No, E-books Can't Burn, But...

Tim Parks said some things in his recent New York Review of Books article, "E-books Can't Burn," that I find almost nonsensical.  I understand what he is trying to say, and I can see the logic he used to arrive at his conclusions, but his points are so near the opposite of my gut feelings about physical books and e-books that I find them ludicrous.

This is a section of that article (highlights are mine) that particularly makes me shake my head in disbelief:

The e-book, by eliminating all variations in the appearance and weight of the material object we hold in our hand and by discouraging anything but our focus on where we are in the sequence of words (the page once read disappears, the page to come has yet to appear) would seem to bring us closer than the paper book to the essence of the literary experience. Certainly it offers a more austere, direct engagement with the words appearing before us and disappearing behind us than the traditional paper book offers, giving no fetishistic gratification as we cover our walls with famous names. It is as if one had been freed from everything extraneous and distracting surrounding the text to focus on the pleasure of the words themselves. In this sense the passage from paper to e-book is not unlike the moment when we passed from illustrated children’s books to the adult version of the page that is only text. This is a medium for grown-ups.

 Let's start with the last sentence.  This is a medium for grown-ups?  Hardly.  It is a medium with particular appeal to the gadget-minded children of today who are living in a world in which they have never known a day of not plugging in to some electronic game, music gadget, video player, or smart phone.  To them, e-book readers are the way of the world, another way to impress their friends (if friends are still impressed by someone reading a book, that is) that they are living "on the edge" of modern technology.  Most adults are perfectly fine with a physical book, thank you, and find, once the new wears off, that e-book readers are largely to be dragged from a drawer and loaded prior to the beginning of another business trip or vacation.

As for e-books "discouraging anything but our focus on where we are," I submit that longtime readers find it more difficult to focus on the written words electronically than by reading those same words in a physical book.  Distractions seem to more easily tear one's eyes from electronic ink than from the written page.  It has been my experience, and that of several I have asked about it, that one's retention rate when reading an e-book falls somewhere between what one retains in listening to an audio book and reading a physical copy.  Perhaps that is different for less experienced readers.

Experienced readers understand the value that different fonts and white spacing have in setting a mood and a pace for the reader.  They understand that reading a classic novel in an early printing and binding can be a very important part of the reading experience.  They understand that reading an e-book is a relatively sterile experience and that reading one e-book is much like reading any other e-book.

No, "e-books can't burn," but they can disappear into the electronic void at any moment or become inaccessible when an e-book reader crashes and burns.  Publishers and sellers (as Amazon has done) can yank them back to make changes and edits any time they want to do so.  Or, most troubling considering their ever-rising prices, e-book formats can (and will) change, pretty much making entire e-libraries obsolete when they do.

Do read Mr. Parks's article.  I expect that many of you will agree with him and that others will find much of what he says to be as ludicrous as I find it to be.  Let me know what you think.

The Beginner's Goodbye (First Look)

I know it will sound strange, but I finally felt good enough to go to the doctor today.  Actually, I first went to the office and put in five hours of catch-up effort, physically crashed, and then managed to make my way to one of those pharmacy clinics where I was prescribed some 60 antibiotic pills to take over the next ten days.  I feel so awful right now that I probably won't be heading back to work until Thursday morning, at the earliest.  But, hey, I made a huge dent in what was stacked up and got everything done that was due by the end of February.

But here's some really good news.  I am a huge Anne Tyler fan, having read every novel she has written over her long career, and in today's mail I received an Advance Reader's Edition of her latest book, The Beginner's Goodbye.  This one is to be published in April and has this to say about itself:

Crippled in his right arm and leg, Aaron has spent his childhood fending off a sister who wants to manage him.  So when he meets Dorothy, a plain, outspoken, independent young woman, she is like a breath of fresh air.  Unhesitatingly, he marries her, and they have a relatively happy, unremarkable marriage.

But when a tree crashes into their house and Dorothy is killed, Aaron feels as though he has been erased forever.  Only Dorothy's unexpected appearances from the dead help him to live in the moment and to find some peace.  And gradually he discovers that maybe for this beginner there is a way of saying good bye.

A beautiful, subtle exploration of loss and recovery, pierced throughout with Anne Tyler's humor, wisdom, and always penetrating look at human foibles.

 Considering that my fiction-reading-ratio favors men authors by more than a 2-1 margin over women authors, it was unlikely that I would so completely fall in love with the fiction of Anne Tyler and Joyce Carol Oates the way I have, but the pair of them (different as they are) have been two of my top four favorite authors for over three decades now.  Ms. Tyler is much less prolific (as in not prolific at all) than Ms. Oates when it comes to releasing titles, so this is good day - and this one might just jump to the top of my monster-sized TBR stack.

 

The China Gambit

Political thriller fans demand a few specific things from the genra, among them: non-stop action, a plausible plot, and fearless good guys they can watch spoil the dangerous plans of the baddies.  It is a bonus when any of the main characters are especially believable or well-developed.  Allan Topol comes very close to giving his fans that bonus in his latest, The China Gambit, the first volume of his planned trilogy featuring ex-CIA agent Craig Page.

