Wonderstruck (and an apology)

Wonderstruck

Yes, I realize I said I was reading something else, and am now writing up a totally different book. Readers will have to check out my apology at the end of the blog. It will explain why I've been all over the place.

Most of my readers understand my obsession with graphic novels, comics, and comic strips. They are a passion of mine, and I love the medium deeply. Brian Selznick's work has brought a new and refreshing voice to a genera all too dominated by its own strange form of hubris. Selznick's books tend to transcend the term graphic novel, and tend to make up their own category.  Most comics are broken into a system of panels, Selznick's books are full page, sometimes life sized, pencil drawings. The books are a tad unwieldy, his children's book The Invention of Hugo Cabret, clocks in at over 400 pages. Imagine that conversation with a publisher.

Wonderstruck is his attempt at a Young Adult novel. I use the word attempt, because I honestly think this can work for a really mature six or seven year old. His trademark illustrations are sharper and more honed than his previous novels. The stories are simple, sweet, and just lovely. Hell, it's difficult to find an author that writes about New York City that is not cynical. Selznick not only does that, but writes about NYC in the 70s, prior to the Disney make over of Time Square, and makes it seem wondrous. I'm hard pressed to find a better illustrated work this year. Anya's Ghost comes close, but I always felt that that book needed to be longer. At any rate, this book would make a wonderful holiday gift for that special young reader. Buy it in hardbound so the young one can impress all of his friends with the adult sized novel.

(Image brought to you by: bookshelfporn)

Dear readers, I'm so sorry that I've been all over the place the last few days. See, a week ago I quit smoking, and one of the lovely side effects is that I will have the inability to concentrate. Leave it to medical science to totally underestimate what I'm feeling. This is like having temporary ADD. I can barely hold a conversation with friends, I start projects and leave them half way done, and nothing keeps my attention for more than 30 seconds. According to all the stop smoking literature that I've found, the lack of concentration should be waning within the next week. If it doesn't I'm calling a doctor for some Adderall.

My next book, hopefully, is Leviathan. Also, I am going to the Austin Teen Book Festival this weekend. Leave a comment if you'd like to meet up. 

Banned Books Week

It's Banned Books Week, and it's time for the ubiquitous blog post about it.  A primer on the most challenged books can be found here, most frequently challenged books of 2010.

I've always found that humor is the best defense against stupidity, so I'm going to name off some of the most ridiculous reasons that books have been banned. 

The Diary of Anne Frank: Members of the Alabama State Textbook Committee called for the rejection of said book because it was “a real downer.” Get that? It's a downer. Leave it to text book officials to sum up the entire Holocaust by calling it a downer. 

Little Red Riding Hood: `It gives the younger ones the wrong impression about alcohol.' I'll admit, it's been a while since I've read this one. However, if a large wolf tries to eat me, after pretending to be my grandmother, I think I've earned a tiny glass of wine. 

Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary: It gives the definition of "oral sex". The dictionary also gives the definitions of war, torture, rape, and racism. What is more offensive? 

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: After complaints by parents stated that teachers "can choose the best books, but they keep choosing this garbage over and over again." I love this logic, I didn't like the book, lets ban it, so teachers are forced to pick something else.

Sons and Lovers: An Oklahoma City group called Mothers United for Decency hired a trailer, dubbed it "smutmobile," and displayed books deemed objectionable, including Lawrence's novel. If I ever write a novel I feel like the highest place of honor would be on something called a smutmobile. Also, if anyone ever finds a picture of this, I'm going to print it out and frame it. 

(Image brought to you by: thisisnthappiness)

Reading update....

Remember when I said I was reading The Monstrumologist? Well, I lied. I'm actually reading The Great Book of Amber: The Complete Amber Chronicles, 1-10. It's ten full books, so you'll have to give me some time on this. It will also allow me to free up some posting time for commentary.

I usually attempt to attribute artists to their work. Photographs, oil paintings, ect. This one is a bit of a challenge because every time I attempt to Google the art's name I get a pop singer. The closest possible thing I could discover is here, sina. If the artist ever stumbles upon this little blog at the unfashionable end of the internet, and realizes  that I have it all wrong, please leave a comment. I enjoyed the work on the blog and would love to look into purchasing. 

