WünderKindle

Even though I once mocked it in a post (the link to which escapes me now), my wife has secretly coveted one ever since it was released and so for her birthday (today, in fact) I gave her a Kindle, Amazon.com's "wireless reading device."

MLB is a voracious reader, which explains why I've assembled three new bookcases in just the past month. I figure anything that will reduce the possibility that I'll have to interpret more English-as-a-third-or-fourth-language assembly instructions is worth the price of admission.

And I must admit that in person, the Kindle is much sleeker and attractive than the photos make it out to be. At this moment, it's accumulating its first charge and so we haven't yet actually seen it in action, but I know that will be quick in coming once MLB gets home from work.

My only concern (other than the fact that it will hold 200 titles at around $10 each) is that one of her long-time habits is reading in the bathtub. An accompanying habit is falling asleep in the bathtub. When you combine those two pursuits, it makes for some soggy paperbacks (did you know that books swell up like puffer fish after they dry?). You can see where I'm going with this, right?

I'm petitioning Jeff Bezos to introduce an underwater housing for the Kindle. Not only would it protect my personal investment, it would be a boon for the masses of literary – or is that "literate"? – scuba divers around the world.

I'll try to post some reactions and observations about the Kindle as my wife gets acquainted with her new gadget. The biggest downside I can see at this point is the relatively limited selection of titles for purchase.

"Glove Box Stories" is Back!

Deborah Hendrick crafts original fiction with an authentic Texas accent; you'll be hard-pressed to find better on the web, and it broke my heart when she stopped publishing Glove Box Stories early in 2007. I'm pleased to report that she's returned to publishing, and the resurrected Glove Box Stories is back with a cool new design but the same seductive prose.

Be sure to read Deborah's "I'm back...but here's where I've been" post, and then get caught up on the fascinating folks who inhabit her imagination. But let me warn you – sometimes a pleasant drive ends with a Hill Country buck coming through your windshield, and you never see it coming.

Welcome back, Deborah!

Book Review: "The Year of Living Biblically"

A.J. Jacobs's first book, The Know-It-All, chronicled his quest to read the Encyclopedia Brittanica from A-to-Z. Jacobs has now extended his version of literary flagpole-sitting to the Bible in The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible, in which he describes his attempts to adhere to the laws and commandments – Old and New Testament – set forth in the Bible.

Jacobs is a self-described agnostic, a secular Jew who had almost no exposure to religion, Jewish or otherwise. The only Bible he had when he started was a King James Version which he had somehow acquired from an ex-girlfriend, and which he had never opened. But he was intrigued by the apparent fascination of millions (if not billions) of people through time with what was written in the Bible, and chose this method of trying it on for size, so to speak.

His efforts are, of course, a gimmick...a hook to attract attention (hence my earlier reference to flagpole sitting). He also picked a potential minefield to meander through, given the reverence many of us have for God's Word. (Can you imagine someone taking a shot at the Koran in this fashion, for the purpose of writing a humorous book about the experience?) So, you might be surprised that I recommend reading his book, especially if you are a Christian. Here's why.

In addition to being a well-written and entertaining diary of a man trying to live with one foot in the 21st century and the other in 4,000 B.C., Jacobs's observations and experiences provide much food for contemplation. Most of the following items were probably not even on the author's radar screen as he wrote his book, but that doesn't make them any less valid.

• He reminds us of the Jewish underpinnings of our faith. Through liberal consultation with various religious advisers, Jacobs sheds light on the Jewish traditions surrounding many of the [primarily Old Testament] commands. We also get to see how some modern-day Jews continue to observe the letter of the Law.


• He unwittingly demonstrates the absolute futility of living a life that's "good enough" to please God. Jacobs is quite forthright about his failures in living up to even some of the most seeming simple commandments, and his frustrations are a reminder of the importance of God's grace.


• His attitude nevertheless serves as a valuable reminder of the importance of putting God at the forefront of our thoughts and works. We are called to be holy, even as God is holy. A good place to start is to dwell on His word in all things.

Of course, as interesting – and occasionally hilarious – as it might be to watch someone try to shoehorn ancient Jewish traditions into a modern New York City lifestyle, the ultimate question for Christian readers has to be: what about Jesus?

Jacobs lays out his quandary in clear terms: If I don't accept Christ, can I get anything out of the New Testament at all? What if I follow the oral teaching of Jesus but don't worship his as God? Or is that just a fool's errand?

In the end, Jacobs cannot – will not – acknowledge Jesus Christ as the messiah that his forefathers prophesied about, and the Christian reader will find his stance puzzling and disappointing. How can someone dive into the Bible – a book comprised of revelations inspired by God Himself with the overarching purpose of pointing mankind to the Savior – and still come away a non-believer?

Jacobs states that Ecclesiastes is his favorite book in the Bible, presumably because of its pragmatic wisdom and advice. It's ironic then that in his quest to live according to the truths of the Bible, he is unable to recognize The Truth for which the book was written. That, in the end, made his exercise the ultimate "vanity of vanities."

Book Review: "Grace (Eventually)"

Anne Lamott continues to exasperate – and, occasionally, infuriate – me. Her latest book, Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith, takes up where the previous one left off, and you might recall my less than warm review of that one. I had expectations of a kinder, gentler Lamott for this book, based on the pre-release publicity.

And she is. Sort of.

Lamott claims that she no longer hates George W. Bush, and she goes to great lengths to explain the depths of that hatred so we'll understand the miracle that apparently occurred when she found that she could nobly rise above such feelings. In a chapter entitled "Dandelions," she implies that she was able to release some of her hatred by allowing others to take it up:

Despite the assertion that such feelings no longer dominated her every waking moment, her references to the President, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Tom DeLay, John Ashcroft, et al are sprinkled liberally (ha!) through the book, almost as many times as she mentions Jesus. I find that a little disturbing from a Christian author writing about faith.

I started to enumerate the areas where Lamott's beliefs are diametrically opposed to mine, but that serves no useful purpose. Suffice to say that if you lean toward a view of God that emphasizes His grace and forgiveness, and minimizes His call for holiness, then you'll be at home with her theology.

I'm running out of reasons for continuing to buy her books. I can get all the left-leaning, profanity-laced tirades I want from The Daily Kos or the Huffington Post, without adding the explosiveness of shaky religious doctrine to the mix. But it would be unfair not to acknowledge that when Lamott is good, she is very good, and she continues to strike the occasional soul-chord in fundamental ways.

She's never tried to avoid or gloss over her mistakes and shortcomings, and her vulnerability is something I admire. For example...

And this...

Anne Lamott has always been a gifted writer, and one could do worse when picking an author to study for the sheer craftsmanship of the work. But with this third book in a series on faith, the anecdotes are starting to seem repetitious (and some just sort of trail off into obscurity without any apparent point). And that's a shame, because up until now, I could overlook what I believe to be skewed doctrine for the overall uplifting experience of her writing. That's no longer the case. Now that I find that last thing missing, I've no reason to anticipate her future books.

Writing Exercise

I'm sick and tired of doing all the heavy lifting around here, and it's time you guys started pulling your weight.

Wait. That didn't come out quite right.

---rewind---

I feel badly that I get to have all the fun around here, and I'd like to give you the opportunity to get some of this bloggy goodness for yourselves. So, here's a writing challenge for you:

Craft the first few sentences (how few is up to you) of a novel, and include the following words: defenestration, oogly-moogly, and stalwart.

Leave your work in the comments and prepare yourselves for the inevitable accolades.

Book Review (Sort of): "Blue Like Jazz"

No one ever accused me of being on the cutting edge of anything. I'm behind the curve in all areas of life, slow on the uptake. I defend myself as intelligently cautious; those who know me would say that I'm just clueless. Anyway, I offer that as an excuse as to why I'm just now posting about a book that was published in 2003 and which has been mentioned many times by many better bloggers and writers.

First, I have to give credit to Jim over at Serotoninrain, who was the first to get my attention about Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz. Jim is pretty much the antithesis to me when it comes to books, as he's always the first to find the good stuff, and you'd think that by now I'd learn to just immediately go buy and read whatever he recommends instead of waiting, like, five years. (I'd link to some of his posts that referenced the book but I think they were pre-Wordpress and therefore not searchable.)

