The Secret of Lost Things

Sheridan Hay’s debut novel weighs in at over 350 pages and gives her ample opportunity to explore several different genres. She has written a combination coming-of-age novel, literary mystery, and sexual awakening novel (which I classify here as a subgenre of the more general coming-of-age novel). It is an ambitious first novel, to say the least, one in which Hay displays keen writing skills and, at times, striking observations about the human condition. That said, the novel does suffer a bit from her use of stereotypical characters (in particular, the transsexual character and the albino character) and a failure to keep the reader entirely engaged in the literary mystery at the heart of her story. Still, The Secret of Lost Things will definitely appeal to avid readers and book lovers, especially those who enjoy novels set in a bookstore environment.

Rosemary Savage’s life in remote Tasmania did little to prepare her for life in New York City but that is exactly where she found herself not too many weeks after her mother died. Rosemary, who never met her father, had practically been raised in the small hat shop from which her mother eked out a living for the two of them. When her mother’s closest friend, a bookshop owner who felt that Rosemary needed a fresh start and some adventure in her life, gifted her with a ticket to New York, Rosemary left Tasmania for good and almost by accident found herself working at the Arcade, a huge bookstore that specialized in used and rare books and just happened to be near her first home in the city.

Rosemary’s previous life left her unprepared for the eccentric crew populating the Arcade, among them, Pearl, a transsexual preparing for the operation that will physically transform her into the woman she knows herself to be; Oscar, the good-looking, but emotionally-stunted, clerk with whom Rosemary falls in love; Mr. Pike, the strange owner of the store who stands on his little platform in the center of the store all day pricing used volumes for the shelves and his rare book room; Lillian, a refugee from Argentina whose only son has become one of that country’s “disappeared”; and Mr. Geist, an albino who is going blind and who searches for a way to win Rosemary for himself. That kind of crew was certain to provide Rosemary with an education, one in which she learned as much about life as she did the book business.

In addition to what she learned from her co-workers, Rosemary found herself fascinated by the book collectors who visited the shop on an almost daily basis and, as she watched them in action, she realized how much they, too, were teaching her about the good and the bad of human nature. But everything suddenly changed when Mr. Geist received a letter offering to sell him the original manuscript of a Herman Melville novel, one long thought to have been lost in a fire, and he managed to involve Rosemary in his scheme to acquire and sell the book for his own profit.

The rather dramatic ending of The Secret of Lost Things, is not completely satisfying because of its somewhat predictable nature but this is impressive enough a first novel that good things can be expected from Sheridan Hay in the future.

Rated at: 3.5

Now Even the U.N. Destroys Books

Sadly enough, I have reached the point where stories about libraries and bookstores needlessly destroying books do not surprise me anymore. Those making such foolish decisions are generally idiots who should never have reached the level of authority required to make that kind of decision in the first place. Somehow they managed to get promoted above their level of competency and reached positions that allowed them to destroy the books under their care. Case closed: stupid people do stupid things.

But this Washington Post article detailing UNESCO's destruction of almost 100,000 books over a two-year period, books that were written and published using UNESCO funds (think for a minute where this money comes from, my fellow taxpayers), managed to stop me in my tracks this morning. How do these incompetents continue to get away with this? Apparently, the person responsible this time has already retired from UNESCO and there is little that can be done to punish him for his horrible decision to destroy the books rather than have them moved to new warehouse space.

PARIS -- For more than two decades, 250 historians and specialists labored to produce the first six volumes of the General History of Latin America, an exhaustive work financed by UNESCO, the United Nations organization created to preserve global culture and heritage.

Then, over the course of two years, UNESCO paid to destroy many of those books and nearly 100,000 others by turning them to pulp, according to an external audit.

...

South African Ambassador Nomasonto Maria Sibanda-Thusi told the executive board: "We believe that some decisive disciplinary action is needed. The main player may have retired, but what about those that knew but chose to remain silent?"

According to the report, the destruction occurred in 2004 and 2005, when UNESCO's overflowing book storage warehouses in Paris were relocated to Brussels. Rather than pay to move 94,500 books, auditors reported, UNESCO officials ordered them destroyed. The books were turned to pulp for recycling, the audit says.

...

Auditors made the discovery during a wide-ranging investigation of abuses and waste in UNESCO's book publication and distribution operations.

Because too many books often were ordered and others were never distributed properly, tens of thousands piled up in UNESCO's storage facilities at a cost of about $100,000 a year, until the agency decided to shift distribution functions to a Brussels company and move its stocks there.

Please read the entire article, especially the second page, because the whole story is much worse than these few quotes indicate. This smells of cover up and I'm sure that everyone involved will escape any kind of punishment. It would be very interesting to follow the money trail of this whole process, a process that went wrong from the beginning with more books than necessary being printed in the first place and then allowed to sit in warehouses rather than being properly distributed. Publishers made money, warehouses made money and, ultimately, the company that pulped the books made money. Who else made money? And those around the world who could have used the books are still empty-handed.

