish) comes to Christianity. She's an intellectual, with (by now) a PhD in history, who reads voraciously and name-drops the great thinkers of religion and history and really any form of non-scientific thought.
This is the person I want to read a spiritual memoir from, for two main reasons. First, as an academic, I assume that her explanations are going to be clear and well-argued. And she is an excellent writer.
Similarly, secondly, as a convert, something drew her from NOT believing in Jesus to believing. This is the piece I'm often looking for in a book like this. It's why I read C. S. Lewis's Mere Christianity. How do you go from believing that the mythology* of Christianity is false to believing it's true?
These two reasons go together: I think she's going to explain this to me, and I have always assumed that there's some big piece of logic that I'm missing that makes people begin to believe something that goes against my understanding of the world, as based on the observations I've made by living in it.
But yesterday, I found the point in the book that points out my error, and explains why Lauren Winner is not the one to explain this to me. A professor of hers, an atheist, has always been confused about her religiosity--first Jewish and later Christian. "'One day you'll have to explain to me how intelligent people can believe in something that sounds like a Greco-Roman myth,' he says. 'You know: Zeus, Demeter, Jesus.'"
This is the point she makes in the book. This is how she reads that comment. "Admittedly, it is a little crazy. Grand, infinite God taking on the squalling form of a human baby boy. It's what some of the old-timers call a scandal, the scandal of the Gospel." That's what she thinks he doesn't get about Christianity--or at least, that's what she thinks is worth being bewildered about. Not the idea of believing, not just in the idea of an infinite power out there in the world, but that that power cares that you sip wine from a certain cup on Sundays, or who has sexual intercourse with whom, before or after which third party conducts a certain ceremony. And that there was a guy who walked on water one time a few thousand years ago, and now a few thousand years later, we're being foolish if we don't believe that, in spite of everything we know or have ever seen in the world.
Now, I can follow her; her argument about why God cares about our petty lives--if he cares about us at all, the only way or reason to do it would be down in the weeds of our day-to-day experience. But the fact is, she starts out believing that God is there. The whole exploration, argument, transition of the book is not learning to believe in God, in things that don't make 'sense.' It's about finding a shape for that belief. And that's why her book isn't speaking to me.
Having learned that, I'm able to enjoy the book better this time around, because I can read it on its own terms, not mine. Does this mean I've grown up a lot?
*I don't mean to be pejorative when I use the word "mythology." I only want to make the distinction between the detailed parts of belief that are about things that may or may not have happened historically that don't fit with a non-religious view of the world, as distinct from the part of religion that is about believing in things that are beyond the realm of physical experience entirely, and therefore can't be addressed by science at all.
I don't think I've ever reread a book I actively disliked before. I knew it was well-written; in fact, I think one of the reasons I disliked it so passionately before is because I so wanted to like it. I love spiritual memoirs, especially those that come from the type of place that this one comes from: an Orthodox Jew (by conversion; her mother was not Jewish) comes to Christianity. She's an intellectual, with (by now) a PhD in history, who reads voraciously and name-drops the great thinkers of religion and history and really any form of non-scientific thought.
This is the person I want to read a spiritual memoir from, for two main reasons. First, as an academic, I assume that her explanations are going to be clear and well-argued. And she is an excellent writer.
Similarly, secondly, as a convert, something drew her from NOT believing in Jesus to believing. This is the piece I'm often looking for in a book like this. It's why I read C. S. Lewis's Mere Christianity. How do you go from believing that the mythology* of Christianity is false to believing it's true?
These two reasons go together: I think she's going to explain this to me, and I have always assumed that there's some big piece of logic that I'm missing that makes people begin to believe something that goes against my understanding of the world, as based on the observations I've made by living in it.
But yesterday, I found the point in the book that points out my error, and explains why Lauren Winner is not the one to explain this to me. A professor of hers, an atheist, has always been confused about her religiosity--first Jewish and later Christian. "'One day you'll have to explain to me how intelligent people can believe in something that sounds like a Greco-Roman myth,' he says. 'You know: Zeus, Demeter, Jesus.'"
This is the point she makes in the book. This is how she reads that comment. "Admittedly, it is a little crazy. Grand, infinite God taking on the squalling form of a human baby boy. It's what some of the old-timers call a scandal, the scandal of the Gospel." That's what she thinks he doesn't get about Christianity--or at least, that's what she thinks is worth being bewildered about. Not the idea of believing, not just in the idea of an infinite power out there in the world, but that that power cares that you sip wine from a certain cup on Sundays, or who has sexual intercourse with whom, before or after which third party conducts a certain ceremony. And that there was a guy who walked on water one time a few thousand years ago, and now a few thousand years later, we're being foolish if we don't believe that, in spite of everything we know or have ever seen in the world.
Now, I can follow her; her argument about why God cares about our petty lives--if he cares about us at all, the only way or reason to do it would be down in the weeds of our day-to-day experience. But the fact is, she starts out believing that God is there. The whole exploration, argument, transition of the book is not learning to believe in God, in things that don't make 'sense.' It's about finding a shape for that belief. And that's why her book isn't speaking to me.
Having learned that, I'm able to enjoy the book better this time around, because I can read it on its own terms, not mine. Does this mean I've grown up a lot?
*I don't mean to be pejorative when I use the word "mythology." I only want to make the distinction between the detailed parts of belief that are about things that may or may not have happened historically that don't fit with a non-religious view of the world, as distinct from the part of religion that is about believing in things that are beyond the realm of physical experience entirely, and therefore can't be addressed by science at all.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
It Can't Be That Easy
The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right, by Atul Gawande, is a very short little book about how surgery around the world--in America's best hospitals and the Third World's most overworked--can have improved outcomes with a simple checklist. The frame of the book is the WHO's committee on improving surgery outcomes, given the fact that even simple surgery is statistically more dangerous than it needs to be.
It's such a simple argument, based around two points. 1) Some things are so complex that even the smartest, most talented, best trained people make silly mistakes, because there's so much to hold in your mind at every key moment. 2) Most things (like surgery) are done by a team, but teamwork is often not adequate to meet the group's needs. It's amazingly easy to establish a baseline level of teamwork with a simple, three minute introduction and briefing session before people work together.
That's the book, basically. There are interesting anecdotes about places where checklists are used successfully. (Pilots use huge numbers of checklists, and they make a remarkable difference.) You also get guidelines on putting together a good checklist. (It should be short. It should include things that need to be done and things that need to be communicated. The "pause point," where you stop to use your checklist, should be made explicit.) You get great anecdotes from different fields about places where the checklist can actually make a difference.