But, then, it occurred to me that not everyone I know is as cool as Jim and it's entirely possible that some of you haven't read Blue Like Jazz either. This post is for you, especially if you are a Christian (or if you're curious about what it means to be a Christian).

Listen carefully: read this book. It takes just a few hours – a Sunday afternoon works great – and I promise that you'll come away with some new ways to think about Christianity. More to the point, you'll be challenged to look at your own flavor of Christianity through a new lens, and particularly if you grew up in the Bible Belt in a mainstream evangelical church.

Miller opens his heart and allows the lifeblood to spill onto the pages of his book as he describes what it means to be a sinner held fast in the arms of a loving God. His witness and testimony isn't powerful because of his theological or hermeneutic prowess; it's powerful because he tells what Jesus has done for him.

Along the way, he also manages to entertain the reader; this is no dry and somber work. It's often playful, even juvenile in a Dave Barryish kind of way. One of my favorite passages is taken from a chapter about money, where he describes what it's like to be a poor writer (this passage could, by the way, apply to bloggers, with the exception of the overstatement of how much they get paid):

Christianity Today describes Miller as "Anne Lamott with testosterone" and compares Blue Like Jazz with Lamott's excellent Traveling Mercies. I wouldn't disagree; both books are now in my "read again every so often" collection, both for the writers' skill and for their messages. (Miller shares Lamott's dislike for Republicans and corporations, although he's not as rabid about it. The strength of my recommendation for this book is directly proportional to the negativism with which you assimilate this observation, as it gets right to the heart of what Christians should be about.)

You may be wondering about the book's title. The phrase comes from an almost-throwaway line in a passage about the beauty of the Grand Canyon at night, where Miller describes the stars as "...notes on a page of music, free-form verse, silent mysteries swirling in the blue like jazz." He writes about jazz a few times through the book, beginning with the introductory author's note, where he relates how he never liked jazz until he saw a man on a sidewalk playing a saxophone for fifteen minutes, and the man never opened his eyes. After that, he liked jazz; the musician's love for it was that infectious.

That, my friends, is how we are to be about Jesus, never taking our eyes off him. Because that's the surest way to show others how to love him, too.

Book Mini-Reviews: 3 Novels

Summer is fast approaching, and that's prime novel-reading season. I've read three novels in the past month or so, something of a record for me, and wanted to share some observations in case you're getting summer book-buying fever. (Note: There are no plot spoilers in these mini-reviews.)

The Blue Star - Tony Earley
A review copy of this book arrived, unsolicited, on my doorstep in late February. I knew nothing about it or its author, and the jacket blurb telling me that the writer was also responsible for Jim the Boy did little to work up my enthusiasm for the thin volume. I finally threw it in a suitcase and determined to work my way through it during a trip, more out of a sense of obligation than anything else...and ended up kicking myself for ignoring one of the more delightful books I've had the pleasure to read in a long time.

There's nothing particularly dramatic or edgy about The Blue Star, which is set in a small North Carolina town during the run-up to America's entrance into WWII. Tony Earley has crafted a character-driven novel that's beguiling in its simplicity, and soothing in its pace. If you're a fan of Jan Karon's trillion-selling Mittford series, I think you'll find The Blue Star has the same ambiance. I recommend it highly for a stress-free warm weather indulgence.

Ant Rating:

The Good Guy - Dean Koontz
Koontz's novel is almost a year old, and so all of his fans have already read it. But if you don't fall into that category, and you're looking for an edge-of-the-seat "action/suspense" novel that grabs hold and doesn't let go, you won't be disappointed in this one.

Koontz creates one of the most creepily competent bad guys since Hannibal Lector, and pits him against an enigmatic-but-just-as-competent – are you ready? – good guy. The result is not art, but it's a perfect poolside page-turner.

Ant Rating:

Blasphemy - Douglas Preston
Then we come to this waste of paper by another well-known creative type who seems to be just phoning it in. Preston has authored (or co-authored along with Lincoln Child) some very good novels, but this isn't one of them. He's pulled in every stereotypical character and every lame plot twist you can imagine and concocted a big mess. My advice is to avoid it like the plague. Try Tyrannosaur Canyon if you want some of the same characters in a better setting.

Ant Rating:

"They whisper to me that they are Christians, too."

Anne Lamott has written a new book, Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith, with a scheduled February 26 release date.

This is Lamott's third book in a series dealing with her Christian faith. The first, published in 2000, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith was a series of candid and refreshing essays from someone exploring the wonders of a newly-found faith, expressing those wonders with winsome fraility, humor and tenderness. It remains one of my favorite books on faith by a secular author (a squishy term meant to distinguish one from someone with formal theological training).

The second, Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith, was published in 2005 and was also candid and well-written. However, the "refreshing" aspect was replaced by an uncomfortably dark tone of nastiness, expressed primarily in anger toward Republicans in general and George W. Bush in particular. I was not kind to it in my review, and I stand by those observations. I was disappointed to see a writer for whom I had such great respect use her talent in such a context to express hatred.

In the interview posted on Amazon.com, she says she's no longer as angry. It will be interesting to see which Lamott shows up this time. Nevertheless, I continue to respect and admire her, because where she lives – not just geographically but also professionally and culturally – being a Christian is not something for the fainthearted (not that it was ever intended to be).

The title for this post was taken from something she said in response to an interview question – What stories do people tell you, when they've read your books or know you are a writer?. That response is both poignant and frightening: They whisper to me that they are Christians, too.

Those of us living in the so-called Bible Belt sometimes forget how easy it is to live our faith when we're literally surrounded by those of like minds and hearts. In fact, I suspect we're more aware of and sensitive to persecution of the Church in countries thousands of miles distant than those in our own nation. I'm not implying that being passed over for a promotion is in the same league as being martyred for your faith, but the underlying attitude that gives rise to both has the same origin.

So, I'm willing to overlook some of Lamott's occasional New-Agey theology and her political rants because I think it's ever-so-important that someone like her, someone whom I truly believe is a sister in Christ, is publicly available to lend an ear to that whisper. When she does that, she's an agent of grace, and God surely approves.

Technorati tags: Anne Lamott | Grace (Eventually)

"I have a style?"

Charles Hill writes over at dustbury.com of his fondness for the work of H. Allen Smith (former resident of Alpine, Texas, and one of MLB's favorites authors, as well), to the point where Charles chose to model his writing style after Smith's. (Not being a Smith aficionado I cannot assess Charles's success in emulating that style, although if Smith was half as good as Charles, then he did pretty well for himself.)

That got me to thinking about my own writing style. If I wanted to be strictly accurate (not a blogger's best strategy, by the way), I'd have to say that if you took the worst of George Will (long sentences without the benefit of pithy insight) and married it (o, unholy union!) with the ugliest of Hunter S. Thompson (skewed reality without the gonzo sensibility), then you'd be pretty much in the ballpark.

To be honest, my H. Allen Smith was actually Dave Barry, who I thought was pretty much the funniest human being on the face of the planet. I'm sure that there are countless numbers of hacks like me who have tried unsuccessfully to duplicate Barry's style, because he makes it seem so doggone easy.

Of course, unless you're Dave Barry – and, really, who is? – it's not.

In the end, the title of this post* says it all: one must be a writer to have a writing style, and I'm not there. Someday? Perhaps. But I feel truly sorry for the poor desperate soul that decides to emulate my "style."

*For bonus points, identify the source of the title. There may be several right answers; you'll have to guess which one I'm expecting.

Book Review: "Signed, Mata Hari"

The latest review copy arrived from the publisher a couple of weeks ago, hand-delivered by special courier, and I tore into the important-looking package with eager anticipation.

...rewind...

The latest review copy arrived from the publisher a couple of weeks ago, deposited on my front porch by the Fed Ex gal's signature sling-ring-and-run maneuver, and after brushing away the dirt and dead leaves, I pulled the zip tab with eager anticipation.

And so we see that the same event can take on a completely different feel depending on the intent of the author.

This same point can be extended to Yannick Murphy's Signed, Mata Hari: A Novel (a book which, by the way, I explicitly did not include on the list when I was asked by the editor at Little, Brown to indicate my preferences for upcoming reviews; nevertheless, I dutifully read it).

One can view the life of Mata Hari as an epic tale of loss and survival, wherein the heroine endures an abusive marriage, suffers the mysterious and heartbreaking loss of her children, brings an Eastern art-form into European respectability, and subverts her moral inclinations in the hopes of eventually restoring relationships with her family. In the end, her spirit triumphs even as her mortal body is defeated.