To Kill a Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird

"Courage is not a man with a gun in his hand. It's knowing you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do."

- spoken by Atticus Finch, by Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird 

How do I say things about this book that have not already been said?  How often have I wished that Scout and Atticus were real people. I wanted them for neighbors. I wanted them as friends. Why is it that I own three copies of this book? All three are in some state of disrepair. I've dropped them in bathtubs, I've left them in the sun, I've rolled over on them while sleeping, and I've used them to kill a big scary spider that was trying to kill me. It's a book that has landed itself on my Desert Island list. How do I convince people to pick this up and read it?

It's my wish that you do, dear readers. Rarely do I make appeals like this, but To Kill A Mocking Bird is the type of book that becomes part of you. It's story and prose end up becoming scattered quotes written at the bottom of letters to friends. They wind up on backs of postcards mailed overseas. The words will find their way into the notes section of Power Point printouts. There is a sense of peace that comes with completing this book that I rarely find. In fact, as I type this, I am 20 pages from the end. I've been ill, so by rights it has taken me longer, but part of me doesn't want the story to end. I just want to linger in Maycomb a little bit longer.

Also, it's Banned Books Week, and thus marks my first foray into the subject. Yes, this book is banned. Here are some of the reasons. I'll never understand why people pretend to be shocked that a book set in South in 1930 uses racial slurs. If we edit that part out of our history, and that part of our language we would be less of a people. Sure, they sting, but we need to understand why. To Kill a Mockingbird is a good place to start.

My next book will be, The Monstrumologist. It's been lingering on my shelf for months and if I don't read it it's going to fly off and smack me in the head.

(Image brought to you by: strangephenomena)

The Name of the Wind

The Name of the Wind

Patrick Rothfuss' debut novel is astonishing. Epic fantasy needed to be reinvented. Prior to this novel it was a stale genera, following very specific plot lines, and was becoming extraordinary predictable. Fans of epics were getting antsy. The Song of Ice and Fire series seemed to be the only outlet, and George R. R. Martin's writing style was under heavy fire. Rothfuss' novel came a long at the right time. As the Harry Potter generation was getting it's last book The Name of the Wind swooped in and provided another outlet for hungry fans. It's a new s series to obsess over, new magic to learn, and a new character to fall in love with.

Kvothe is the kind of character that only modern genera writing could produce. A lot of criticisms of fantasy center around sex and sexism. Honestly, said criticisms are warranted. Part of what drove me away from this genera was the sexism. The idea that men are able to be heroes and women are able to wait on them hand and foot gets tiresome. After reading novel after novel where the only female presence is either a whore or a princess, I felt like I needed to take a break. The Name of the Wind breaks the stereotype. The women in this novel are strong in their own right. They don't let Kvothe off the hook, and they give him a run for his money. And it's not just one woman that does this, it's all of them. Rothfuss levels the playing field for female characters in fantasy.

Another area of this book that made me really excited was its magic system. Too many times in fantasy magic is done with little or no explanation. Have a dragon to kill? Well, let's get a wizard to do that. Three pages later a magic spell saves everyone, and the troop moves on. As a reader, I shook my head. How does the magic work? Why not just create an army of wizards? Why not train everyone to do some magic? It's frustrating. Sympathy is part magic and part rough science. Having grown up with a father who's first love was Chemistry, Sympathy makes sense. Rothfuss goes into detail about how it works, why it works, and why it's incredibly dangerous. Also, and this is a testament to the author's writing style, it's not dull.  Giving explanations in short bursts over the entire novel was refreshing. It also made it seem far more realistic than a magical being popping out of nowhere to save the day.

All in all, I loved this book. My husband has saved himself as well, because the last book I read on his recommendation was Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. A novel I hated so much he was banned from giving me books for years. Pick this book up. It's worth the time, and is a delight to read.

Next up I'm rereading To Kill a Mockingbird. It's the next selection for my Required Reading Revisited book club. This will be the fifth time I've read Harper Lee's classic. I can't wait to write about it. I have so much to share.

(Image brought to you by: ideacious. This shelf is available for preorder, retails for $24. I'm buying several.) 

Link Round Up

World Book Night has their top 100 books: The WBN 2012 Top 100

The Daily Dish asks, Why Is Children's Literature So Authoritarian?