In general, this short book is an intriguing read. The thing that really sticks with me, though, and that I'm most glad to have read, is the author's analysis of complexity. Things can be simple, complicated, or complex. He gives examples: simple is making dinner--a few ingredients, a few steps, a few basic skills. Complicated is building a rocket to fly to the moon--lots of in-depth knowledge, lots of working parts that go together and areas of expertise. But once you've built it, you know how to do it and can do it again. The physics is there, and with all the ingredients, steps, and skills, it can be done.
Complex is raising a child. Each one is slightly different. There are no rules or laws, and there are things that affect the outcome that you have no idea are part of the project. You can do the same exact thing with two different children and get different outcomes. It can't be sufficiently broken down. Surgery, he points out, is complex. Two patients going into the same surgery, treated with the same level of skill, can have different outcomes. Their bodies are different; the differences in the surgery itself that will affect the outcome can be so subtle as to be unidentifiable. It's complex.
I can't quite explain why this discussion--why the very idea that skilled, talented surgeons need a checklist, need to run through their to-do list--affects me so strongly. I think it might be that I feel exonerated for a lot of my own failures. I'm a bright person, and when I make "stupid" mistakes, I feel like I'm failing on a really deep level. I should be able to do this, to remember that, to handle it. Sometimes, though, it's really complex. Even the best minds need help. I'm doing okay.
It's such a simple argument, based around two points. 1) Some things are so complex that even the smartest, most talented, best trained people make silly mistakes, because there's so much to hold in your mind at every key moment. 2) Most things (like surgery) are done by a team, but teamwork is often not adequate to meet the group's needs. It's amazingly easy to establish a baseline level of teamwork with a simple, three minute introduction and briefing session before people work together.
That's the book, basically. There are interesting anecdotes about places where checklists are used successfully. (Pilots use huge numbers of checklists, and they make a remarkable difference.) You also get guidelines on putting together a good checklist. (It should be short. It should include things that need to be done and things that need to be communicated. The "pause point," where you stop to use your checklist, should be made explicit.) You get great anecdotes from different fields about places where the checklist can actually make a difference.
In general, this short book is an intriguing read. The thing that really sticks with me, though, and that I'm most glad to have read, is the author's analysis of complexity. Things can be simple, complicated, or complex. He gives examples: simple is making dinner--a few ingredients, a few steps, a few basic skills. Complicated is building a rocket to fly to the moon--lots of in-depth knowledge, lots of working parts that go together and areas of expertise. But once you've built it, you know how to do it and can do it again. The physics is there, and with all the ingredients, steps, and skills, it can be done.
Complex is raising a child. Each one is slightly different. There are no rules or laws, and there are things that affect the outcome that you have no idea are part of the project. You can do the same exact thing with two different children and get different outcomes. It can't be sufficiently broken down. Surgery, he points out, is complex. Two patients going into the same surgery, treated with the same level of skill, can have different outcomes. Their bodies are different; the differences in the surgery itself that will affect the outcome can be so subtle as to be unidentifiable. It's complex.
I can't quite explain why this discussion--why the very idea that skilled, talented surgeons need a checklist, need to run through their to-do list--affects me so strongly. I think it might be that I feel exonerated for a lot of my own failures. I'm a bright person, and when I make "stupid" mistakes, I feel like I'm failing on a really deep level. I should be able to do this, to remember that, to handle it. Sometimes, though, it's really complex. Even the best minds need help. I'm doing okay.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Where Have I Been, You Ask?
Covering my head in shame, dear reader. This whole Personal Library Renaissance--which was supposed to begin in December--is going so, so poorly.
Between reserve books that come in from the library--I've been waiting for months, and I only get three weeks with it; what am I supposed to do?--and the books that are sitting there RIGHT UNDER MY NOSE at the Storefront Library (which is closing in a week, so I have a time limit here, people!), I have not begun this long overdue plunge into my own books. And it's not getting much better--I brought home three new books from the Storefront last week.
But I'm here today to tell you, my loyal readers, that I have a new plan. I'm doing a tandem thing, wherein I read one of my books and one of the outside world's books at the same time. So far it's even working! So hopefully, my goal list of personal books to read might be winnowed down.
Right now, the pairing is all nonfiction. I picked up Covering, by Kenji Yoshino, at the library last week. It was just sitting there on the counter, so I read the chapter that sounded most interesting, and then I had to bring it home to finish it. It's a book by a gay Japanese law professor at Yale, about how, even though our society no longer expects outsiders to convert or pass, there are more insidious demands that you assimilate, or "cover" your unusual identity. That minorities are asked to "act white" to succeed, and that gay people can be out of the closet but can't kiss on the street. Women in high-powered careers who want to stay off the mommy-track need to downplay their kids, and even their nurturing sides.
It's really interesting, and if it's a little overwritten (the author was a poet before he was a lawyer), it's also very clear and analytical (he is a lawyer, after all). A lot of the analysis talks about being gay, but mostly as an example that's both visible and invisible--gay people have been expected to not be gay, or to pretend not to be gay, and now to not be too gay. Few of the other groups he addresses have historically had all three experiences.
The book I own that I'm reading is Candyfreak, by Steve Almond. It was a birthday gift, and I have to say that six months is not a bad lead time for me to pick something up, so I feel that I'm growing. It's not profound or anything, it's just about all the different, crazy kinds of candy we have in the US, by a guy who loves them all. I'm surprised by how much I like it already--he's a good writer.
I just finished a great book, The Checklist Manifesto, that I want to talk about more, but I'm going to save that for another post. I'm back, and I really hope to get back to posting three times a week. Thanks for sticking around and reading!
Between reserve books that come in from the library--I've been waiting for months, and I only get three weeks with it; what am I supposed to do?--and the books that are sitting there RIGHT UNDER MY NOSE at the Storefront Library (which is closing in a week, so I have a time limit here, people!), I have not begun this long overdue plunge into my own books. And it's not getting much better--I brought home three new books from the Storefront last week.
But I'm here today to tell you, my loyal readers, that I have a new plan. I'm doing a tandem thing, wherein I read one of my books and one of the outside world's books at the same time. So far it's even working! So hopefully, my goal list of personal books to read might be winnowed down.
Right now, the pairing is all nonfiction. I picked up Covering, by Kenji Yoshino, at the library last week. It was just sitting there on the counter, so I read the chapter that sounded most interesting, and then I had to bring it home to finish it. It's a book by a gay Japanese law professor at Yale, about how, even though our society no longer expects outsiders to convert or pass, there are more insidious demands that you assimilate, or "cover" your unusual identity. That minorities are asked to "act white" to succeed, and that gay people can be out of the closet but can't kiss on the street. Women in high-powered careers who want to stay off the mommy-track need to downplay their kids, and even their nurturing sides.
It's really interesting, and if it's a little overwritten (the author was a poet before he was a lawyer), it's also very clear and analytical (he is a lawyer, after all). A lot of the analysis talks about being gay, but mostly as an example that's both visible and invisible--gay people have been expected to not be gay, or to pretend not to be gay, and now to not be too gay. Few of the other groups he addresses have historically had all three experiences.