Or, you could say that Mata Hari married the first guy she could find willing to take her from a dead-end life in the Netherlands, moved with him to Java where they both became known for their blatantly promiscuous behavior, leading to the eventual loss of both children, whereupon she became a world famous courtesan (aka, prostitute) and exotic dancer (aka, stripper), and courted famous men who eventually led her to become a spy for the Germans during WWI, a role for which she was ultimately punished before a French firing squad.

Murphy, of course, took the first road, because that makes for a better -- if not completely interesting -- novel. She's taken the admittedly intriguing life of Margaretha Zelle (as she was known before becoming Mata Hari) and filled in many of the gaps in the history with her own imagination. The result is a portrait of a woman who, for however noble her motives might have been, "used what she had to get what she needed." It's not a very original story, after all.

Murphy's prose tends to paragraph-length sentences, more organized than stream-of-consciousness, but still demanding strict reader attention. The book is organized into short chapters that jump to and fro in time, a technique which actually helps the story and will appeal to those of us for whom "Short Attention Span Theatre" was crafted.

On the other hand, this is a book that is marked by sexual explicitness that for some will border on pornographic. I'm not sure how knowing the details of the arrangement of Mata Hari's genitalia with respect to the rest of her anatomy advances the story for the reader. And while the scenes are not inconsistent with the presumed character of the woman, her apparent willingness to bed anything that moves -- and some that don't, if you get my drift -- doesn't really need to be documented with such repetition. In case I'm being too subtle here, this is not a children's book.

One reviewer began by posing a question: "Do we really need another book about Mata Hari?" The reviewer went on to provide a fairly glowing report, but for me, the answer to that question is, no – not really.

Writing Assignment

I know that some of you are participating in NaNoWriMo and can't be bothered with things like this (although even you might consider whether this might provide a creative break), but for the rest of you the assignment is simple: craft the opening sentence or two (or a paragraph if you're feeling particularly eloquent) of a story using the following photo as inspiration:

The Gazette: Lowering the Bar for Adoxography Since 2002

MLB emailed me the entry from her Word Of The Day subscription:

She accompanied it with this delicately diplomatic query, which I tend to believe wasn't entirely rhetorical: "Is this what some blogging is?"

No, my dear, that's what all blogging is, at least at the Gazette. Well, except for the "good writing" part.

I think I prefer the Gazette's Content Free™ designation, as it avoids those sticky value judgments.

For more on the etymology of this word, which was hitherto unknown to me, read the Wikipedia entry, which also includes a reference to blogs.

Book Review: "Dead Boys"

Do you think your life sucks? If so, perhaps you need to pick up a copy of Richard Lange's Dead Boys, collection of short stories filled with characters whose lives are so desolate and hopeless as to make even the most committed pessimist feel like he or she is walking on sunshine.

Lange's stories are built around common themes: addiction, self-destruction, under-achievement, doomed schemes and relationships, "careers" measured in hours or days instead of years or decades, broken things and ruined people. The protagonists' stories are self-revealed, making some of the details of their lives all the more shocking or pitiful.

Nevertheless, I'll give this collection a grudging recommendation, based on the author's skill as a story-teller. Lange's prose is sparse and sharp, with an economy of words that more of us should emulate. You get the feeling that he's spent a great deal of time in the company of folks whose lives form the basis for these stories.

Lange's stories are oddly compelling. His eye for detail is impressive and conversations ring true. And just when you think you've figured out where a particular storyline or character is headed, the author throws in a twist that makes the journey more intriguing, while not significantly altering the final destination; most of these people lead lives for which the outcome was determined years before, by their choices or by fate, however you want to look at it.

Note: This book deals with "adult themes" using "adult language." It's not for children. A review copy was provided to me by the Hatchette Book Group, USA. You can read the publisher's promotional write-up here.

Technorati tags: Dead Boys | Richard Lange

This is why God made Barnes & Noble...

Michael Shannon gives detailed instructions on how to make your own "Moleskine-like" writing journal, complete with a Naugahyde cover.

There's probably a site somewhere that will instruct you on how to make your own "Michelin-like" tires for your SUV, and I'm sure there's a valid sense of self-satisfaction from doing just that...but would you really want to thread the 18-wheelers on I-20 on them?

Hat (store-bought) tip to Jacky's Blog.

Upping the Ante: The Story Continues

Playing around with an old word exercise...something suggested by a reader more than a fortnight back...she knows who she is...

Don't try this at home. Trained professional on closed course. Your mileage may vary.

The cowhide-enfolded steering wheel he clutched was attached to a 1932 Ford. That deuce coupe was his pride and joy, his only affectation in a life that was otherwise fully given over to a single-minded focus on a job the significance of which only eleven other people on the planet fully grasped -- and three of them weren't likely to survive the night.

He'd won the car during a marathon game -- if "game" is indeed the proper term for a competitive endeavor wherein the losers are likely to end up with brainpans filled with the equivalent of three-day old risotto -- of suicide hold 'em, matching wits and hands with a variety of adversaries, most of whom were human, and all but one alive. That last one was, of course, more than an annoyance. If there's anything in the universe likely to grate on your soul, it's playing cards against your wife.

Abbreviating Numbers

The headline at the top of the front page of today's local newspaper reads:

[And, no – this is not a post about the obvious misspelling, nor will I stoop to making observations like "I hope the scholarships are for spelling classes."]

When I showed the headline to my wife as she came out of the game room following her daily treadmill session, her remark was "Nine thousand dollars for scholarships? That doesn't sound like much." That got me to thinking about how even the simplest of writing conventions – abbreviations, in this case – are still ripe for misinterpretation.

I did a quick search through some of my style guides, including Strunk & White's venerable The Elements of Style, and the much more contemporary Garner's Modern American Usage by Bryan A. Garner, and none of them addressed the proper way to abbreviate large numbers.

My wife and I have extensive backgrounds in the oil business, working for Fortune 500 corporations where the numbers run to the high end, and we're accustomed to seeing "M" used to signify "thousand" (presumably from the Latin mille) rather than "K" (a "pseudo-metric" reference which is rooted in the French word for thousand, according to my dictionary)*. Using this convention, the abbreviation for million is "MM" (or one thousand thousands), so that the headline above would have referred to a "$9 MM scholarship donation."

I'm not arguing that MM is better or more descriptive than M for quantifying something. I'm simply pointing out that writers need to be aware of the potential for miscommunication in even the smallest of details. When in doubt, spell it out.

Using proper spelling, of course.

For more about this issue, check out this message thread on "The Math Forum: Ask Dr. Math" website, as well as The Dictionary of Units of Measurement.

*It's interesting – well, to me, anyway – to note that even in the industry, the logic behind the abbreviation process breaks down as the numbers get really big. For example, while MCF stands for "thousand cubic feet" and MMCF signifies "million cubic feet," we use BCF and TCF as abbreviations for "billion cubic feet" and "trillion cubic feet," respectively. This reversion to literal abbreviation is apparently due to the fact that there is no Roman numeral equivalent for 1,000,000 or greater. The Romans seemed to believe that such numbers were ridiculous and refused to dignify them with a notation.

Saved by a Reader: A Writing Exercise

A blogger's best friend is a reader who, sensing said blogger is in dire need of a swift kick in the pants, does not hesitate to provide a gentle nudging. And so I'm grateful to Deborah for suggesting the following exercise:

I offer three words, which you can use any way you choose: blacktop, thundercloud, remote control.

It's a splendid suggestion, and here's my stab at it:

The two-lane highway stretched arrow straight to the horizon, where it took a sharp upward bend and merged seamlessly with the storm percolating up from some fey place in the Sonoran desert. Speckled with a billion volts of primal current, the thundercloud made the distant oncoming cars, with their headlights shimmering in the dusk, appear as toys on a Hot Wheels track, governed by a remote control in the hands of God himself.

The man gripped the leather-wrapped steering wheel a little tighter, staring down the blacktop as the hairs on the back of his neck prickled, resonating with the memory of the last time he confronted this tableau. The dog-like creature laying in the passenger seat lifted its head, glanced at the unholy cloud, and grinned at the man. "It's going to be an interesting night, amigo."

The driver did not return the grin.

Feel free to provide your own take on Deborah's suggestion. If you're feeling really feisty, continue my story...

