Saturday, October 09, 2010

Dewey's Read-a-thon

Hours 4 and 5 were spent at the football game (an 18-7 loss to a group of huge 9-year-olds) but I'm back at least for a while.

During the first three hours I managed 128 actual reading minutes for a total of 98 pages of Deanna Raybourn's new Lady Julia Grey novel,  Dark Road to Darjeeling.  This one is set in India as Lady Grey and her new husband investigate what they suspect is the murder of a tea plantation owner...lots of folks have reason to want this man dead, it seems.

Slow start on the read-a-thon...hoping to pick up the pace later today although I suspect more demands on my time that will likely force me to leave the house again.

Now, it's on to Hour 6...
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I've decided to participate in Dewey's Read-a-thon even though I have a couple of obligations later this morning that will see me leaving the house for three hours or so.  One of my grandsons has a peewee football game scheduled for 10:30 and I'm looking forward to seeing how his 4-1 team does today.  Then I've got to deliver my granddaughter to my wife so they can leave for a scheduled appointment of their own.  I think the break will re-energize me, however, and I'm not too concerned about losing that much time.

I see that Hour 1 requires a meme, so here goes:

Three facts about me:


I have worked in the oil industry (in several countries) for almost four decades.

I am a sports enthusiast, particularly supporting Houston's local teams, both professional and amateur.

I love roots music of all types: blues, bluegrass, country, mountain and pop.


How many books do you have in your TBR pile for the next 24 hours?


I have ten in the pile but will most likely only read from 4 or 5 of them, depending on my mood and how often I feel that I need a change of pace.

Do you have any goals for the read-a-thon (i.e. number of books, number of pages, number of hours, or number of comments on blogs)?


Not really.  I would like to do better than I did on my last go at a read-a-thon and, since I did so poorly, that shouldn't be too difficult.  I think I will concentrate on reading minutes and number of pages since I'm a statistical nut but I'll play it all by ear, for the most part.

If you're a veteran read-a-thoner, any advice for people doing this for the first time?


As I said, this is only my second read-a-thon - but I did learn something from my first one.  Don't take it all too seriously; have fun with it, instead.  If you need a break or some sleep, do it.  I came into the first one already tired, pushed myself to stay awake, and then was so exhausted that I slept through the last few hours (the best part of the whole experience comes at the end, I suspect).

I'm going to do it differently this time, even taking a morning break for that football game I mentioned.

Anyway, here we go.  Have fun, all.


Thursday, October 07, 2010

Quality Time with George Washington

I plan to do some extra reading over the next two nights - finishing up Ron Chernow's massive and remarkable George Washington biography - but I wanted to stop by here first to deal with recent comments and to read a few new posts from my blog links.  The Washington biography is a challenge in more ways than one, but it has proven to be well worth the effort it requires of the reader.  This chunkster clocks in at 817 pages of text and an additional 52 pages of preface, footnotes and bibliography - and just lugging it around is a challenge since it weighs in at exactly three pounds (I checked it on my bathroom scale).

My natural pace for reading nonfiction, especially history and biography, is about 50% slower than the speed at which I read novels and short stories.  I've always been that way because I unconsciously try to absorb every fact included in nonfiction.  I find myself reading the same way I did in college and I really have to fight the inclination to grab one of those obnoxiously-colored highlighters and start flailing away at the pages.  Slowing down this way does keep my mind from wandering, a distinct advantage, but it takes me a long time to read an 817-page biography at this pace.  I estimate that I will have spent very close to 24 hours of actual reading time on George Washington.  Do I regret it?  Not for a second.  This, for me, is the definitive Washington biography and, after reading it, I know I will never look at the man the same.

Hey,I see that it's already time for the Dewey's October 24-hour read-a-thon.  An amazing 367 people have already signed up for this Saturday's event, a number that makes me smile despite my own reluctance to give it another shot.  I participated about two years ago and was a miserable flop at it, lasting only 12 or 13 hours before falling asleep and missing the rest of the fun.  The event begins at 7:00 a.m. on Saturday morning (Houston time) and runs until the same time on Sunday morning.  The read-a-thon is held twice a year now and it seems to get bigger and bigger each time out.  Dewey, I suspect, would be very surprised to learn that her brainchild is doing so well - and, rightfully, very proud that so many of her friends honor her memory this way.  Dewey was a special lady in the book blogging community and she is truly missed.  I have several obligations on Saturday morning but I do hope to stop by to see how things are going...and maybe even to get in some extra reading.