The book I own that I'm reading is Candyfreak, by Steve Almond. It was a birthday gift, and I have to say that six months is not a bad lead time for me to pick something up, so I feel that I'm growing. It's not profound or anything, it's just about all the different, crazy kinds of candy we have in the US, by a guy who loves them all. I'm surprised by how much I like it already--he's a good writer.
I just finished a great book, The Checklist Manifesto, that I want to talk about more, but I'm going to save that for another post. I'm back, and I really hope to get back to posting three times a week. Thanks for sticking around and reading!
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
Not Too Picky
I don't want to nitpick too much about this one, but I think it's interesting not to make note of it.
Last week, I finished Hangman, by Chris Bohjalian. It's one of his earliest books--his second or third, it's kind of unclear. An it was pretty mediocre, to tell you the truth--actually bordering on bad. But there were a few things that were really interesting about reading it. I guess you could put them into two categories: ways in which this otherwise totally different book is similar to his other work, and ways in which it's different.
The different is, of course, the most striking. It's not that startling to find a Chris Bohjalian book that reads like it was written by Chris Bohjalian. It is fascinating, however, to find a book that's written by someone who seems pretty clearly to have sat down at his keyboard and said, "If Stephen King can do it, I can do it."
You can see the skeleton of a Stephen King book here, and maybe a good one. You've got the spooky house, the unexplained suicide, a very King reveal at the end. But he's a realist at heart, and he missed a few beats when dealing with the supernatural. A number of characters buy the "evil house" explanation with way less proof, reluctance, and skepticism than anyone at all would have displayed. The sage old Vermonters who know about the house's history are more overtly credulous than any sage old New Englanders I know.
More surprisingly, though, there are other notes that Bohjalian hits wrong, ones that should be right in his wheelhouse. Most of his books take place in Vermont, and I've never seen him lay on the accents and the countrified talk so heavy-handedly. I have to doubt that a cop--a detective who investigates murders and presumably has been around a good number of grieving people--has actually never seen someone who responded to grief by shutting down, staring into space, having trouble focusing. He claims never to have seen that response.
And I'm sorry, but I don't care how gorgeous she is, or how unusual it is--a good, solid, professional cop does not throw all judgment aside because he's got the hots for the murder (?) victim's widow, the prime suspect. I had a hard time even liking the character after that, even though I was supposed to.
So: not a successful King book, but not a successful Bohjalian, either. I found the resolution to the story to be somewhat satisfying--at least not as unsatisfying as an ending with more realism would have been. It was just a weak story, though, all around.
I almost find it heartening, though. Bohjalian is a polished, skilled writer, a master at what he does. I haven't liked all his books, but I've never found them clunky. It's pretty exciting to see that he didn't spring full-grown into the world with these skills. Early work sucks sometimes. Practice really does make perfect; revision really can improve mediocre work. There's hope for the rest of us.
Last week, I finished Hangman, by Chris Bohjalian. It's one of his earliest books--his second or third, it's kind of unclear. An it was pretty mediocre, to tell you the truth--actually bordering on bad. But there were a few things that were really interesting about reading it. I guess you could put them into two categories: ways in which this otherwise totally different book is similar to his other work, and ways in which it's different.
The different is, of course, the most striking. It's not that startling to find a Chris Bohjalian book that reads like it was written by Chris Bohjalian. It is fascinating, however, to find a book that's written by someone who seems pretty clearly to have sat down at his keyboard and said, "If Stephen King can do it, I can do it."
You can see the skeleton of a Stephen King book here, and maybe a good one. You've got the spooky house, the unexplained suicide, a very King reveal at the end. But he's a realist at heart, and he missed a few beats when dealing with the supernatural. A number of characters buy the "evil house" explanation with way less proof, reluctance, and skepticism than anyone at all would have displayed. The sage old Vermonters who know about the house's history are more overtly credulous than any sage old New Englanders I know.
More surprisingly, though, there are other notes that Bohjalian hits wrong, ones that should be right in his wheelhouse. Most of his books take place in Vermont, and I've never seen him lay on the accents and the countrified talk so heavy-handedly. I have to doubt that a cop--a detective who investigates murders and presumably has been around a good number of grieving people--has actually never seen someone who responded to grief by shutting down, staring into space, having trouble focusing. He claims never to have seen that response.
And I'm sorry, but I don't care how gorgeous she is, or how unusual it is--a good, solid, professional cop does not throw all judgment aside because he's got the hots for the murder (?) victim's widow, the prime suspect. I had a hard time even liking the character after that, even though I was supposed to.
So: not a successful King book, but not a successful Bohjalian, either. I found the resolution to the story to be somewhat satisfying--at least not as unsatisfying as an ending with more realism would have been. It was just a weak story, though, all around.
I almost find it heartening, though. Bohjalian is a polished, skilled writer, a master at what he does. I haven't liked all his books, but I've never found them clunky. It's pretty exciting to see that he didn't spring full-grown into the world with these skills. Early work sucks sometimes. Practice really does make perfect; revision really can improve mediocre work. There's hope for the rest of us.
Monday, January 04, 2010
Kristy Thomas Rules The World
They are reissuing the Babysitter's Club!
To be honest, this didn't hit me as hard as it might have, since a) they published new ones up until 2000, and b) I had no idea that they had stopped. I mean, I knew they were up near 150 or so in the series--who am I to say when that happened?
Can I just say that my Dream Job Ever In Life would be ghostwriting Babysitters Club books? I want to be Kristy Thomas. She's freaking awesome. She's got ideas, she makes them happen. She's a CEO at the age of 13, and she's got the babysitting game in Stoneybrook, Connecticut sewn up. She runs a softball team in a league she started herself. Her stepfather is filthy rich, so she lives in the lap of luxury, but she keeps it real, yo, wearing jeans, a turtleneck and a sweater every day. Some things never go out of style.
So by now you may have guessed that BSC books are a serious addiction for me. They're like Pez, or maybe cocaine--once I start on a binge, I go through a ton of them in a weekend. I mean, if you skip the first chapter (where each character is described, including the preteen clothing and hairstyle porn, and the business is outlined, including the definition of KidKits and the fact that they have auxiliary members--seriously, I know my stuff). Sometimes I'll go to the library and check out six or so, and read them all in one day. It might not be completely healthy.
They're making some minor updating changes--most people no longer get perms and listen to portable cassette players. I'm curious how much they'll change the clothes--there are elaborate clothing descriptions that are used to communicate to the savvy reader who's cool and who's not, but I suspect that jumpsuits and sweaterdresses don't mean the same things now that they did then. Fingerless gloves have come back in, but they're less black-lace-Madonna than knitted-hobo-chic. So who knows?