Writing Exercise: Big Finish

My friend Sherry reminded me of something we did on this here blog a few months back, where I challenged readers to come up with the opening sentence of a novel or story in which a specific item -- in this case, a broken key -- was featured. She thought that was fun, and I did too, once I remembered we'd done it (she's younger than me, as she's quick to remind everyone who'll listen).

I came up with a twist on that theme and figured I'd run it up the flagpole and see if anyone tossed their cookies. Here's the new challenge:

Craft the closing sentence -- or paragraph -- of a novel or story in which the following elements played key roles: the Solomon Islands, a black Sharpie, and a ferret.

Leave your entry in the comments or email it to me and I'll add it. This is not a competition, but the winner gets untold acclaim.

A Writer's Advice

There's a meme going around disguised as an award, and it's called "The Thinking Blogger Award." It's supposed to provide recognition to bloggers whose posts are thought-provoking, but since The Gazette has been nominated a couple times, the vetting process is obviously flawed. Nevertheless, if anyone deserves such an award, it's Deb Thompson over at Write Lightning, for a body of work that's uniformly high in quality, but especially for this post in which she bestows some valuable advice for anyone who would be known as a writer.

Her reminders hit close to home, as I can read the list of important things I should or should not be doing, and my mental checklist informs me that I've been failing on every count. I'm not reading, I'm not staying engaged in friends' lives, I'm not allowing myself to stray from a to-do list in order to interact with a non-orderly world, I'm not trying to figure out what God made me to be...much less being that person.

And it shows on these "pages." Surely you've noticed (and, thankfully, been too kind to point it out), but whether you have or not, I have.

I'm not sure what to do about it, but I thank Deb for articulating so well what I've been feeling, and for providing some clarity. It's hard to find answers until you know the problems.

Book Review: "The Crimson Portrait"

I can't say that I'm a big fan of romance novels. Can't say that I'm not, either, since I've never knowingly read one (Jonathan Livingston Seagull was as close as I ever came and it doesn't count because it was the Seventies and I was trying to impress someone). So when a review copy of The Crimson Portrait showed up in my mailbox, unsolicited, from Hachette Book Group USA, I was skeptical.

But I was also a bit intrigued, as the introductory letter from Hachette's "marketing specialist" used the word "creepy" in the summary of the book, which partially offset the comparison to The English Patient, a book (and movie) which I've studiously avoided.

After reading the book, I can honestly say that it didn't make me into a fan of the romance genre, but I can give it a recommendation to those who are interested in "historical fiction" or who like their dramas mixed with some interesting medical trivia.

The plot synopsis goes something like this. A centuries-old British country estate is converted into a military surgical facility at the beginning of World War I. The estate's owner was a doctor who was killed in the early days of the war, and his widow – who suffers from a pathological degree of grief – offered her home as a hospital. But this is no ordinary hospital, as it is devoted solely to the treatment of soldiers with severe cranio-facial injuries, injuries so severe that all reflective surfaces have been banned from the estate, so that the victims cannot see the extent of their wounds.

The treatment and repair of such injuries was at that time unmapped territory. The surgeons assigned to these cases had no modern precedents, instead relying upon ancient texts – Chinese, Middle Eastern, East Indian, etc. – and their own intuition and ingenuity to rebuild or reshape faces. Jody Shields, the author, did extensive research into the history of these surgical techniques, and has inserted the details throughout the novel.

But the book explores more than the medical aspects of such injuries. The widowed estate owner encounters a wounded soldier into whom she imbues the personality and mannerisms of her late husband, and she hatches a plan to more fully transform the fellow into a proxy for the departed doctor with the unsuspecting help of the military surgeons and their assistants, including a female artist whose role it is to record the "before and after" of the treatments.

The book's strengths are in its descriptions of the medical challenges of the day and the profiles of the doctors who did their best to shelter those in their care from the horrifying ravages of war. The author touches upon, but doesn't fully explore the extent to which our facial features define us, physically and emotionally, both to ourselves and to those who know us. Unfortunately, the reader is never drawn fully into the story; we're left to be onlookers, but not participants. The novel also has a rather unsatisfying and abrupt end, as if the author lost enthusiasm for the plot or the characters. (Some of the other reviews I read spun this into a positive thing: "you'll want more!")

In the end, even though it's slightly flawed, The Crimson Portrait is still a worthwhile investment of reading time, especially for those who enjoy historical fiction.

Commercial link: Amazon.com

Technorati tags: The Crimson Portrait | Jody Shields

The Key to Good Writing

When this key snapped off in the door leading from our garage into the house, it thankfully was a minor incident, hardly worth writing about. Unless, that is, you use your imagination and picture one of the infinite number of scenarios that could accompany such an occurrence.

Of course, merely picturing something is hardly edifying or entertaining to the rest of us. On the other hand, if you were to, say, give us an opening sentence in a novel that had a broken key as one of its major plot elements...well, now we're getting somewhere.

What say ye?

Update: OK, here's my offering...

Book Reviews [Getting Caught Up]

With everything that's been going on -- most of which now escapes me, but I'm sure it was all quite profound -- I've neglected to write anything about the four books I completed during the past few weeks. (Also, since each of these books was either a gift or on my own dime, instead of being review volumes for the Hatchette Book Group, I felt less pressure to write about them...which was actually kind of nice.)

For your consideration, here are some mini-reviews of those books:

• Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything: I sometimes think that if I was able to rewind the clock, I'd become an economist. The essence of economics as an academic discipline is nothing less than attempting to understand human motivation, and even though its most common manifestation centers on financial parameters, co-authors Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner show that it has application to almost every aspect of human endeavor. This is a well-written, clever book that explores such burning issues as why your realtor will likely get more for her own house than she will for yours, and why most crack dealers still live with their moms.


• King Dork: What do you get when you combine the dark humor of Heathers with the coming-of-age geekiness of Sixteen Candles? I have no idea, but it could resemble pop-punker-turned-writer Frank Portman's ode to angsty teenaged rock-n-roll band fantasies. This novel is a first-person account of a high school freshman attempting to make sense of a world that he's well-equipped to handle, as long as he doesn't actually have to, you know, talk to anyone else. If you ever doodled made-up band names on your algebra book cover, you'll find something to laugh about in King Dork. It may be worth reading if only to find out who Dr. Frank considers to be the greatest rock bands of all time. Note: This is a book about teens, but not for teens, due to language and sexual content. Trivia bit: This is one of the few novels that has its own original theme song.


• The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More: Wired Magazine editor Chris Anderson wrote a book about power curves and made a jillion dollars. His basic premise is that the web allows savvy businesses to provide unlimited inventory at essentially zero carrying cost, thereby eliminating the need to rely on "hits" to provide profits. It's not rocket science, and in five years (or, perhaps, already) the general perception of the premise will be akin to our modern view of the "breakthrough" of identifying the law of gravity, but it's still worthwhile to contemplate how the internet has changed some business paradigms.


• American Gods: [I'm including this for the benefit of my friend and fellow book-lover, mis_nomer.] America is a tough place to be a god, and it's a darn shame, considering just how many of them are lurking about. Neil Gaiman's 2001 sci-fi novel brings together a myriad of deities whose loyal worshippers brought them to America and then, for sundry reasons, abandoned them. What's a god to do when no one takes him (or her...or it) seriously? This is a dark book, understated and intelligent, not a classic but still worth the investment of a few days of reading time.

As long as I'm in the review mode, I might as well tell you that I'm a few chapters into another book, but it's a bit different than those I've mentioned above. DOM Scripting: Web Design with JavaScript and the Document Object Model by Jeremy Keith will revolutionize the way I build websites. Or at least it would if I could figure out what the heck it's about. Just kidding (sort of); it's basically a Javascript tutorial designed to ensure that scripts are compatible with all civilized browsers, and that they degrade gracefully for accessibility purposes. It's quite interesting, in a geeky sort of way.

And if all this isn't eclectic enough, the next "official" review book will be a history of the Grand Ole Opry. Stay tuned!

Despite the reel, Shakespeare was no fisherman

My vocabularistic skills were called into questionicity by certain commentatoristas in the previous posterific entry.

Specifically, some questioned the spelling of "bated" (as in "bated breath"), feeling, believing, or otherwise wishing the spelling to be "baited" (as in "baited hook"). One commenter did provide some helpful correction, and I figured I'd follow up with additional insight.