Reach Out and Read Hands Out 1.5 Million Books in 80 Days. I love stories like this.

The Book Booth, America's Smallest Library, Opens For Business. It's a lovely tiny library. I'd expect more of these to turn up in the future. I have a feeling that libraries will be large buildings located in large cities and small boxes like this will pop up in towns. It's easier to manage and will use less state resources.

Amazon in talks to launch digital book library: report. It's like NetFlix for books. If this happens I'll one of the first to sign up.

The perils and pleasures of long-running fantasy series. A solid article by the AV Club. It brings up many of the ugly sides of long running fantasy series. As a fan of the genera I agree with almost everything written.

Goodreads Introduces Netflix-Style Book Recommendations. I tried this, and the first book that popped up was a Children's book with Elmo on the cover. I think the algorithm needs some tweaking.

IKEA’s Billy Bookcase: The Real Story. The book world was chattering all week about the redesign of the Billy Bookcase by IKEA. Apparently, it is going to become deeper to accommodate nick nacks, and not books. This makes me very sad, as I am in the market for another bookcase.

Finally, Penguin Classics did a great series on banned Classics, with Banned Book Week coming up, it's a good primer. Also, this is a hint of what is to come. I plan a celebration for Banned Book Week.

(Image brought to you by: thelittlefox. Also, this is my new tote bag!) 

What I did on my summer vacation

I'm back from Alaska, and I had a wonderful time. Highs were in the 60s and lows were in the 40s. Mom and I drove out to Girdwood, Alaska and looked at the beautiful snow capped mountains. I also ate my weight in halibut  salmon, and moose (not the chocolate kind). I'm now back in Austin and it's a balmy 104. Sigh.

However, I did get a lot of reading done. So, on we go.

A Storm of Swords

George R. R. Martin's third installment in the A Song of Ice and Fire series is solid and wonderful. Clocking in at over 1100 pages, it's also a bit of a challenge. I am a huge fan of epic fantasy, and Martin's books are some of the best in recent years. His writing style lends to a lot of repetition, a necessary evil, keeping track of the characters is a bit of a challenge. The biggest issue I face with these books is that it's a lot of build up for ten chapters of payoff. I feel like these books can use the heavy hand of an editor to make them more accessible.  Part why people are driven away from series like this is due to it's astonishing length. When all is said and done the series will be about 11,000 pages. The average person looks at that, calculates the time it would take to read them, and walks away. Epic fantasy is really it's own worst enemy.

Fallen

Lauren Kate's book would not have been possible without the Twilight series. In a way, it's a stripped down version of that series. Young girl meets a Fantasy Monster and falls in love. The rest of the story is predictable and dull. Fallen does have some laughable moments though. Apparently the fantasy monster in this book meets the heroine every 17 years. She dies and then he gets over it. So, armed with this bit of knowledge where does Mr. Fantasy Monster hang out? A high school. Why? If falling in love and watching her die is so massively painful why go where 17 year old girls are? There are plenty of places on this planet where 17 year old girls are not allowed to go. Find one. Hang out there. Problem solved. Second issue, why do Fantasy Monsters hang out in high school in the first place? They are, as the books go, immortal. If I was suddenly granted immortality high school is the absolute last place on Earth I would go.

Maybe I just don't get this genera. Oh well, I bought the book when I was drunk. To prevent this from happening in the future I'm going to create a wish list and simply buy books on that.

Matched

Ally Condie's book is riding the Hunger Games wave. Suddenly publishers have realized that young people like distopian novels. Every ten to fifteen years the cycle starts again. The long list starts with Brave New World, rounds out with A Wrinkle in Time, and then was thrust forward again with the Hunger Games series. Condie's book, adds a lot to the genera. It's a quick read, I got though it in a day, but here characters are wonderful and memorable. The big issue I have is that it seems to be following the Hunger Games template. As much as this is a distopian novel, it also includes a love triangle. I could do with much less of that and much more of the female character figuring things out for herself. What made the Hunger Games books work for me was they didn't linger on it as much. Katiness is very much her own woman. Where Matched falls apart for me is Cassia is a bit too dependent on her partners. It's still a good book, I've put myself on preorder for the second installment that is coming out in November. As of right now, I'm in a holding pattern. I'm going to have to wait and see how Cassia works in the second novel. She could become stronger, and that would make for a much better series.