The U.N. and UNESCO continue to cover themselves in glory. Why am I not surprised by yet another scandal involving those organizations?

Love a Tree, Read an (e) Book? Nope.

Blogger and author, Lisa Logan, has come up with a list of six reasons that supposedly prove e-books to be superior to printed books. Lisa has several e-books "in print" and, at least for now, appears to be publishing only electronic versions of her work. Here are Lisa's reasons for junking paper in favor of plastic (along with my thoughts):

1. eBooks kill far fewer trees. I can't say NO trees, since the companies and authors producing them do likely use paper for marketing and correspondence. Still, eBooks are much more environmentally friendly than traditional, mass print run methods. POD (print on demand) improves on this approach quite a bit, but eBooks take that a big step further. (Trees are a relatively easily renewed resource. The natural resources used to produce electronic book readers, mostly petroleum products, are not. The planet is not in any danger from paper production - yes, I realize that energy is used to produce paper and to pulp the books unsold, but paper is biodegradable and plastics and batteries are not.)

2. eBook production/consumption requires minimal fossil fuel use. Consider how many trucks, planes, vans, and automobiles are put into service shipping the hundreds of thousands of book titles (that's TITLES, not total books) put into production each year. eBook manufacture requires a miniscule fraction of all this energy consumption. (The amount of fossil fuels used to transport printed books to market is a tiny drop in the overall fossil fuel bucket - there would probably be no measurable impact at all from people switching to e-books)

3. eBooks are less expensive than paper books. Typical prices for new eBooks run between two and six dollars, as opposed to between six and twenty-five dollars for a new print title. (Lisa is being a little optimistic on her pricing model. Check out the Sony e-book site and you will find that best sellers usually sell for between $10 and $15 per copy and other books will be close to $10 unless they are on sale.)

4. eBooks take up much less room. Find yourself hanging onto favorite titles for years? Then you have to have room to store them, dust them, and lug them around when you move. eBooks can be kept forever with very little space (or dusting) required. (This is a minor problem for real book lovers. We are very creative when it comes to finding space for new books and they are packed with great care when it is time to move them to new quarters. I've "lugged" boxes of books across the Atlantic on more than one occasion and would gladly do so again in order to be surrounded by my favorite books. Books make a house my home.)

5. Paper books degrade/damage easily. Pages wear and tear, yellow, and eventually crumble. Hang onto your favorite stories far longer by backing them up on sturdier media. (Hogwash. I have books that were printed in the 1860s and, though they be a little "brittle or yellow," they are still readable and I dip in and out of them on a regular basis - what could be more fun than reading Dickens from a book that was printed when the man was still writing at his peak? Does anyone seriously believe that an e-book will outlast a printed book? If so, they have not experienced the demise of Beta and VHS tapes, LPs, 8-track tapes, cassette tapes, the new DVD just made obsolete, etc. Electronics versions of anything are doomed to short lifetimes because that industry insists on making the players or readers obsolete on a regular basis.)

6. Have trouble reading small print? With a regular book, you're only in control of the glasses you can put on your face to magnify print. With eBooks, you can tweak the font size itself so it's easier to read. (While it is true that the font size on most e-books can be changed, if the e-book reader allows it, reading an e-book is still tougher on the eyes than reading from a printed book.)

E-books are interesting, and I admit to owning one of the Sony Readers. However, reading an electronic version of a book is NEVER my first choice. I have the reader handy for when I am traveling and would like to carry a large selection of books with me. It is certainly easier to carry two or three printed books and the Sony reader that is equipped with another 100 or so. But that's the only advantage I can see.

Book lovers, and we are the ones who probably read some 95% of the books read these days, want books. Books are important to us as "objects," not just for what they contain. We admire their great beauty; we love the way they feel in our hands and the way that a new book smells; we decorate our homes with books and we enjoy seeing the collections of our friends. How can an e-book compete with that?

An Embarrassing Top 10 - America's Favorite Books

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at the list of "America's Favorite Books" compiled by the Harris poll people last month...but I am. I have no idea if they even attempted to come up with a scientifically representative sample, but let's face it, the results would probably be just as strange either way.

America's Top 10 Favorite Books

1. The Bible
2. Gone with the Wind, by Margaret Mitchell
3. Lord of the Rings (series), by J.R.R. Tolkien
4. Harry Potter (series), by J.K. Rowling
5. The Stand, by Stephen King
6. The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown
7. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
8. Angels and Demons, by Dan Brown
9. Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand
10. Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger

I'm sorry, but a Top Ten list that includes Dan Brown, J.K. Rowling,Margaret Mitchell, J.R.R. Tolkien, Stephen King, Ayn Rand, etc. leaves me with a bit of an upset stomach. All the great books out there, and this is what "America" considers to be the best ever? I'm embarrassed for us. Where are all the great books written in the last two hundred years?

Dan Brown, not once, but twice? I think I'm going to be sick.