This comes from Garner's Modern American Usage, a book no writer, blogger, or student of the English language should fail to have close at hand:

The author goes on to say "baited breath is a bungle," and then quotes excerpts from a couple of well-respected newspapers in which the phrase is, well, bungled.

You may now disabate your breath and return to your regularly scheduled respiration.

Book Review: "The Medici Giraffe"

The Medici Giraffe [And Other Tales of Exotic Animals and Power], authored by Marina Belozerskaya and released a few weeks ago, is a wolf in sheep's clothing. It's billed as a primer about the role animals have played throughout the ages in the rise and fall of political fortunes and even civilizations, but it's really a history book that uses exotic birds and mammals as hooks to get the reader engaged in business to which he or she would never otherwise give a second thought.

Each of the seven stories deals with a specific period of history and a discrete set of characters -- beginning with Alexander's quest 300 years before the birth of Christ to acquire elephants to cement his war strategy and ending with publishing tycoon William Randolph Hearst's acquisition of more exotic animals for his San Simeon estate than most zoos of the time could boast -- and each does have its fair share of animal-related plotlines. But with few exceptions, the animals are peripheral to the main stories.

That's not meant as a criticism, however. Belozerskaya has created a well-researched and beautifully written history book that will both educate and entertain the most finicky reader. The accounts are liberally laced with the kinds of details that bring history to life. For example, here's how the author describes Josephine Bonaparte, Napoleon's wife, a woman who built an impressive collection of exotic animals and who is credited with introducing Australian black swans to Europe:

Other historical events in the book include general Pompey's ill-fated attempt to ascend to the head of the Roman empire, Cortés's conquest of the Aztec realm, the political intrigues of 15th century Italy as seen in the life of the Medici patriarch Lorenzo (the tale from which comes the book's title), the 16th century machinations of King Rudolf II, and a fascinating epilogue documenting the "Panda Diplomacy" that occurred -- and which is still ongoing -- between China and the USA.

The book's premise -- that wild and unique animals have been used throughout the ages as effective tools in diplomacy, conquest, and political intrigue -- is shaky, and is sometimes imbued with more significance than the facts seem to warrant. But if books with historical themes seem like unpleasant medicine to you, this premise will be just the right sweetness to make The Medici Giraffe go down pleasantly, and you'll be surprised at the enjoyable results.

Disclosure: A review copy of this book was provided to me by the good folk at Hachette Book USA.

Book Review: "The Detonators"

There was a time in America's history when a major complex in New York City was targeted and destroyed by an enemy that most people either didn't know existed or didn't understand its motivations. It was a time when that enemy was working to weaponize anthrax to use against the United States. It was a time when small amounts of seemingly harmless liquids could be transported without suspicion, then combined to wreak devastation. It was a time when the American intelligence community, such as it was, was composed of independent agencies apparently more interested in protecting their individual turfs than working together to share information that might help identify and defeat the real enemy. It was a time when that enemy was living and working in the very country it targeted, using forged IDs and laundered money.

Does any of this sound familiar?

Of course it does, but probably not for the reasons you think. The time in American history described above began in 1916, just prior to the United States' entrance into World War I. The "unrecognized enemy" was Germany, in the form of a network of spies who were interned in the States while their country waged war in Europe. And the sabotaged facility was the munitions factory on Black Tom Island, located in New York Harbor.

In The Detonators, Chad Millman has written an unusually compelling account of this little-known act of sabotage on American soil, and the two-decades long effort by a few passionate men to properly lay the blame for the act at the feet of Germany.

This is a piece of American history that, frankly, I knew nothing about. World War I has never seemed to have the same historical allure as the sequel, and almost everything that happened prior to World War II seems to have been overshadowed by the Great Depression. But as many are fond of saying, history repeats itself, and those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat the mistakes.

Besides documenting some uncanny parallels to our post-9/11 world, the book manages to make the real life tedium of international legal wrangling and file scouring interesting. Millman has a gift for narrative, able to deftly insert small tidbits of personality into what would be dry and boring in less-skilled hands.

Make no mistake; this is not a page-turner, nor does it offer any cliff-hanging plot twists. It's a workmanlike, well-researched account of an incident in our country's history that would otherwise remain a footnote in a textbook. Millman has breathed new life into that incident and his account will enliven the most scholarly interest in that period of history.

The primary shortcoming of the book is that the author didn't take the opportunity to address the obvious parallels between that time in history and today's. The reader is left to draw his or her own conclusions, and that's fine -- perhaps even preferable if the alternative is to have some revisionist dogma laid out. But one gets the feeling that Millman would have been an objective and informed guide in helping us to place some of the most important events of this century into the historical context of the previous century.

If you're a fan of American history, this 286-page book, published last month, will probably be right up your alley.

You can learn more about the book and the author here.

Disclosure: A review copy of The Detonators was graciously provided to me by the good folks at the Online Marketing Group of the Hatchette Book Group USA.

Technorati tags: The Detonators | Chad Millman

New Glove Box Stories

I can't imagine what you're thinking, hanging around this place when Deborah has three new Glove Box Stories up over at SanLeon.net. Go on now...shoo.

• The Road Trip


• The Mission: The Elevator (part 1)


• The Mission: The Apology (part 2)

Technorati tag: Glove Box Stories

Book Review: "Vanishing Point"

We've got a treat for you today. For the first time in the storied history of the Gazette, MLB has agreed to appear "in her own words," in the form of the following book report. The reason is simple. The Hachette Book Group sent me an unsolicited copy of the subject book for review purposes. I'm not a fan of the mystery genre, but my wife has been for many years. She's got every Agatha Christie book in print, as well as extensive collections of authors like Ngaio Marsh, Tony Hillerman and many of the more contemporary authors whom I don't recognize. So, I outsourced the review to her, figuring she'd bring a more credible eye and commentary...which she has.

Eric is not the greatest mystery fan, so I was the beneficiary of his last free book. Please bear with a neophyte review.

Vanishing Point by Marcia Muller was billed as a "lite summer read" and lived up to its billing. While this is obviously one of a series, it is the first Sharon McCone mystery for me. I did not find it hard to get into, so not having read the other books in the series was not a drawback.

Ms. McCone is hired immediately after returning from her honeymoon to find a missing person – missing from twenty something years ago. The client is the daughter of the missing woman and she wants to find out more about the disappearance of a loving, caring mother. Of course, the more the mystery is explored, the more mysterious it becomes and the loving, caring mother turns into someone a little more complex.

I was mystified by a newly married couple who would return from their honeymoon, immediately go their separate ways and check in with one another only every now and then, but perhaps that’s a hallmark of a couple that gets together later in life.

Even though it was my first Sharon McCone, she seems to be annoyingly accomplished to me. I don’t mind if my detective is a caterer as is Goldy Schulz in Diane Mott Davidson’s mysteries or a teacher/show poodle breeder a la Melanie Travis in Laurien Berenson’s mystery series. Heck, I don’t mind if she’s Harry Minor Haristeen, the postmistress with ‘talking’ dogs and cats. But I do get a little tired of the female detectives who are accomplished at everything they do – like Kay Scarpetta, in Patricia Cornwell’s books. This prejudice doesn’t keep me from reading almost all the books, but I do seem to prefer a detective, amateur or not, that can’t do absolutely everything well.

All that aside, this was what I would classify as a good ‘popcorn’ book; a nice book to read when you want to relax and enjoy something without the burden of thinking too hard. It was fun, easy, good for the beach or the mountains, but if you take it on vacation, take something else as well as this is a really fast read.

Technorati tags: Vanishing Point | Marcia Muller

You have me confused with a literate person

For the most part, my arrangement with the Hatchette Book Group (formerly Time Warner Book Group) has worked pretty well. The folks in the Online Marketing group will occasionally contact me with recommendations from its publishers' upcoming releases and give me the opportunity to select any that I want for review purposes. I'm also able to request anything from their current inventory and they'll try to accommodate the request. It's a pretty sweet deal, and one that I don't take for granted.

In fact, I can also ask that they not send anything to me, during those periods where I can't handle a new addition to my reading list (which is the situation I'm now in).

But sometimes things take an unexpected turn. Such was the case last Monday afternoon when the doorbell rang and I got to the front door just as the UPS truck was pulling away, having deposited on the porch the now-familiar tan cardboard mailer containing a new book. That's odd, I thought; I don't recall requesting a new book.