Since being pushed out of the CIA, Page, in the role of private consultant, has taken his fight against international terrorism to Europe.  But when he learns that his daughter has been killed while working on a “big story” for a New York City newspaper, Page puts everything aside to find out who is responsible.  When both Page and his daughter’s editor, Elizabeth Crowder, become convinced that Francesca Page’s death was no accident, they team up to avenge her murder. 

Unfortunately for those responsible for the murder, they have unknowingly killed the daughter of a man directly experienced in stopping just the sort of plot they are devising to cripple the United States economy.  Even more unfortunate for the bad guys, Elizabeth Crowder, though less experienced than Page, will prove to be a highly capable partner to him as their investigation takes them around the globe. 

Allan Topal

The China Gambit is a wild ride that will find Craig and Elizabeth working undercover inside both Iran and China, usually one tiny step ahead of those determined to stop them – when they are lucky.  Craig Page proves to be an interesting character with a long history and an intriguing worldview.  Topol does an admirable job of telling Page’s backstory in this first volume, but readers will likely learn much more about the man’s makeup in the last two books of the series.  Elizabeth Crowder, on the other hand, is almost too good to be true, considering that she has almost no hands-on experience in fighting (or even much being around) terrorists and what they do.  But she is not really too much of a stretch because, for most thriller fans, suspending one’s disbelief is second nature; it comes with the territory.  After all, do any of us ever really expect that our hero will die or fail in the end?  Consider how much more exciting political thrillers would be if we could achieve the impossible by convincing ourselves that things might actually go wrong for our hero.

Rated at: 4.0

Sleepy in Houston

It seems like I've been gone forever - and I suppose that, in the blogging world, four days is pretty much the equivalent of forever.  Frankly, I have felt so terrible during most of my MIA days that this is the first time I've even considered cranking up the computer.  Seems that I finally picked up the version of the Houston Crud that's been plaguing my side of town for the last three weeks or so, and it turns out that this bug is a hard one to shake.  Some of my co-workers (and my wife) have fought it over the better part of two weeks before returning to anything even close to feeling normal.

For me, with Friday and Saturday being by far the worst, it's only been a total of five days.  I'm a good bit better today, but I spent at least 20 hours sound asleep on Friday, followed by another 14 hours on Saturday.  In the middle of all this, two rooms of my house are being re-floored - and I slept right through it all.  Anyway, I'm planning to try to return to the office tomorrow.  Wish me luck with that.

Killer Stuff and Tons of Money

Thanks to television networks such as The History Channel and A&E, hundreds of thousands of people now dream about getting rich off something they stumble on at a neighborhood garage sale.  A few of them even have high hopes that someday their flea-market habit will produce a steady enough profit to free them from the nine-to-five rat race they dread so much.  Maureen Stanton’s Killer Stuff and Tons of Money (subtitled: Seeking History and Hidden Gems in Flea-Market America) is here to tell you that it is not nearly as easy as American Pickers and Pawn Stars make it appear to be.

Over the years, Stanton’s longtime friend Curt Avery occasionally has taken her along when he goes to work in the morning.  What makes that a rewarding experience for both of them is that Avery’s workplace is the multitude of flea-markets, estate sales, antique shows, and auction houses to be found on the East Coast.  He tries to pass on some of the knowledge with which his years of experience have rewarded him, and Stanton provides a little bit of free labor toward unpacking, re-packing, and setting-up his sales area.  Killer Stuff and Tons of Money is very much Avery’s life story.

Although it does a remarkable job of educating the reader via valuable tips on how to judge the authenticity and value of particular types of antiques, this is not an antique guide.  It is, rather, a portrayal of what one man goes through 52 weeks of the year as he tries to pay his family’s bills and put food on the table by hustling from one flea-market or antique show to the next.  It is a dose of reality for the dreamers that believe this is going to be easy.

Maureen Stanton

Curt Avery has been an antique picker ever since his boyhood days of digging for bottles in some of the nation’s earliest garbage heaps.  He probably, because of his reading and on-the-job studying of them, knows as much about antiques as most anyone out there.  Avery readily admits, however, that his instinct and his skill in bundling numerous bits of information to reach a likely conclusion about a piece guide his purchases as much as what the books tell him.  His is a world filled with con men, forgers, and fakes that fool even the most knowledgeable high-end antique dealers.  Avery has, of course, been burned numerous times by fakes (scary as that thought is to amateurs like us) but chalks his losses up as part of the cost of his education.

Maureen Stanton has written a painlessly educational book that at times reads more like a novel.  Following Avery’s ups and downs through the years and meeting some of the regulars with whom he competes is great fun.  As one would expect, those who make their living in the world of antique hunting and reselling are a separate breed.  Killer Stuff and Tons of Money allows the rest of us safe access to that world for a little while.

Rated at: 5.0

Black on Black Book Trailer Scores

Michael Ian Black, as of just ten minutes ago, was not a name that I recognized - meaning that I had no idea a new memoir of his is being promoted.  Then I stumbled upon this Simon & Schuster book trailer, a clever piece of film editing that allows Black to interview himself about the book.


So it's "mission accomplished", Simon & Schuster.  The book is now on my radar and, if I see it on the bookstore shelves, I will almost certainly spend a few minutes looking it over.  Who knows what might happen from there?



Rather than tell you anything about Michael Ian Black, I'll let you watch the trailer cold (assuming that many of you will also draw a blank on him like I did) to see if it makes you as curious about the new book as it made me.