People of the Book

The Sarajevo Haggadah, a real Hebrew codex, has miraculously survived five centuries of violence, warfare and mankind’s tendency to destroy whatever is seen as a threat to those who for the moment have that kind of power. The fact that this haggadah is an illuminated text, a surprising style for a Jewish text of that period, makes the book exceptionally rare and of great historical value. The book might have been destroyed during the Bosnian conflict that devastated Sarajevo but for the intervention of a Muslim scholar who moved it to the safety of a bank vault, at least the second time in its history that this Jewish book was saved with direct Muslim help.

This is the point at which Geraldine Brooks chooses to begin her latest novel, People of the Book. Dr. Hannah Heath, an Australian expert in the field, has come to Sarajevo to ensure that the book is being properly cared for and to prepare it for exhibition in a Sarajevo museum as a symbol of the city’s, and a people’s, survival. During her examination of the book, Heath is thrilled to find inside it a few clues that might allow her to partially reconstruct the history of the book and its travels through the centuries. She finds: part of an insect wing, a white hair, a few salt crystals and what appears to be a wine stain.

Through a series of flashbacks drawing ever nearer to the book’s origins, Brooks details for readers what the few clues can only hint at to Dr. Heath concerning the book’s travels across Europe and the people who possessed and protected it over the centuries. Throughout its history this haggadah has been important to the people who owned it. It survived through a combination of luck and the extraordinarily brave efforts of people who were determined to see it survive. One flashback tells how it barely escaped falling into the hands of despicable Nazi looters, another of what happened to the book in 1894 Vienna, and others recount its creation and subsequent survival of the Spanish Inquisition years. As the book passes from hand-to-hand, backward in time, the reader comes to appreciate the miracle of its survival and the people who made that happen.

As Hanna Heath seeks to learn as much about the Sarajevo Haggadah as she can, she finds herself on a parallel journey in which she learns as much about herself and her personal origins as she does about the book. She finds herself attracted to the man who carried the haggadah to safety in Sarajevo, has to fight self-doubts about her professional competence, and is forced into a confrontation with her mother that will forever change her life.

People of the Book is at once a mystery, a history lesson and a modern day romance. My only quarrel with the book is its “Mission Impossible” ending which, for me, served to completely change the tone of the story being told and rather jarringly reminded me that I was reading fiction. Fortunately, this distraction came late enough in the narrative not to ruin the book for me.

Rated at: 4.0

Praying for Gil Hodges: A Memoir of the 1955 World Series and One Family's Love of the Brooklyn Dodgers

Thomas Oliphant’s Praying for Gil Hodges is his very personal account of the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers and, in particular, of Game 7 of that year’s World Series in which the Dodgers finally beat the hated New York Yankees to become baseball world champions. But this book is about much more than baseball; it is about how a child can form a bond with a sports team that will last him a lifetime and how a team can often bring whole families closer together by giving them a common love upon which to focus their energies for half a year at a time. And if that team is an underdog, and if it finally wins the big one after years of coming close, there is nothing sweeter on the face of the earth, something that all baseball fans understand deep in their hearts.

The Brooklyn Dodgers of the 1950s were unique to baseball in the sense that, in addition to breaking the color barrier by adding Jackie Robinson to their infield in 1947, they went on to become baseball’s first truly integrated team by adding additional minority players on a regular basis. By 1955 Robinson had been joined by Roy Campanella, Sandy Amoros, Jim Gilliam and Don Newcombe, all major contributors to the Dodger’s success on the field. Interestingly enough, these players were part of the team that finally beat the more conservative New York Yankees to bring the championship to Brooklyn.

Thomas Oliphant, son of a World War II veteran who found it difficult to work because of the illnesses he suffered as a result of his service years, was an only child whose mother worked as a legal secretary to support the family. His parents were originally from the Midwest, home of several of the Dodger players, so it was natural that they would become Dodgers fans. Oliphant’s early childhood was spent in the years in which the Dodgers were repeatedly beaten by the Yankees just when it seemed that they might finally win a Series. It happened to them in 1949, 1952, and 1953, and most Brooklyn fans had grown so used to losing the big game to the Yankees by 1955 that very few of them were ready to believe that they had any kind of chance of winning the best-of-seven series that year, even nine-year old Thomas.

Baseball fans, especially those who live and die with their teams each day for six months of the year, will see themselves clearly in the scenes described by Oliphant as he and his father watch the Dodgers shut out the Yankees 2-0 in game seven on a little black and white television set. They will recognize the nerve-wracking anguish of watching the other team put runners on base with no one out and their heavy hitters coming up. They will understand how difficult it is to forget that feeling of impending doom even when their team has a small lead going into the late innings. And they will certainly understand the agony of watching their team maintain that lead when it comes time to count the remaining outs they need to get on just two hands.

Oliphant has written a book about a team’s relationship to its fans and to its city and neighborhood. The book is not perfect by any means. Even avid baseball fans are likely to grow weary of some of the game-by-game detail that Oliphant includes in his section on the World Series leading up to the 1955 season, for instance. But those same readers will be so much in sync with Oliphant, his parents and everyone who celebrated on the streets of Brooklyn after the final out was finally collected that day that they will remember this book for a long time.

Rated at: 4.0