It got odder when I tore open the package and extracted this: Agincourt: Henry V and the Battle That Made England, by Juliet Barker.

My next thought was a paraphrase of Owen Wilson's line in Shanghai Noon II: what in our history together makes you think I'm capable of something like this?

I admit it. I'm not a fan of historical non-fiction. Granted, I'm still engaged in Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver, the action of which takes place several centuries ago admidst actual historical events and characters, but it's still fiction, however realistically the author has painted the context. (And even then, the fact that it's taken me five months to get halfway through the book should tell you something.)

A similar thing happened last year, when an book about a real-life Boston crime family showed up on my porch, unsolicited. I read ten pages and tossed it aside.

I'm sure that Ms. Barker has written an engaging and accurate account of the Battle of Agincourt (the book was published in the UK last year but is just now coming to America); she's a well thought-of author of such histories. And I'm willing to give it the same ten page tryout that I offered the previous unannounced arrival. Just don't hold your breath for a review.

As far as why someone at Hatchette decided this was the book for me, perhaps they made an unfortunate extrapolation from the FATCR that excerpted Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Yeah, I could see that.

Book Review: "The Lost Blogs"

I so wanted to love Paul Davidson's The Lost Blogs: From Jesus to Jim Morrison. After all, it's billed as a hilarious book containing hypothetical posts from blogs written by historically significant people who lived well before the medium was invented. It's a great idea. Unfortunately, like rice pudding, a little goes a long way (and I like rice pudding).

Davidson came up with blog entries for about 200 people, ranging from Joan of Arc to Jimmy Hoffa, and from Bonnie & Clyde to Bruce Lee. Some of them are, indeed, hilarious (e.g. Freud's self-analysis followed by readers' comments and his not-so-mellow reaction to them; L. Ron Hubbard's musings about the laughable idea of creating an entire religion based on themes from a sci-fi novel), but more often the posts routinely fall into the category of "here's someone famous blogging about a situation they face and we know how it turns out but isn't it amusing to see how they were conflicted and clueless about it." And, unfortunately, it's not amusing...just repetitive.

Sure, we can try to laugh about how Mo's dad used to poke him in the eyes with his fingers and how he swore he'd never do that to anyone when he grew up, and there might be some humor in Davy Crockett's attempts to find a meaningful phrase to commemorate what he was experiencing at the Alamo ("Be Mindful of the Mission" being one alternative), but after a while the historical blogging premise simply becomes too lame to carry a whole book.

But, you know what the final straw was for me? Each "post" begins with "From:" in which the URL of the fictitious blog is presented, and the reader is allowed to determine the identity of the blogger based on this address (e.g. "http://www.thecarpentryblog.com/~jesus/"). It adds a touch of realism, and some of them are cute. But then I saw the URL for a post from Chairman Mao (http://www.mao_zedong.ch/blog/) and from Bruce Lee (http://www.bruce_lee.ch/blog/) and immediately the book lost credibility. If you're going to write a book about blogging and try to give it enough authenticity to set up the humor, then you really ought to know that the Top Level Domain for China is not .ch -- which belongs, albeit inexplicably, to Switzerland -- but .cn! I mean, he gets .uk and .fr and .gr (Socrates) and even .gov (for Benedict Arnold), but missing China's TLD is a disappointing oversight.

Anyway, much as it pains me to say it, I can't recommend this book (and it figures, since I've got two copies of it), at least not to those who take their blogging seriously (even if their posts aren't). It was a nice try, but it would have worked better as a thirty page graphic novel.

Disclosure: This book was provided to me for review purposes by the publisher, Time Warner Book Group. I'm trying not to read anything into the fact that it actually sent me two copies.

Technorati tags: Paul Davidson | The Lost Blogs

Book Pre-Review: "The Lost Blogs"

Update: This is why book reviews are generally written after the book is read, which sounds dull, I know, but may actually have some kind of strange logic to it. Anyway, I'm twenty pages further along and the book may not be exactly the non-stop laugh riot I made it out to be. Moses blogging the parting of the Red Sea is one thing; Thomas Paine soliciting titles for his papers is a little less than that previously mentioned thing. But it's still funny and I shall persevere. Don't lose heart.

Well, after some kind of snafu, no doubt involving the NSA, the UPS guy drove up and deposited on my porch not one but two copies of The Lost Blogs by Paul Davidson. I suppose the second copy was Time Warner's way of apologizing for not delivering my review copy before the book was published on May 8, thereby preventing me from scooping the entire blogosphere and cementing forever my status as the Golden Child of Reviews of Books about Fictional Blogging. But, hey, that's the way it goes.

Anyway, I'm only seven pages into the book and my advice is simple: drop what you're doing and go to your local bookseller and demand to purchase a copy of this book so that you, too, may snort your favorite beverage all over your lap.

Well, let me back up here a bit. If you're not a blogger, or at least a pretty voracious blog reader, then maybe you won't find the book all that hilarious. Davidson pretty well nails the various personalities that bloggers assume, only he imposes them on actual historical figures (the first six "bloggers" are, in order, Moses, John Wilkes Booth, Babe Ruth, Neil Armstrong, John Lennon, and Napoleon). Although there's some debate as to the actual historicity of John Lennon, but we won't get into that right now.

I'll post a complete review when I finish the book, but I know many of you have been waiting with bated breath since I first revealed my exclusive status for the receipt of the tome. To make it up to you, some lucky Gazette reader may well be the recipient of the second copy as part of a Major Award Package. Details will be blogged.

Technorati tags: The Lost Blogs | Paul Davidson

Book Review: "Seeing"

I finished José Saramago's Seeing yesterday. This novel, which was published in Portuguese in 2004 but released in an English translation this year, is the follow-up to Blindness, which I reviewed a couple of weeks ago.

The events in Seeing occur four years following the epidemic of blindness that swept the population of the unidentified country introduced in Blindness. The Pulitzer-prize winning author takes you pretty far into the book before any mention of those previous events, and even further before any of the characters from Blindness appear. Once they do appear, however, they become central to the plot and while it's not essential to have read Blindness to comprehend Seeing (no pun intended), it is helpful.

Saramago's writing style is unchanged: no regard for punctuation, sentences that run on for paragraphs, few obvious clues during conversations as to who is speaking...although none of these things, or even all of them collectively make the story difficult to follow. In fact, these literary affectations have the strange consequence of freeing the reader's imagination and allowing her or him to form a kind of partnership with the author.

This is a difficult book to review without revealing too much. I apologize to those who haven't yet read Blindness; my recommendation is not to read Seeing until you do. Seriously. Both books will be more meaningful if you'll read them in the proper sequence.

If you have read Blindness, you should know that on the surface...in the beginning...the two novels have nothing in common other than the author's unusual writing style. Whereas the first book was horrifying and brutal almost from the start, Seeing is light, fanciful, amusing -- even comical at times, in a Marx Brothers' Duck Soup kind of way. It's a more overtly politicial story than its predecessor, with an overarching theme that those in power will do anything to stay in power. You'll be tempted to look for allusions to current governments and politicians in Saramago's fictitious setting; any success you might have in this endeavor will be entirely yours.

I'll leave you with this simple warning about Seeing: it's a literary sucker-punch, and it doesn't end like it begins. If you're interested in following some of the characters you met in Blindness (who may very well have been introduced in even earlier works by the author; I've not read any of his other novels), I assure you that you'll want to read Seeing. What I cannot assure you is how you'll feel after it's all over.

Technorati tags: José Saramago | Blindness | Seeing

"Like G.K. Chesterton, only better looking..."

It's been a while since I visited The Dawn Patrol (so many blogs, so little time...), but I'm happy to learn that Dawn Eden's book, The Thrill of the Chaste, has a December publication date. She's just shared a glimpse of the book's cover and it's quite classy, in keeping with the subject material, which is hinted at by the sub-title, "Finding fulfillment while keeping your clothes on."

If you have any unmarried friends who struggle with "completeness," send 'em Dawn's way, because she's the go-to gal for encouragement and a practical example of a Christian who's practicing what she preaches in the most cosmopolitan of environs.