All I know is, as soon as I'm allowed back in the library, I'm heading over stat. I'm pretty sure there's a run between 100 and 114 that I've never read that have promising titles (Stacey's Secret Friend and Claudia Kishi, Middle School Dropout). I love it!
To be honest, this didn't hit me as hard as it might have, since a) they published new ones up until 2000, and b) I had no idea that they had stopped. I mean, I knew they were up near 150 or so in the series--who am I to say when that happened?
Can I just say that my Dream Job Ever In Life would be ghostwriting Babysitters Club books? I want to be Kristy Thomas. She's freaking awesome. She's got ideas, she makes them happen. She's a CEO at the age of 13, and she's got the babysitting game in Stoneybrook, Connecticut sewn up. She runs a softball team in a league she started herself. Her stepfather is filthy rich, so she lives in the lap of luxury, but she keeps it real, yo, wearing jeans, a turtleneck and a sweater every day. Some things never go out of style.
So by now you may have guessed that BSC books are a serious addiction for me. They're like Pez, or maybe cocaine--once I start on a binge, I go through a ton of them in a weekend. I mean, if you skip the first chapter (where each character is described, including the preteen clothing and hairstyle porn, and the business is outlined, including the definition of KidKits and the fact that they have auxiliary members--seriously, I know my stuff). Sometimes I'll go to the library and check out six or so, and read them all in one day. It might not be completely healthy.
They're making some minor updating changes--most people no longer get perms and listen to portable cassette players. I'm curious how much they'll change the clothes--there are elaborate clothing descriptions that are used to communicate to the savvy reader who's cool and who's not, but I suspect that jumpsuits and sweaterdresses don't mean the same things now that they did then. Fingerless gloves have come back in, but they're less black-lace-Madonna than knitted-hobo-chic. So who knows?
All I know is, as soon as I'm allowed back in the library, I'm heading over stat. I'm pretty sure there's a run between 100 and 114 that I've never read that have promising titles (Stacey's Secret Friend and Claudia Kishi, Middle School Dropout). I love it!
Thursday, December 31, 2009
End of the Year Round Up
So, I was thinking of doing a top ten list, but I just can't do those. Top ten books I'd want to read again? Books I had fun reading? Books I would take to an island with me? Books that changed my life? No, no.
Instead: ten notable books that I read this year. Not that they were published this year, just ten books that I read this year that I would like to mention, made note of, nod to. It's an amalgam of books I'm glad I've read and ones I'd like to read again, books that made me laugh and books that I have respect for.
In no particular order:
1) Fool, by Christopher Moore. Gritty and smart and fast and so amazingly funny. King Lear's fool is holding his small world--and the kingdom--together by the skin of his teeth.
2) The Safe-Keeper's Secret, by Sharon Shinn. So unremarkable I can only say that this book is on the list because I read it months ago and just cannot stop thinking about it. It beat out a lot of more action-packed and popular books, because it was so totally engrossing. The daughter of a safe-keeper--someone who will keep any secret told to her, forever--is trying to figure out what it takes to be a safe-keeper herself.
3) Bloody Jack, by L.A. Meyer. The whole series could stand in here; I can't believe I read them all this year. There is no romp quite like it--the story of a ten year old street urchin who changes her name from Mary to Jack and signs on as a ship's boy in Her Majesty's Royal Navy. Everyday sailing, wild adventures, and a secret to keep. All the swashbuckling you could hope for.
4) The Queen of Attolia and The King of Attolia, by Megan Whalen Turner. I put these together, because I just couldn't choose one over the other. The series begins with The Thief, but I think these stories contain more intrigue and complexity, and I like them better. The crafty character who's one step ahead of everyone else--great stuff.
5) American Wife, by Curtis Sittenfeld. I would never in a million years have believed that you could make me understand how a reasonable person could find herself married to someone (exactly) like George W. Bush, but here you have it. A lovely, sympathetic account of a very reasonable woman whose life is shaped by the man she married.
6) The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. A feel-good page turner about a reporter in the late 1940s corresponding with, visiting, and writing the story of the residents of the island of Guernsey, which lies between England and France and was occupied by the Nazis during the war.
7) City of Thieves, by David Benioff. Another war story, somehow, this one in St. Petersburg during the Seige of Leningrad. The balance of humor and pathos, light and dark, hope and grim, horrifying reality, is just amazing. Two young men, condemned under military law for breaking curfew, will be spared if they can find the general a dozen eggs--in a city where thousands are starving.
8) The Mysterious Benedict Society, by Trenton Lee Stewart. I would have said that you couldn't write a book for kids this young that is this complex. But I would be wrong. Four brilliant kids, their mentors, and a conspiracy to take over the world that only they can solve. Plus puzzles.
9) In Defense of Food, by Michael Pollan. I can't say I didn't already know what he had to say, but I was impressed with how effectively he presented his arguments in such a short book. It's laid out very sensibly. This is a topic that I think a lot about, especially about the institutional changes that need to happen in the world we live in.
10) Chalice, by Robin McKinley. Another one that I just can't stop thinking about. I'll tell you, I'm not even fully sure this is a great book. It might be kind of clunky. But there is something about the quiet stillness of the story, the character who's balancing her small life, politics that she's been sucked into, and the lives that are on the line and in her hands, that just won't let me go. I want to read it again.
There you have it. When I went through my book journal, these are the ones that jumped out at me, the ones I wanted to point out. Some general statistics: I read 104 books total this year, which is an average of about 8 per month. A really surprising majority of them were young adult or children's books, and a lot were fantasy. I knew I read a lot of that, but this year, I think it was a much higher proportion even than usual.
Except for the series that I'm eager to follow, I think I've begun to swing the other way. Not that I'm not going to keep reading a lot of these, and not that I don't still love them. But if I have time, I think it's time to get into something meatier. Even for light reading, there are more substantial choices out there. I'm about to enter a Personal Library Renaissance. I've got a great queue in place. I hope I have enough time to keep up!
Happy New Year, everyone!
Instead: ten notable books that I read this year. Not that they were published this year, just ten books that I read this year that I would like to mention, made note of, nod to. It's an amalgam of books I'm glad I've read and ones I'd like to read again, books that made me laugh and books that I have respect for.
In no particular order:
1) Fool, by Christopher Moore. Gritty and smart and fast and so amazingly funny. King Lear's fool is holding his small world--and the kingdom--together by the skin of his teeth.
2) The Safe-Keeper's Secret, by Sharon Shinn. So unremarkable I can only say that this book is on the list because I read it months ago and just cannot stop thinking about it. It beat out a lot of more action-packed and popular books, because it was so totally engrossing. The daughter of a safe-keeper--someone who will keep any secret told to her, forever--is trying to figure out what it takes to be a safe-keeper herself.