Wednesday, October 06, 2010

Confessions of a Book Scanning Goon

The Slate website has an interesting article, "Confessions of a Used Book Salesman," that caught my eye this evening.  It is written by Michael Savtiz, one of those obnoxious people that show up at library sales armed with a barcode scanner.  Those little gizmos give all kinds of pricing information tagged to a book's ISBN designation, allowing professional resellers to run off with everything of value in a matter of minutes.  If you've ever seen one of these goons in action, you will never forget them.  Often, they bring blankets or sheets along so that they can cover up whole sections of tables until they can get back to them.  As a group, they have ruined the library sale experience for thousands of "amateurs" who come to a sale hoping to find something nice or unusual to add to their personal collections.

The odd thing is that Savitz is self-aware enough to know, and admit, that he is a jerk for doing what he does - not that he plans to give up the odious practice.
If it's possible to make a decent living selling books online, then why does it feel so shameful to do this work? I'm not the only one who feels this way; I see it in the mien of my fellow scanners as they whip out their PDAs next to the politely browsing normal customers. The sense that this is a dishonorable profession is confirmed by library book sales that tag their advertisements with "No electronic devices allowed," though making this rule probably isn't in the libraries' financial interest. People scanning books sometimes get kicked out of thrift stores and retail shops as well, though this hasn't happened to me yet.
[...]
When I work with my scanner and there's someone else shopping near me who wants to read books, I feel that my energy is all wrong—high-pitched, focused narrowly in the present, and jealous. Someone browsing through books does it with a diffuse, forgetful curiosity, a kind of open reckoning that she learned from reading. Good health to you, reader. One day I will be like you again.
It is clear that Mr. Savitz knows that what he is doing is rude and far enough outside the rules of library sales that he should not be doing it. Of course, short of hiring armed guards, there is little that library staff can really do to stop this kind of behavior.  As with so many aspects of modern culture, those who have so little self-respect, and respect for others, will get their way.  The rest of us are too innately polite to make a scene.  That's what the behavior thugs count on.

I have to admit that this probably bothers me more than it does most people because it has ruined a favorite weekend pastime of mine.  I used to spend a few hours every Saturday morning scouting Houston's used-book stores in hope of finding something collectible for myself or for resale.  I relied entirely on my own knowledge and intuition about what might be valuable - or at least momentarily hot. I got pretty good at it, too.  Often, I would spend four or five hours browsing bookstores and come home with close to $100 more than I had in my pocket when I left home, plus a book or two to add to my own shelves.  The trick was knowing which bookstore on the route was likely to buy something from me that I plucked from one of their competitors that very morning.

I miss those days.  The store shelves around town these days are picked clean by people like Mr. Savitz, folks who don't read or collect books.  No, they loot them.  Frankly, they don't have any more respect for books and book people than I have for them.  I wholeheartedly agree with the NPR commentator who called the use of book scanners at library sales "classless."  Yes, indeed.