And, I see that she's still capable of writing a wicked headline. ;-)

Technorati tag: The Thrill of the Chaste

Book Review: "Blindness"

I started reading José Saramago's Blindness around 9:00 p.m. on Friday and finished it about an hour ago (it's Sunday, about 3:30 p.m.). 326 pages in less than 48 hours. That's not exactly a speed-reading record, but it should be taken as an indication of the mesmerizing quality of this novel about what happens when an epidemic of blindness sweeps through the population of an unidentified nation.

This book was published eleven years ago and there's nothing I can add to the discussion about its message. Neither do I wish to reveal any additional details of the plot. All I want to do is share my reaction to the novel, since others have expressed an interest.

The author acts as an omniscient narrator, an observer and occasional interpreter of the events that unfold through the progression of the "disease" (if that's what it is). The writing style is almost stream of consciousness, but I found it not difficult at all to comprehend. (I did wonder how much, if any, of this style came from the fact that the novel was translated from Portuguese. There's a rather poignant publisher's footnote at the end informing the reader that the original translator died before completing the work, which was taken over by another person.) But the words and construction are just the delivery mechanism for a story with details that are by turns, incredibly disturbing and touching. Those details are so vividly described, so realistic, so brutal, that one might feel transported into the story...and that's often not a comfortable place to be.

One Gazette reader wanted to know if Blindness would cause nightmares, and my answer is that if one is prone to taking what they read into their subconscious then, yes, this is the stuff that nightmares are made of. But it would be unfair to leave it at that, because the diligent reader will find eventually find some redemption in the story.

Saramago is a Communist and an atheist, and I find some of his political views repugnant; his view of the world and humanity are colored by a lens that is very different from mine. But he has created a undeniably powerful novel, one that consumed my weekend, and I don't regret the investment of time.

Next up, Saramago's follow-up novel published this year: Seeing. I think I'll wait a few days, though...maybe just enjoy looking at things for a while.

Blindness/Seeing

I bit the bullet and bought both Blindness and Seeing at Barnes & Noble this evening. The former grabs you from the first page, just as Mis_nomer reported.

I love the way Blindness has a white cover, and Seeing has a black one, both with similar layouts. I presume the latter book is a kind of sequel, but as I wrote in a comment on Mis_nomer's blog, I don't like to know too much in advance about the books I buy.

I doubt that I'll have anything significant to add to the excellent reviews of Blindness by Mis_nomer and Jim over at Serotoninrain, but I'll be sure to report on Seeing.

Technorati tags: José Saramago | Blindness | Seeing

"I'm King Dork and I want you to be my Queeeeeeen...."

The debut novel by Frank Portman (of The Mr. T Experience), King Dork, has its own theme song...or, rather, title track.

Read a book review here, listen to the song here, and order the goshdarn novel here. (That last link, at Amazon.com, also has some additional and interesting content by the author.)

Tip o'the hat to Bookslut

Technorati tags: Frank Portman | King Dork

Intriguing "Blindness"

This post makes me want to read this book.

Have any of you read it?

Technorati tag: Jose Saramago

Ten Sure-Fire Best Selling Plots For Your Novel

Or, to be more honest about it, Ten Novel Pitches You Probably Shouldn't Make.

Those of you aspiring to be published writers might find the comment thread to the preceding post enlightening. If you don't care about being a published writer but want to make better cookies, it works for that as well.

Link via Books, Inq. via ArchaeoTexture.

Upcoming Review: "The Lost Blogs"

I don't usually publicize in advance the books I'm going to review. For one thing, I can't handle the self-imposed pressure to, you know, actually read the book. But I have to make an exception in this case because the title and subject matter sound so great.

The book is The Lost Blogs : From Jesus to Jim Morrison--The Historically Inaccurate and Totally Fictitious Cyber Diaries of Everyone Worth Knowing by Paul Davidson, and it purports to provide a comical look at what historical figures might have included in their blogs. I expect it to be silly, irreverent, and scattered...in other words, just like the Gazette!

The book won't be released for publication until May, but my review copy should arrive soon (courtesy of Time Warner Book Group) and I'll try to have my impressions online in time for you to decide whether or not to put it on your wish list.

Technorati tags: The Lost Blogs | Paul Davidson

Book Review: "The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo"

If you've ever lived in a small town or attended a small school or worked in a small office, you're surely familiar with the gossiping, the flirtations, the unnoticed revolutions, the amateurish intrigues, the idle speculation, the short tempers, and the occasional tender mercies that are woven through the daily fabric of those experiences. These things are probably universal -- the plot elements never change, just the cast of characters.

Peter Orner thinks that the only truly exotic place would be one that's completely uninhabited by people. And thus it is that while the first novel by this award-winning author is set in the unlikely location of the Namibian veld, in south Africa, the faculty and students in the Catholic school that provides the main backdrop for the story will be as familiar to most readers as the backs of their hands.

The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo is set in the early 90s, not long after Namibia won its independence from South Africa. There's a small all-boys Catholic school located in Goas, which the reader will come to view as dry and dreary and hopeless as place as any ever portrayed in a Sergio Leone spaghetti western. Into this barren backwater (sans the water) comes Larry Kaplanski, a young Jewish teacher from Cincinnati who has volunteered in a sort of Peace Corps-evoking mission to help educate young Namibians.

Second Coming is a stream-of-consciousness account of Kaplansk's (the others inexplicably decide his name doesn't warrant the final "i") time at the school. Despite what the book jacket says, he is the main character and most frequent narrator, although others occasionally take over the story-telling. Mavala Shikongo is a young and unmarried female teacher -- a veteran of the bloody war for independence -- who reappears, with young child in tow, at Goas after an unexplained absence, and after Kaplanski's arrival. As the only "eligible" female for miles around, she attracts the attention of all the men at Goas, including the married ones. Kaplanski is the only one to succeed in getting close to her, but with puzzling results.

I recently posted something about "blooks," books derived from blogs. Second Coming might be the inverse: a blog in book form. Orner has chosen an unusual format for his story. The book, which is about 300 pages in length, contains 153 chapters. Some chapters are but a few sentences in length, and none are more than a few pages. They're more like blog posts than literary chapters, and a given chapter doesn't necessarily build on or relate to those immediately surrounding it.

Still, Orner succeeds in painting a complete picture of life in a place that most of us cannot imagine and will likely never visit. The authenticity comes honestly; Orner himself worked as a teacher in Namibia. His descriptions of life in the drought-stricken veld will ring true to any desert dweller, and his insertion of various facets of Namibian history will be enlightening without becoming pedagogical. And his characters are uniformly complex and imaginative.

In the final anaysis, however, Second Coming may not be entirely satisfying, leaving the reader to fill in some significant gaps (the actual ending comes ten years after the rest of the book) in the lives of the main characters. Depending on one's tolerance for ambiguity, or willingness to partner with the author in finishing the story, this could be either a strength or a weakness of the book.

Notes:

This review is based on an Advance Reading Copy provided to me by the Time Warner Book Group. The book is scheduled for publication on April 24, 2006.

Peter Orner says that he writes by hand, the old-fashioned way, in similar fashion to another best-selling author. [Thanks to Jim for the serendipitous link.]

Second Coming contains passages with explicit and implied sexual content; this is not a novel for youngsters.

Technorati tags: The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo | Peter Orner

Blooky Here

As if we didn't have enough horrid sounding words built around "blog," now we have to contend with blooks...books derived from blogs.

Self-publishing company Lulu.com has even inaugurated an award, The Blooker (any resemblance to a much more prestigious British award is purely intentional, and potentially litigable), to promote this genre. According to Lulu, whose objectivity in this matter is, to put it politely, suspect, "Blooks are the world's fastest-growing new kind of book and an exciting new stage in the life cycle of content, if not a whole new category of content." Do tell.

Not everyone is impressed.

Link via Bookslut, via which we also findthis saucy little article about the new "anti-blogs," and an observation that the new editors of four Serious Literary Magazines are apparently zombies. As in "are you Night of the Living Dead in there?"* zombies.

*OK, more extra credit stuff. What's the origin of this quote?

Technorati tags: Blooks | Repulsive Blog-Derived Non-Words

String Theory

I got no takers (nor offerers, for that matter) on my "extra credit" assignment at the bottom of the post about throat-cutting kites (although my pal and fellow sci-fi geek Mark did email for a hint, which I cruelly refused to provide, for good reasons which you'll soon understand). Knowing how you hang on every word of the Gazette, I can only assume that the small type and sonorous voice of the preceding post caused you to sleepwalk right past it, so here it is again:

identify the classic sci-fi novel in which a very thin string is used with horrifying effectiveness in a terrorist strike.