3) Bloody Jack, by L.A. Meyer. The whole series could stand in here; I can't believe I read them all this year. There is no romp quite like it--the story of a ten year old street urchin who changes her name from Mary to Jack and signs on as a ship's boy in Her Majesty's Royal Navy. Everyday sailing, wild adventures, and a secret to keep. All the swashbuckling you could hope for.
4) The Queen of Attolia and The King of Attolia, by Megan Whalen Turner. I put these together, because I just couldn't choose one over the other. The series begins with The Thief, but I think these stories contain more intrigue and complexity, and I like them better. The crafty character who's one step ahead of everyone else--great stuff.
5) American Wife, by Curtis Sittenfeld. I would never in a million years have believed that you could make me understand how a reasonable person could find herself married to someone (exactly) like George W. Bush, but here you have it. A lovely, sympathetic account of a very reasonable woman whose life is shaped by the man she married.
6) The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows. A feel-good page turner about a reporter in the late 1940s corresponding with, visiting, and writing the story of the residents of the island of Guernsey, which lies between England and France and was occupied by the Nazis during the war.
7) City of Thieves, by David Benioff. Another war story, somehow, this one in St. Petersburg during the Seige of Leningrad. The balance of humor and pathos, light and dark, hope and grim, horrifying reality, is just amazing. Two young men, condemned under military law for breaking curfew, will be spared if they can find the general a dozen eggs--in a city where thousands are starving.
8) The Mysterious Benedict Society, by Trenton Lee Stewart. I would have said that you couldn't write a book for kids this young that is this complex. But I would be wrong. Four brilliant kids, their mentors, and a conspiracy to take over the world that only they can solve. Plus puzzles.
9) In Defense of Food, by Michael Pollan. I can't say I didn't already know what he had to say, but I was impressed with how effectively he presented his arguments in such a short book. It's laid out very sensibly. This is a topic that I think a lot about, especially about the institutional changes that need to happen in the world we live in.
10) Chalice, by Robin McKinley. Another one that I just can't stop thinking about. I'll tell you, I'm not even fully sure this is a great book. It might be kind of clunky. But there is something about the quiet stillness of the story, the character who's balancing her small life, politics that she's been sucked into, and the lives that are on the line and in her hands, that just won't let me go. I want to read it again.
There you have it. When I went through my book journal, these are the ones that jumped out at me, the ones I wanted to point out. Some general statistics: I read 104 books total this year, which is an average of about 8 per month. A really surprising majority of them were young adult or children's books, and a lot were fantasy. I knew I read a lot of that, but this year, I think it was a much higher proportion even than usual.
Except for the series that I'm eager to follow, I think I've begun to swing the other way. Not that I'm not going to keep reading a lot of these, and not that I don't still love them. But if I have time, I think it's time to get into something meatier. Even for light reading, there are more substantial choices out there. I'm about to enter a Personal Library Renaissance. I've got a great queue in place. I hope I have enough time to keep up!
Happy New Year, everyone!
Friday, December 25, 2009
Holiday Greetings
I'm not getting as much reading done this Christmas as I normally do, partly because the baby has to be looked after all the time. Even last year, mostly you just had to sit near him and occasionally dangle something over him. This year, there's so much following and restraining and fishing things out of his mouth, even loving grandparents can only go on for so long.
So I'm still reading the same two books I've been on for a while: Terry Pratchett's Soul Music, which is okay (which is practically a negative review for a Discworld book) and Chris Bohjalian's Hangman, which is actually a pretty good horror-type story so far, and pretty unlike all of his other books. You can feel how young he was as a writer--his style is definitely there, but not as tight--but the plot is totally different from what made him famous. I'm really enjoying it, actually.
I got a couple of great books for Christmas, including the new book of stories, Fire, by Peter Dickinson and Robin McKinley (their previous one, Water, was excellent) and my own copy of Poison Study, which is so fun, and which I'll probably have to lend to Brenda if she's accepting recommendations from me. Also, Mike got My Life in France, by Julia Child, which has me pretty excited, too.
I really want to get a lot more reading done on this vacation. So I'm going to go curl up with the Bohjalian horror and get creeped out until the extended in-laws arrive in a few hours for a huge meal.
And in that spirit: Happy Christmas to all!
So I'm still reading the same two books I've been on for a while: Terry Pratchett's Soul Music, which is okay (which is practically a negative review for a Discworld book) and Chris Bohjalian's Hangman, which is actually a pretty good horror-type story so far, and pretty unlike all of his other books. You can feel how young he was as a writer--his style is definitely there, but not as tight--but the plot is totally different from what made him famous. I'm really enjoying it, actually.
I got a couple of great books for Christmas, including the new book of stories, Fire, by Peter Dickinson and Robin McKinley (their previous one, Water, was excellent) and my own copy of Poison Study, which is so fun, and which I'll probably have to lend to Brenda if she's accepting recommendations from me. Also, Mike got My Life in France, by Julia Child, which has me pretty excited, too.
I really want to get a lot more reading done on this vacation. So I'm going to go curl up with the Bohjalian horror and get creeped out until the extended in-laws arrive in a few hours for a huge meal.
And in that spirit: Happy Christmas to all!
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
How Many Wookiees Does It Take To Screw In A Light Bulb?
I'm kind of writing this post out of a sense of duty, I guess. I mean, I'm reading Carrie Fisher's Wishful Drinking, which is a memoir-type book that's actually based on her one woman show. So it's almost like reading a script, but not quite.
It's hard to judge this as a book. It's quite clearly a transcription of something spoken, and like a lot of things like this, it loses something in the translation. It's amazing how much a live performance can carry things you don't expect it to. Not just things like humor, though of course punch lines are funnier delivered out loud. But transitions--God, the transitions! Many parts of this just seem to be a string of almost entirely unrelated anecdotes. I really think those parts would play better in person, too--as though each one called the others to mind. You don't really need to understand the connection, if you see the actor making the connection.
What it comes down to, though, is that I don't think it's as funny as it's meant to be. Again, I think watching the performance would have been much better. But I feel like a tragicomedy has to be really comic to let me laugh through the tragedy. And, even though Carrie Fisher's life isn't actually that tragic, the right balance of comedy just isn't there.
I will say, though, that I'm totally going to read Postcards from the Edge now. So she's done at least something right.
It's hard to judge this as a book. It's quite clearly a transcription of something spoken, and like a lot of things like this, it loses something in the translation. It's amazing how much a live performance can carry things you don't expect it to. Not just things like humor, though of course punch lines are funnier delivered out loud. But transitions--God, the transitions! Many parts of this just seem to be a string of almost entirely unrelated anecdotes. I really think those parts would play better in person, too--as though each one called the others to mind. You don't really need to understand the connection, if you see the actor making the connection.
