Autumn of the Phantoms

Yasmina Khadra (pseudonym of Algerian author Mohammed Moulessehoul) closes the circle on his Superintendent Brahim Llob series with this third book in the series, Autumn of the Phantoms.  Superintendent Llob’s tendency to speak his mind as bluntly with his superiors as with the criminals he chases has made him a marked man in present-day Algeria.  Not only does he have to worry about Muslim terrorists wanting to assassinate him; he has to fear the same from those in power inside his own police department.  Llob knows too much, talks too much about it, and is determined to go down swinging if he has to go down at all.

Now, it seems, his superiors have the perfect excuse to push Llob out the door: his novel, Morituri, in which the Superintendent exposed the corruptness of practically everyone with any power or influence in Algiers, including the police.  First fired, and then allowed to retire (with one of the most surreal retirement tributes imaginable), Superintendent Llob now has to decide what to do with the rest of his life.  Common sense dictates that he move to the countryside with his wife where, hopefully, he will no longer be a likely target for assassination.  But first, Llob must attend the funeral of one of his oldest friends, a man tortured and killed by those who want to do the same to Llob.  What happens after the funeral – to Llob and the local villagers, terrible as it is, is typical of what happened all over Algeria during the worst of the country’s so-called civil war.

Yasmina Khadra captures the paranoia and terror of Algeria’s recent religiously inspired bloodletting to such a degree that those already familiar with its details will cringe as they read the author’s account of what happened on a nightly basis to those unable to protect themselves from the terrorists - and from the soldiers and policemen charged with protecting them.  As one character put it as life went on and the carnage was ignored: “Here, young girls are raped and beheaded, children are maimed by bombs, whole families are hacked to pieces every night, and we behave as if nothing’s going on.”

Criminals and religious fanatics thrive in this opportunity to rape, murder, steal, and run wild in ways almost unimaginable.  The army and the police are so overwhelmed that many in their ranks grow to be as vicious as those they are supposed to control.  Civilians are the most unfortunate because they can trust neither the “bad guys” nor the supposed “good guys.”

Perhaps, as one of Superintendent Llob’s friends reflects, what hurts most is the realization that all the violence comes from fellow Algerians.  He said: 

“We’ve been taught to hate ever since we came into the world; we were turned from the Truth. We’re taught hatred of the Other, hatred of the Absent and the Foreign – a manufactured hatred, in short. And look, Brahim, just look. Who’s burning our schools today, who’s killing our brothers and neighbors who’s beheading our intellectuals, who’s putting our land to fire and the sword? Aliens? Malaysians? Animists? Christians? … They’re Algerians, just Algerians, who not so long ago were belting out the national anthem in our stadiums, who rushed in the thousands to help the victims of disasters and mobilized impressively for every telethon. And now look. Do you recognize yourself in them? – I don’t, not at all…My race of people, Brahim, are all those who, from one end of the world to the other, refuse to allow these monsters to be forgiven.”

I was fortunate to spend several years working in Algeria. What I read in Algerian newspapers (and what my Algerian friends told me) about the slaughter of whole villages in one bloody night, the beheadings of men in front of their families, the hijacking of buses filled with men who would be murdered on their way to work, and the beheadings of foreign workers, is even worse than what Khadra describes in Autumn of the Phantoms. I do believe that there are thousands of Algerians that “refuse to allow these monsters to be forgiven.” Pray that they survive long enough to get back their country.

Rated at: 4.5

Best Selling Author on Amazon UK Is Self-Published

Stephen Leather

All of us, if we admit it, are probably a little bit stunned at the pace at which e-books and e-book readers are impacting the world of publishing.  While there are obvious pros and cons associated with this brave new world, other, less obvious, changes are occurring as well.  Take, for instance, this story in the U.K.'s Guardian about how one self-publishing author is doing quite well selling e-books via the Kindle.

...a British thriller writer who sells his novels as ebooks for as little as 70p is proving the naysayers wrong.


Not only does Stephen Leather, Britain's leading "independent" writer, estimate he has occupied the number one spot on Amazon.co.uk's Kindle ebook bestseller lists for "90% of the last three months", he is also selling "somewhere in the region" of 2,000 ebooks a day – and making big profits in the process.