Ring a bell?

Actually, this is a trick question...in that I'm not positive I know the answer, and I was hoping someone else could confirm what I think is the right response. And you, dear readers, have let me down.

Here's what I do know. In a late 60s/early 70s science fiction novel, the author described a future society in which terrorism was rampant, sort of like today only it employed much more technologically advanced weaponry. The example I recall consisted of a single long-chain molecule -- a complex polymer, I suppose -- that was essentially unbreakable and invisible. In the story, one of these molecules was stretched across a road (I forget exactly how it was secured on each side; that's always bothered me) in advance of a military troop transport. The vehicle and its inhabitants were sliced by the molecule. Simple enough, right? But here's the twist that made it more horrible: there were no outright fatalities, but due to the extreme thinness of the "string," the effects of the slicing were disturbingly unpredictable. Depending on where one was sliced -- and even the body's orientation to the string -- different parts of the body stopped working normally. Things were just a bit off; synapses misfired or muscles didn't respond or organs began to do strange things. The injuries couldn't be diagnosed, nor could they be repaired.

OK, enough of that. Here's the thing. I'm not at all sure that I'm recollecting any of this properly. I think the scene came from one of John Brunner's classic "dystopian future" novels, and my best guess is that it's Stand on Zanzibar. But he wrote a couple of other possible candidates during that time period, notably The Sheep Look Up and Shockwave Rider (arguably the first cyberpunk novel), and I suppose the scene I described above could have come from one of them.

Anyone care to weigh in as to the source of my admittedly hazy recollections?

And in anticipation of your logical but entirely unnecessary question, I can't actually look in the books because they're up in the attic and, well, there are spiders up there.

Technorati tags: John Brunner | Stnad On Zanzibar

Book Review: "Fortunate Son: A Novel"

Last night I finished reading an advance copy¹ of Walter Mosley's latest novel, entitled Fortunate Son: A Novel (slated for release on April 10, 2006).

Fortunate Son: A Novel (the latter qualifier apparently intended to distinguish this book from a similarly named volume about George W. Bush's rise to the presidency) describes the first couple of decades in the lives of two boys -- one black, the other white -- whose shared experiences as very young children created an inexplicable bond that years of separation by the most bizarre of situations could not shake.

For one boy, life came easy; everything he touched turned to gold, it seemed. For the other, nothing was easy...nothing seemed fair. Those around him gave him the perverse nickname of "Lucky," as an ironic joke. Yet the former moved through life feeling empty, if he felt anything at all, while Lucky had the ability to find joy in mundane details of otherwise heartbreaking situations.

The boys' lives take vastly divergent paths, and we are led to understand that neither will end well unless those paths can somehow be rejoined.

The author has crafted a plotline that moves quickly and efficiently. Scenes of dramatic confrontation are presented matter-of-factly (including multiple very explicit sex scenes) and without warning (think anti-Stephen-King). The overall effect leaves the reader wondering what's important and what's insignificant, and that situation is exacerbated by the way the main characters seem unaffected by any of the trials and challenges they face. One boy sees the best in everything; the other seems possessed with some god-like ability to transcend the things that affect mere mortals. Even the book's conclusion, where vexing loose ends are neatly tied up, is presented in such a way as to leave the reader in doubt about whether or not it is really a "happy ending."

As an exercise in how to expertly juggle multiple plotlines and improbable characters, Fortunate Son succeeds brilliantly. Unfortunately, I couldn't resist peeking behind the curtain rather than simply taking it all at face value, and came away with nothing more substantial than cotton candy or the final glint of the setting sun on a Pacific coast wave.

¹Disclosure: This book was provided to me for review purposes via the Online Marketing program of the Time Warner Book Group. I was intrigued by the amount of editing that is obviously done between the "advance reading copy" and the final publication, judging by the number of typos and other errors in the volume I read. This was my first glimpse into this aspect of the publishing process.

Technorati tags: Fortunate Son: A Novel | Walter Mosley

Dan Brown's Inadvertent Writing Lessons

Novelist Dan Brown is currently defending himself against charges of plagiarism surrounding his mega-selling novel The Da Vinci Code (which, I must confess, I haven't read). This civil lawsuit is taking place in London and under British law witnesses are permitted to submit their testimony in writing rather than undergoing public examination.

Thanks to the Wall Street Journal's Law Blog, [Oops...wrong link. Here's the correct one.] we can read Brown's written testimony via this 75-page PDF document (a tidy 3.5mb download, for those of you on dial-up).

While this trial is yawn-inducing -- unless you're a Larry King-caliber lawsuit junkie -- a quick scan through the document will uncover an unexpected benefit for those who have aspirations of becoming a novelist, because Brown reveals a number of details about his approach to the discipline of writing, as well as plot and character development. This is a rare opportunity to get some advice from a guy who's sold a gazillion books.

For me, though, the most interesting issue presented by this document is the idea of giving an accomplished novelist free rein with written testimony. Isn't that akin to giving, say, Gregory Peck* the right to present the defense's closing argument in front of a jury? What is a novelist, after all, but an actor whose stage is the page? This guy's profession -- his livelihood and his gift -- is presenting people with his own version of reality in such a way that they make it theirs as well.

I wonder if his reaction upon hearing that he was to provide the court with this written testimony was something like, "oh, no...don' t'row me in dat briar patch!"?

*I tried to think of a contemporary actor to use as an example and came up empty-handed.

Reading for the fun of it

I'm a couple hundred pages into Neal Stephenson's epic Quicksilver, the first volume of his Baroque Cycle trilogy (or is it a quadrology?). This ground has been trod by Jim at Serotoninrain, who's well into the set, and Patti over at White Pebble (based on her photo montage).

Stephenson is one of those writers who can make the mundane fabulous. He can make eating cereal seem exciting (which, in fact, he did in Cryptonomicon). You can read him for his intricate plots, or you can read him just to enjoy the prose. Or, best of all, both.

Anyway, I ran across the following passage last night and felt compelled to share it in its entirety, as it perfectly embodies Stephenson's way with words. (And it's not totally irrelevant, seeing as how we've quite recently discussed Jen's pregnancy...not that the following sets any sort of expectation whatsoever.)

This part of the novel is set in London in the latter part of the 17th century. That's all the background needed to apprehend the general context of the passage.

If I had any standing to quibble with this passage--which I don't--it would be the second occurrence of the word "primal," but that's not something most people would catch on the first reading (I saw it the third time through).

Technorati tags: Quicksilver | Neal Stephenson

Book Review: "Philosophy Made Simple"

Tomorrow marks the official release of Robert Hellenga's fourth novel, Philosophy Made Simple, but I was privileged to receive an advance copy from the publisher courtesy of my Book Angel at Time Warner Book Group.

This was my first exposure to Hellenga's writing. He is one of those authors whose prose takes a back seat to the story. I rarely found myself backtracking to re-read a specific phrase or sentence in order to savor the exquisite combination of words...but that is not meant as a criticism. In fact, it's quite refreshing to be able to concentrate on the story without the words getting in the way.

That's not to say that this is a simple book (or a simple story). Hellenga has juxtaposed settings and plot elements in imaginative and satisfying ways. For example, as a native Texan I was fascinated by his introduction of Hinduism and Indian culture into the familiar Rio Grande Valley town names such as Mission, Harlingen, Brownsville and McAllen. One of the important characters in the book is an artistic elephant named Norma Jean, owned and trained by a Russian but fluent in the ancient Sanskrit commands of mahouts.

Philosophy Made Simple is the account of a sixty-year old Chicago produce merchant named Rudy Harrington following the death of his wife. Rudy is vigorously engaged in a search for the meaning of life, and has decided to seek the answer by studying the writings of the great philosophers: Plato, Aristotle, Descarte, Kant, and so on. This comes on the heels of his relocation to South Texas, where he has purchased an avocado grove, a move that cuts physical ties to his previous life but doesn't even nick the psychic ties to his past.

As the title implies, this is not a serious philosophical treatise, although the questions it raises – and, ultimately, fails to answer...again, this is not a shortcoming – are serious and fundamental. Hellenga writes with a wry humor and a keen eye for detail, and almost nothing turns out like you think it will. His characters, human and other