Embassytown

I made a massive mistake trying to read China Mieville's book on my flights home. I was exhausted, dealing with a crying baby, and uncomfortable. As I finished it last night, I realized I needed to give this book another shot. It was far too complex for me to have skimmed the way that I did. Honestly, I feel like any kind of write up that I'd do on this book at this point would be massively unfair. I'm going to revisit it at a later date when I'm not fending off a drink cart. Seeing as his novel The City & The City was simply amazing, I'd expect nothing less from this novel.
 

So, there we go. One terrible book, two good books, and one I have to reread. That's how I spent my summer vacation. As of right now I've started The Name of the Wind. My husband has been pushing me to read this for months, so it's finally time that I pick it up.

(Image brought to you by: beforecommon)

Vacation

I'll try to do write ups from Alaska, but I can't make any promises. If I can, I'll post them if not, I'll do one big post when I come back.

Image brought to you by: leisuredive

Link Round Up!

Link round up is back. Here are some of the best stories I've read all week.

For those who are planning vacations, let Literary Tourist help you out. Could make for some nice day trips.

Waterstone's ends 3-for-2 book offers. This makes me sad, I have a feeling this will affect students more than anyone else.

Can you name the books below from the portion of their covers? A lovely game for a long weekend.

A new library marketing campaign. I like this one a lot. The Most Important School Supply of All Is Available @ your library®

This fall is littered with movie adaptations of books. The Atlantic asks the all important question, Do I need to read the book before I see the movie?

Physical bookstores serve as a conduit to ebooks. Yet again, reports of the publishing industry's demise have been greatly exaggerated.

Going to New York City any time soon? Great, now you've got some extra places to go, New York City's spots for book lovers.

Finally, something beautiful, Art Student Hand-Illuminates, Binds a Copy of Tolkien’s Silmarillion.

(Image brought to you by Benjamin Harff. By the way, if I ever meet Benjamin I'm buying him a drink. His work is beautiful.) 

A Visit from the Goon Squad

A Visit from the Goon Squad

Jennifer Egan's book has come unglued in time. Each of its 13 chapters plays with the idea of time in one way or another. In one, characters zoom forward and backwards, I learned their life stories in short simple paragraphs. In another, a PowerPoint presentation gave me a glimpse into the future. Yet another was set at the tail end of the 1970's. The book pings around like some sort of time pinball, when I  turned the page I had no idea when I'd end up. Breaking the rules of linear story telling was partly refreshing and partly irritating. I'd get comfortable with one era an then be forced to zoom into another. As well fleshed out as this seemed, I'd rather Eagan made the chapters slightly longer, just so I could dwell.

As much as Eagan uses time in the book as an unofficial narrator, the crux of Goon Squad is a story of redemption. She told me a story and proved that even the worst characters she could create were worthy of some sort of sympathy. About half way though the book, I felt a strong urge to watch the movie Magnolia (1999) again. So much so, I rented it on Amazon this morning. Both stories gave me a glimpse of the worst of humanity. Both stories showed me how that can be a beautiful part of human existence. The stories aren't to be taken lightly, this isn't a fun zippy end of summer read, they are meant to be savored. The chapters in Eagan's novel can be read individuality. Paul Thomas Anderson's film can be broken up and watched over a series of days. Both are split into acts making the experience easy to process. If any of my dear readers pick up this novel, or watch this movie, take time with it. Let it wash over. It's more of a marathon than a sprint.

With that being said, I'm now moving onto something a bit different. As most of my readers know I'm slowly catching up with George R. R. Martin's epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire. The next book in the series is A Storm of Swords. I honestly can't wait to get back into this series. It's been amazing so far.

(Image brought to you by: strawberryfieldsfornow)

Vacation Reading

So, I'll be on vacation from the 3rd of September though the 15th. I've created a rather ambitious reading list to get me though that time period. 

Fallen (I bought this book when I was drunk, so I don't have high hopes for it.) 

The Name of the Wind 

A Storm of Swords

To Kill a Mockingbird

Embassytown

I'm going to cross my fingers and hope that I get though all of it. 

(Image brought to you by: cinderellainrubbershoes)