Tuesday, October 05, 2010

Arctic Chill


Arctic Chill is my first experience with Arnaldur Indridason’s police procedurals, so I do not have the earlier novels in the series to use as a yardstick.  Arctic Chill is, in fact, the fifth of six “Reykjavik Thrillers” (if, that is, they were translated and published here in the order in which they were written) to be translated from the original Icelandic for publication in the U.S.  And I am intrigued enough by the book’s main characters, atmosphere, and attention to detail that I will be seeking others in the series.
When he sees the little Asian boy frozen to the ground in a pool of his own blood, Erlendur fears the child has been the victim of a hate crime.  What he sees, however, deeply disturbs him for an additional reason; it reminds him of his own little brother, lost to a blizzard decades earlier.  Erlendur soon discovers that the mixed-race child is the son of a Thai woman who had the courage to move to Iceland to begin a new life in her husband’s home country.  Worryingly, the woman also has an older son who has not been seen since before his younger brother’s body was found not far from the apartment they share with their now divorced mother.
Detective Erlendur and his Reykjavik police colleagues, in their effort to find the boy’s killer, begin their enquiries, naturally enough, at his school.  There, they learn of the day-to-day racism and harassment mixed-race immigrant students suffer at the hands of fellow students, and perhaps even a teacher or two.  Interview by interview, clue by clue, one discovery leading them to the next, Erlendur and his crew begin to close in on the killer.  Arctic Chill is an excellent police procedural but the book is about much more than solving one murder.
Author Arnaldur Indridason takes a hard look at what immigrants, especially those from Asia or Africa, face when they come to Iceland.  As in every country, native citizens have mixed emotions about immigration.  On the one hand, they appreciate the willingness of the immigrants to work at the low paying jobs that have to be done.  On the other, they fear that their country’s culture will be forever corrupted by people who make no effort to assimilate into the dominant society.  This is especially true in a country, like Iceland, that has a relatively small population through which to defend its cultural heritage.  As Detective Erlendur himself says at an early stage of the investigation, “This is all so new to us.  Immigrants, racial issues...we know so little about it.”
Indridason gives the reader a good feel for life in modern Iceland, a way of life still largely influenced by the demands of the country’s harsh climate.  Long, cold winters with very short days do not encourage neighbors to spend much time getting to know each other and Detective Erlendur and other characters in the book seem to have developed a rather fatalistic attitude as a result of the forced lifestyle.  
This portion of a paragraph from near the end of the book (a scene in which Erlendur stands alone over a grave in freezing weather) says it best: “There were no final answers to explain the life-long solitude of the person in the urn, or the death of his brother all those years ago, or why Erlendur was the way he was, and why Elias was stabbed to death.  Life was a random mass of unforeseeable coincidences that governed men’s fates like a storm that strikes without warning, causing injury and death.”
Arctic Chill won’t cheer you up  - and that’s the point.  This is a highly atmospheric book with a message and some characters I want to get to know better.
Rated at: 4.5

(Review Copy provided  by Publisher)

Monday, October 04, 2010

Cashing in on Twilight Cover's Hands

What a world we live in.  That thing called "reality"TV seems to have convinced every person on the face of the Earth that they, too, can be stars...talent not required.  There have always been accidental celebrities, those people who find themselves in the right place at the right time to be "discovered."  Of course, many, if not most, of those discoveries were as phony as the Hollywood publicists spreading the stories, but they were rare enough at one time that we all wanted to believe them.

Now it is just the opposite.  People are no longer willing to wait for luck to tap them on the shoulder.  These days, they are  demanding their 15-minutes - and everyone had better pay attention, by gosh.  The Christian Science Monitor has the story of the woman whose hands appear on the cover of Twilight.  By now, everyone is familiar with the book's cover shot:


Well, Kimbra Hickey wants you to know that those are her hands and she can prove it - and if you stand still long enough, she will:
"It was too big of a deal just to let it be," Hickey told the New York Post of her quest for recognition, even as she admitted that she has become "a little goofy" about the whole thing. ("Goofy" may indeed be the best description for her habit of carrying a Gala apple in her purse at times so she can recreate the famous pose for anyone interested. Hickey told the Post that she also sometimes "hangs out near the cash register" at the Barnes & Noble near her apartment to help attract attention.)

I'm sorry, but I think this is just sad.

Saturday, October 02, 2010

I Would Rather Flush a Twenty Down the Toilet

Another Life Experience for Snooki's Novel

Breaking news you have not been holding your breath to hear:

Snooki, the "breakout star" of MTV's version of Italian-American reality, Jersey Shore, has found a publisher convinced that it can milk a nice profit from those gullible television viewers who actually watch that bit of tripe.


According to The Week:
Though Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi, the diminutive breakout star of MTV's "Jersey Shore" wouldn't seem to be a natural writer — she recently told The New York Times she's read only two books in her life, Twilight and Dear John — the poof-haired tanning aficionado's first novel, tentatively titled A Shore Thing, is set to be published by Simon & Schuster this January.
So this airhead, who has read two books in her entire lifetime (neither of which will be remembered 20 years from now) is going to slap her "famous" name on a book written by some ghost writer desperate enough to write it on her behalf.  Now all the publisher needs to do is find a few thousand equally empty-headed people to donate their money to the cause.  Simon & Schuster, have you no shame?  I know that MTV has none, but I expected more from you.  Silly me.