What it comes down to, though, is that I don't think it's as funny as it's meant to be. Again, I think watching the performance would have been much better. But I feel like a tragicomedy has to be really comic to let me laugh through the tragedy. And, even though Carrie Fisher's life isn't actually that tragic, the right balance of comedy just isn't there.
I will say, though, that I'm totally going to read Postcards from the Edge now. So she's done at least something right.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
In Defense of Literature
In the kind of situation where everything comes together in a cosmic one-ness, it turns out that How I Became a Famous Novelist ended up being a searing indictment of my attitude toward books in general. The narrator--who was ridiculously over the top in his scorn for literary writing--gets some major, serious comeuppance. Essentially, he gets schooled.
The big theme of the book is about truth. It's about how books tell the truth, and how, even when you flop at that, it's a worthwhile endeavor. And it's even about how people who write popular mysteries and Tom Clancy type thrillers are, at their best, trying to get something right, trying to tell something that they believe in--not literally, but in essence. That part, about how truth relates to fiction and how they're not opposites but close relatives, is so well said in this blog post by The Intern that I won't bother to remake her point. You should really read that post.
So this book--which is hilarious, and you should totally read it if you like books, because it's funny and the author is on the side of truth and justice--makes a point that I found really hit home. Basically, it's about a guy who calls bullshit on "lyrical prose" and whips together some junk that sounds like a bestseller. And lo and behold, it becomes a bestseller. But somehow, almost everyone sees through him. He's like a literary sociopath, faking all the things that normal people really feel and believe.
Now, I've always been up against this. I often find "literary fiction" to be like abstract art. I can see why Jackson Pollack is famous--look at one of his most famous pieces and they're truly beautiful. But if you take a middle-of-the-road piece of abstract art--something a museum might pay just a few thousand dollars for--and put it up next to something that someone slapped together in five minutes without thinking about it too hard, and I probably won't be able to tell the difference.
Now, this is probably less a comment on the art than it is on me as a viewer. But can you blame me for not wanting to hang it in my house?
So: do I dislike, do I scorn literary fiction? I can see how I come off over the top in this as I do in--well, most everything, really. But no--some of my favorite books are things like Cloud Atlas, Lying Awake, Knowledge of Angels. How do you even define literary fiction, anyway--non-genre? No, I'm not that demanding.
So here's what I like: a story in which something happens. This does not have to be a big something: in most nun books, they just pray and eat and chat and occasionally work in a hospital. The something can be entirely internal. But there must be significant change, significant motion in the story--the story must be driving at something.
What I don't care for: lots and lots of minutely observed detail about the lives of normal people with nothing much going on. (The exception to this is if it's really funny.) I enjoy good writing, but the perfect word choice doesn't keep me in a book. It's what occurs in the book--not just epic struggles or fast-paced events, but people doing and feeling and trying and realizing and deciding.
And there has to be a reason. Even if I can't put it into words, I have to feel like I understand why you're telling me this story, and why you think, it's worth it for me to read it. Maybe I'll disagree with you, and that's fine, but if I don't even understand what you think is important about the story, then I might call foul.
So I think my point is, I'm no Pete Tarslaw (he's the main character, read the book). Also, you should really, REALLY read How I Became a Famous Author, by Steve Hely. Superb stuff.
The big theme of the book is about truth. It's about how books tell the truth, and how, even when you flop at that, it's a worthwhile endeavor. And it's even about how people who write popular mysteries and Tom Clancy type thrillers are, at their best, trying to get something right, trying to tell something that they believe in--not literally, but in essence. That part, about how truth relates to fiction and how they're not opposites but close relatives, is so well said in this blog post by The Intern that I won't bother to remake her point. You should really read that post.
So this book--which is hilarious, and you should totally read it if you like books, because it's funny and the author is on the side of truth and justice--makes a point that I found really hit home. Basically, it's about a guy who calls bullshit on "lyrical prose" and whips together some junk that sounds like a bestseller. And lo and behold, it becomes a bestseller. But somehow, almost everyone sees through him. He's like a literary sociopath, faking all the things that normal people really feel and believe.
Now, I've always been up against this. I often find "literary fiction" to be like abstract art. I can see why Jackson Pollack is famous--look at one of his most famous pieces and they're truly beautiful. But if you take a middle-of-the-road piece of abstract art--something a museum might pay just a few thousand dollars for--and put it up next to something that someone slapped together in five minutes without thinking about it too hard, and I probably won't be able to tell the difference.
Now, this is probably less a comment on the art than it is on me as a viewer. But can you blame me for not wanting to hang it in my house?
So: do I dislike, do I scorn literary fiction? I can see how I come off over the top in this as I do in--well, most everything, really. But no--some of my favorite books are things like Cloud Atlas, Lying Awake, Knowledge of Angels. How do you even define literary fiction, anyway--non-genre? No, I'm not that demanding.
So here's what I like: a story in which something happens. This does not have to be a big something: in most nun books, they just pray and eat and chat and occasionally work in a hospital. The something can be entirely internal. But there must be significant change, significant motion in the story--the story must be driving at something.
What I don't care for: lots and lots of minutely observed detail about the lives of normal people with nothing much going on. (The exception to this is if it's really funny.) I enjoy good writing, but the perfect word choice doesn't keep me in a book. It's what occurs in the book--not just epic struggles or fast-paced events, but people doing and feeling and trying and realizing and deciding.
And there has to be a reason. Even if I can't put it into words, I have to feel like I understand why you're telling me this story, and why you think, it's worth it for me to read it. Maybe I'll disagree with you, and that's fine, but if I don't even understand what you think is important about the story, then I might call foul.
So I think my point is, I'm no Pete Tarslaw (he's the main character, read the book). Also, you should really, REALLY read How I Became a Famous Author, by Steve Hely. Superb stuff.
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
In Which Literature Is Mocked
Steve Hely is a very, very clever man. Sometimes, when I say this, it's an indictment, but so far, I'm riding high on his cleverness. My only worry is that, after this satire, I might never be able to read a literary novel again.
Sure, he deconstructs the modern "literary" novel with rules like "Include obscure plant names," and "Evoke confusing sadness at the end," and "Prose must be lyrical" ("lyrical" being defined as "resembling bad poetry"). These are things that I've pretty much observed myself. And yes, he takes a cynical view of the writer himself, pointing out that there are few better ways for a hairy old man in flannel to get young college girls to follow you around and maybe sleep with you.
But I think what's slaying me--both in the best of ways and in the risk of spoiling me for real books--is in his descriptions of the numerous fictitious novels that he mentions when his character walks through a bookstore. Some of the descriptions and titles are so on the nose that they're not really satire, just made up: Sageknights of Darkhorn, in which "Astrid Soulblighter attempts to reclaim the throne from the wicked Scarkrig clan," or Nick Boyle's Shock Blade: Lynchpin, in which "Admiral Chao threatens to destroy the Internet and the ShockBlade team is forced to ally with their Chinese rivals."