[...]

Capitalising on the popularity of e-readers such as the Kindle, a new generation of writers is bypassing agents and publishers and using the flexible pricing model of ebooks to offer their work directly to the public at rock-bottom prices. Some, like Leather, are achieving huge sales, which, not surprisingly, is striking fear into publishers.

In Leather's case, he was already a published author when he decided to turn three rejected manuscripts into Kindle e-books. Selling the books at the minimum amount Amazon allows (99 cents) as he does, Mr. Leather's revenue stream is quite impressive, sometimes in the neighborhood of $16,000 per month.

It's no wonder that publishers might be a little concerned by this new business model.  After all, who is more perfect for this kind of thing than mega-seller James Patterson and a handful of others that sell in Patterson-like numbers.  Patterson, on second thought, might be a poor example.  He is, after all, a man that already farms out much of the writing upon which he slaps his brand, so doing his own marketing would not seem to be something he would find appealing.  Other big name writers, however, might enjoy the challenge.

But, three cheers for the little guy that might just be able to build a market for himself this way.  Is Amazon destined to become the largest publisher in the world?  It would not surprise me in the least.

For a better feel for how Leather has made this work so well for himself, take a look at his personal blog, called, appropriately enough: Stephen Leather's Blog.

And, please do click through (from the link in my first paragraph) to the entire Guardian article...lots more there.

Pat Conroy Discusses His Reading Life

As sponsored by Borders:



This is a fascinating interview, full of insights into the evolution of Pat Conroy, writer (I especially like his take on Gone with the Wind).

From the Library to Your iPad - Via OverDrive

I downloaded the OverDrive Media Console software to my iPad tonight so that I could download e-books directly to my iPad from my public library system.  In the past, I've checked out e-books for my Sony Reader, but that involves first having to download to my PC for a secondary transfer of the e-books to the Reader.  OverDrive for iPad sounds so much simpler...I thought.

First problem encountered: how to make the Harris County Public Library system "save" so that I don't have to search for it every time I start the software?  After much trial and error, I find that I don't have to save, but I do have to log-in at each new start with my 14-digit library card number (a number I use so often that I have somehow committed it to memory).

Second problem encountered: there are very, very few books available these days; each choice requires the book to be placed on hold for later notification from the library when it becomes available.  Since the system only has one or two copies of each book, that could take months.

Third problem encountered: when I finally found a nonfiction book called Orange Is the New Black that was actually available (about a woman who was sent to prison for a crime she had committed in her youth, some ten years earlier), I got the title all the way to "checkout," pushed download, and was told that I needed to authorize my iPad through the Adobe website in order to use their software to complete the download.

Fourth problem encountered: after finally remembering my sign-in and pass word (set up months earlier to authorize the Sony Reader), I finally got the iPad authorized, and the book downloaded.

Fifth problem encountered: opening the book - not nearly as simple or intuitive a process as one might imagine, but I finally got there.

So now I have a 375-page book on loan to my iPad for 14 days, after which time the file will self-corrupt and become unreadable.  Isn't technology great?

By the way, I just heard today that some publishers are building "self-destruction" software into the e-books they SELL to libraries.  HarperCollins, for instance, kills the library e-books after they have been checked out just 26 times, the theory being that a physical copy of a book only lasts through 26 checkouts and the library needs to buy a new copy at that point - electronic blips or not.  I have to believe that a physical book is good for more than 26 reads.  The real number can't be 26, can it?

I suspect that I will eventually grow to love the OverDrive software, but getting it set-up and functioning has cost me almost an hour of valuable time tonight.  I already like the larger iPad screen so much that my Sony Reader is looking more and more like an antique destined to spend the rest of its life in the closet.  I do have some suggestions for enhancements to the software, however, if anyone at OverDrive is listening.

P.S.  This same app is good for checking out audio books from your local library but I haven't tried that function yet.

Shoppers Love You When You Liquidate

About now, Borders is being reminded of an old rule of thumb about shoppers.  As Sue Stock of newsobservor.com put it, "Shoppers love you when you have a liquidation sale."

The kickoff of the clearance sale and the buzz it generated was enough to draw hundreds of deal-hunters.