This was brought into sharper relief after I read the fictional NYT Best Sellers list in the book and then went poking around in Audible looking for some new audiobooks. The one sentence blurbs started to run together and blew my mind. Here, let me show you. Which of the below are made up and which are real?
"When Pippa Dunn, adopted as an infant and raised terribly British, discovers that her birth parents are from the American South, she finds that 'culture clash' has layers of meaning she never imagined."
"On a journey across the Midwest, a downsized factory worker named Gabriel touches the lives of several people wounded by life."
"On Nantucket, a beautiful nun who's given up on love finds herself attracted to a psychic who just may be a dangerous arsonist."
"Cassandra's much-loved grandmother, Nell, has just died, and Cassandra, her life already shaken by a tragic accident ten years ago, feels like she has lost everything known and dear to her."
Okay, maybe you could tell. But they're close. He's got a great ear for this stuff. And then, when the author starts slipping the narrator's "rules for a best seller" into the text (like, "during slow parts, include descriptions of elaborate meals"), my mind is just blown.
I can see people finding the humor to be too far on the mocking side. And I think the cynicism that the narrator ascribes to the idea of being a writer is harsh. But it's mostly pretty clear where the author's opinions and the narrator's diverge. And also, seriously, I'm laughing out loud.
Sure, he deconstructs the modern "literary" novel with rules like "Include obscure plant names," and "Evoke confusing sadness at the end," and "Prose must be lyrical" ("lyrical" being defined as "resembling bad poetry"). These are things that I've pretty much observed myself. And yes, he takes a cynical view of the writer himself, pointing out that there are few better ways for a hairy old man in flannel to get young college girls to follow you around and maybe sleep with you.
But I think what's slaying me--both in the best of ways and in the risk of spoiling me for real books--is in his descriptions of the numerous fictitious novels that he mentions when his character walks through a bookstore. Some of the descriptions and titles are so on the nose that they're not really satire, just made up: Sageknights of Darkhorn, in which "Astrid Soulblighter attempts to reclaim the throne from the wicked Scarkrig clan," or Nick Boyle's Shock Blade: Lynchpin, in which "Admiral Chao threatens to destroy the Internet and the ShockBlade team is forced to ally with their Chinese rivals."
This was brought into sharper relief after I read the fictional NYT Best Sellers list in the book and then went poking around in Audible looking for some new audiobooks. The one sentence blurbs started to run together and blew my mind. Here, let me show you. Which of the below are made up and which are real?
"When Pippa Dunn, adopted as an infant and raised terribly British, discovers that her birth parents are from the American South, she finds that 'culture clash' has layers of meaning she never imagined."
"On a journey across the Midwest, a downsized factory worker named Gabriel touches the lives of several people wounded by life."
"On Nantucket, a beautiful nun who's given up on love finds herself attracted to a psychic who just may be a dangerous arsonist."
"Cassandra's much-loved grandmother, Nell, has just died, and Cassandra, her life already shaken by a tragic accident ten years ago, feels like she has lost everything known and dear to her."
Okay, maybe you could tell. But they're close. He's got a great ear for this stuff. And then, when the author starts slipping the narrator's "rules for a best seller" into the text (like, "during slow parts, include descriptions of elaborate meals"), my mind is just blown.
I can see people finding the humor to be too far on the mocking side. And I think the cynicism that the narrator ascribes to the idea of being a writer is harsh. But it's mostly pretty clear where the author's opinions and the narrator's diverge. And also, seriously, I'm laughing out loud.
Saturday, December 05, 2009
Last One, I Swear
Okay, I finished SuperFreakonomics last night, and I found an anecdote the demonstrates my frustration with economic thought (as demonstrated in pop econ books). The anecdote is about monkeys, but the topic is actually beside the point, so I'll make the point without spoiling the book.
You flip a coin. If it's heads, you give your subject $1. If it's tails, you give them $2. Simple. Here's the twist: in one scenario, you put $1 on the table. If it's heads, they get that $1; if it's tails, you add $1 and they get both. In the other scenario, you lay $2 on the table. If it's heads, you take $1 away and they get the remaining one; if it's tails, they get both.
Now, it's very clear that these are the same scenario, and you get the same chance of getting the same amount of money. But people (and monkeys) prefer to play the game where $2 means you got a bonus dollar, rather than where $1 means you were penalized a dollar. This is irrational.
Well, yes, of course. That's what rational means, and I don't deny it. You'd think, though, with all their talk about 'incentives,' that they'd look for the incentive that's causing that decision. Something like the idea that hoping and being disappointed is a more uncomfortable feeling than having low expectations and having them met instead of exceeded. Maybe it's just that that's the province of psychologists, but for people so intensely interested in incentives and how we're shaped by them, they stop looking at the non-material things we care about mighty quickly.
And that's all I have to say about that.
You flip a coin. If it's heads, you give your subject $1. If it's tails, you give them $2. Simple. Here's the twist: in one scenario, you put $1 on the table. If it's heads, they get that $1; if it's tails, you add $1 and they get both. In the other scenario, you lay $2 on the table. If it's heads, you take $1 away and they get the remaining one; if it's tails, they get both.
Now, it's very clear that these are the same scenario, and you get the same chance of getting the same amount of money. But people (and monkeys) prefer to play the game where $2 means you got a bonus dollar, rather than where $1 means you were penalized a dollar. This is irrational.
Well, yes, of course. That's what rational means, and I don't deny it. You'd think, though, with all their talk about 'incentives,' that they'd look for the incentive that's causing that decision. Something like the idea that hoping and being disappointed is a more uncomfortable feeling than having low expectations and having them met instead of exceeded. Maybe it's just that that's the province of psychologists, but for people so intensely interested in incentives and how we're shaped by them, they stop looking at the non-material things we care about mighty quickly.
And that's all I have to say about that.
Friday, December 04, 2009
Knee Jerk Liberal?
So I've been putting off reading the end of SuperFreakonomics, because the chapter I'm on, the climate change chapter, has been pissing me off. It's the same thing that nags at me about the rest of the book, but I do find myself getting more irritable about it. I'm kind of startled by my reaction, actually--is it because I consider their statistical claims to be more misleading here, or because the issue is more important? Or just because of their somewhat sycophantic fawning over the scientists who claim that climate change is really just a nutty nutty fad that can be fixed by adding more chemicals to the atmosphere.
And this is the thing. I have to assume that these very famous people--an academic and a journalist, no less--put a lot more research into this book than my instincts can counteract. And I even buy into the fact that the worst case scenarios regarding climate change are very unlikely, and that a lot of information we get about the environment is intended to scare us.
That makes perfect sense. Because the truth is just as ugly, but not as startling to a layman. If you hear about breeds of bugs that are dying in the rain forest, you don't freak out like you do about polar bears, or even bees. And if you don't freak out, you don't do anything about it. The information I get is intended to convey the message: this is a big deal. So I don't fault anyone for being "alarmist."
But let's take the idea the authors present of someone's plan to counter global warming by injecting chemicals into the atmosphere that duplicate a volcanic eruption. Major volcanic eruptions are followed by cool periods, because of the matter that gets up into the stratosphere and does whatever it is--diffuses sunlight, I suppose. They explain it in the book. So they want to counter global warming by duplicating that.
Now, let's think about that. Instead of stopping these effects, we'll do more crazy things to this incredibly complex system that is the environment and hope that there's no fallout from THIS plan. It reminds me of the fact that the same guy who invented leaded gasoline also invented aerosol spray cans. And you know he was so proud of himself, because the world knew he'd done good things.
Also, they criticize the alarmists on one page, pointing out that even the best climate models aren't great, because the system that is the environment is SO complex, and then then a few pages later they defend an idea that I think is quite counterintuitive using evidence based on--wait for it--climate models.
Now, I'm about to read their defense, the part of the chapter where they say, "some people call this idea crazy," and then go on to counter some points. Maybe they'll put my fears to rest. But I doubt it, for the same reason I'm not sold on drunk driving being better than drunk walking, or that a good deed done to feel good about yourself (even if no one else knows) is not truly altruistic.
Is this book making me cranky? Sort of, but just in a venting way. Until the environment chapter, I was having a blast.
Update: In my defense, it's not just my instincts that say they're wrong about global warming. Here are some links about what's wrong with Chapter 5 of SuperFreakonomics.
William M. Connolley
Tim Lambert
Joe Romm Part I
Joe Romm Part II
Union of Concerned Scientists
I admit that I got all these references from each other, and that I don't know the players in this field, and so have only heard of the Union of Concerned Scientists. But my point is that there's a lot of debunking going on right now.
And this is the thing. I have to assume that these very famous people--an academic and a journalist, no less--put a lot more research into this book than my instincts can counteract. And I even buy into the fact that the worst case scenarios regarding climate change are very unlikely, and that a lot of information we get about the environment is intended to scare us.
That makes perfect sense. Because the truth is just as ugly, but not as startling to a layman. If you hear about breeds of bugs that are dying in the rain forest, you don't freak out like you do about polar bears, or even bees. And if you don't freak out, you don't do anything about it. The information I get is intended to convey the message: this is a big deal. So I don't fault anyone for being "alarmist."
But let's take the idea the authors present of someone's plan to counter global warming by injecting chemicals into the atmosphere that duplicate a volcanic eruption. Major volcanic eruptions are followed by cool periods, because of the matter that gets up into the stratosphere and does whatever it is--diffuses sunlight, I suppose. They explain it in the book. So they want to counter global warming by duplicating that.
Now, let's think about that. Instead of stopping these effects, we'll do more crazy things to this incredibly complex system that is the environment and hope that there's no fallout from THIS plan. It reminds me of the fact that the same guy who invented leaded gasoline also invented aerosol spray cans. And you know he was so proud of himself, because the world knew he'd done good things.
Also, they criticize the alarmists on one page, pointing out that even the best climate models aren't great, because the system that is the environment is SO complex, and then then a few pages later they defend an idea that I think is quite counterintuitive using evidence based on--wait for it--climate models.
Now, I'm about to read their defense, the part of the chapter where they say, "some people call this idea crazy," and then go on to counter some points. Maybe they'll put my fears to rest. But I doubt it, for the same reason I'm not sold on drunk driving being better than drunk walking, or that a good deed done to feel good about yourself (even if no one else knows) is not truly altruistic.
Is this book making me cranky? Sort of, but just in a venting way. Until the environment chapter, I was having a blast.
Update: In my defense, it's not just my instincts that say they're wrong about global warming. Here are some links about what's wrong with Chapter 5 of SuperFreakonomics.
William M. Connolley
Tim Lambert
Joe Romm Part I
Joe Romm Part II
Union of Concerned Scientists
I admit that I got all these references from each other, and that I don't know the players in this field, and so have only heard of the Union of Concerned Scientists. But my point is that there's a lot of debunking going on right now.
Wednesday, December 02, 2009
Discount Toothpaste
I had the intriguing experience recently of reading a children's book--not a picture book, a middle grade chapter book--that my husband had just read. He doesn't usually read all the YA and kids' stuff that I do--except the picture books we read to the baby, of course.
Anyway, it was a book that he had found at the library because he remembered it from childhood--The Toothpaste Millionaire, by Jean Merrill. It's about a kid who realizes that toothpaste costs too much, and that you can make it at home for about two cents a tube. So he makes it, and sells it, and everyone buys it, and the operation grows till he's running a big company.
It was kind of awesome. It was a little clunky, with a lot of math, and the story kind of goes off the rails at the end as he begins running other toothpaste companies out of business, but in general, most of the story is just about how hard work and a good business head will get you far in this world. It's a big how-to book, and there's nothing as much fun as a story full of how-to.
Mike, on the other hand, put it down halfway through. He found it boring. I asked, "Well, did you get to the part where his friend goes to an auction and buys 50 gross of empty tubes, but she doesn't know how much a gross in and thinks she has 50 dozen instead of like 7000 and they have to find a machine to fill them?"
Yes. Yes, he did.
"How could you put it down there? That's the most exciting bit!"
Apparently, books written for 10-year-olds are an acquired taste. If you love them, though, this book is kind of fun.
Anyway, it was a book that he had found at the library because he remembered it from childhood--The Toothpaste Millionaire, by Jean Merrill. It's about a kid who realizes that toothpaste costs too much, and that you can make it at home for about two cents a tube. So he makes it, and sells it, and everyone buys it, and the operation grows till he's running a big company.
It was kind of awesome. It was a little clunky, with a lot of math, and the story kind of goes off the rails at the end as he begins running other toothpaste companies out of business, but in general, most of the story is just about how hard work and a good business head will get you far in this world. It's a big how-to book, and there's nothing as much fun as a story full of how-to.
Mike, on the other hand, put it down halfway through. He found it boring. I asked, "Well, did you get to the part where his friend goes to an auction and buys 50 gross of empty tubes, but she doesn't know how much a gross in and thinks she has 50 dozen instead of like 7000 and they have to find a machine to fill them?"
Yes. Yes, he did.
"How could you put it down there? That's the most exciting bit!"
Apparently, books written for 10-year-olds are an acquired taste. If you love them, though, this book is kind of fun.
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