Lines over the weekend filled store aisles, and even on weekdays, busy folks on their lunch breaks are making time to stop by.

[...]

"Prices at Borders stores are higher than they were three weeks ago," de Grandpre said. "People think they're getting a good deal. ... The good deals do come, but they come at the end - six to eight weeks into the sale."

[...]

"Don't allow the hoopla that surrounds a liquidation sale to make you completely lose your judgment," he said.


Before the sales are over in April, discounts will likely reach 80 percent to 90 percent, de Grandpre (dealnews.com editor) said.

Exactly the same was true when Barnes & Noble shut down their last Bookstop bookstore in Houston a few years ago.  I found that shopping experience to be almost like participating in an eBay auction where everyone strives to get in the last second bid that lets them run away with their "winnings."  I bought a few dozen books over a 2-month period as the stock slowly diminished, most of them during the last week when prices were at, or very close, to the lowest levels they were likely to reach.

It was actually a lot like gambling.  Do I buy at this week's price or gamble that copies will be available even cheaper next week?  Is someone else playing the same game with that last copy of  a book I've been watching for three weeks?  When do I push the button?  I was having fun, especially when I found that my tastes were much different than the average Bookstop shopper's in that last two weeks.  That really improved the odds that my books would stay on the shelves a while longer.

I wonder how Borders employees feel about all these customers suddenly appearing in the same stores that have been ignored by book buyers for so long.  It must be a tad difficult for Borders salespeople to be polite to customers who have only come in to pick the stores' bones clean - like the vultures all thrifty shoppers have, by necessity, learned to be.

(If, from their side, Borders is playing the game the way Circuit City and a few other chains have played it in recent months, prices are, indeed, higher on many items this week than they were before the liquidation began.  Many of those 20% discounts being offered at Borders right now might be starting from the full recommended sales prices of items rather than from the, possibly lower, prices those same items were marked at last week.  The result could be that, even with the 20% "markdown," some items are higher priced now than before the sale began.  Buyer, beware.)

Hitch-22: A Memoir

I have been aware of Christopher Hitchens for a long time, but it is only in the last few years that I’ve really been much of an admirer of his.  It’s amazing how much “smarter” the man seemed to become as his political views grew closer to my own (for those unsure, this is my lame attempt at a joke) – even his “take no prisoners” debate style seemed less abrasive than before.

Hitch-22 is in some ways more than the book I expected and, in other ways, a bit less than I hoped for when I first picked it up.  On the one hand, Hitchens is frank about many aspects of his personal life, including the family scandal that cost his mother her life when she was killed by her lover in one of those murder-suicide incidents that destroy so many families.  He addresses his own bisexuality, tracing it all the way back to his boarding school days during which homosexual experimentation among the students was commonplace – and admits that he became more of a womanizer after he came to believe that signs of physical aging made him unattractive to men.  On the other hand, however, Hitchens says very little about either of his wives or his children, using them more as props, than anything else, in stories about some of his more famous friends, and enemies in the literary world.

Photo credit to be found here

Most interesting to me is the explanation Hitchens gives for his gradual shift of political views, all the way from being about as far left as one could be in 20^th century England to becoming an advocate of the far right viewpoint on American/world politics by the 21^st century.  Along the way, Hitchens became friends with some of the most influential political and literary minds of his day; as his politics changed, some of those same people would become his bitter enemies.  Hitchens, never one to pull his punches, tells the reader exactly what he thinks of the politicians, writers, pundits, and personalities he encountered along the way.  While that it definitely a good approach to writing a memoir, many American readers are likely to find themselves a bit befuddled by some of the names and situations Hitchens describes from his earlier life.  Too, these particular chapters constitute some of the most dryly written ones in the book, and it takes determination on the part of the reader to get through them despite the war zone adventures they often describe.

Hitch-22 does, though, reflect the personality of its author, and the book will not disappoint Hitchens fans.  The man’s feisty, confrontational approach to life, one leavened by his rather raunchy and witty take, is there for all to see – and enjoy.  Even taking into account his current fight for survival, few would say that Christopher Hitchens has been cheated by life.  His has been one of the more interesting ones of the 20^th century and Hitch-22 proves it.

Rated at: 4.0