Christopher Hitchens Dead at 62

By now, most of you know that Christopher Hitchens died yesterday in Houston where he spent his final days battling the cancer that killed him.  The news of his death, though not unexpected, is saddening.  I will keep this simple - and from my heart.  I don't want to get into all the specific things that Christopher Hitchens accomplished in his 62 years.  Rather, I want to share with you why I admired Christopher Hitchens, the man, so much.

Hitchens was probably the most politically incorrect man I've ever run across.  I didn't always agree with him, but Hitchens told it like it was, not worrying about offending anyone, hurting feelings, or avoiding buzz words that could be distorted and used by others in a personal attack on him.  He was interested in telling the truth as he saw it, and he pulled no punches in getting his message out.  I loved him for that.

The man was brilliant.  Read his essays, magazine pieces, and books if you don't believe me.  He was passionate about the injustices he saw in the world and he wanted to make the rest of us passionate enough to insist that something be done about those things.  He recognized the enemy and he would not apologize for pointing out exactly who that was.  Of course, he made many enemies along the way, but those enemies, more often than not, exposed themselves as being on the wrong side of history while attempting to prove Hitchens wrong.

And, finally, I admire Christopher Hitchens for not finding God in his final days.  For eighteen months, Hitchens knew that he was dying, giving him plenty of time to reject his atheism in favor of Christianity or some other "acceptable" religion.  That he did not play that game, proves his personal courage.  Christopher Hitchens left this world walking the walk, not just talking it.  I will miss him.

Previous Book Chase posts on Christopher Hitchens:

Christopher Hitchens's "Year of Living Dyingly"
Hitch-22: A Memoir
Christopher Hitchens on Cancer Etiquette 
Chris Hitchens in the Battle of His Life

Are E-Books Raising the Price of Real Books?

I admit to having mixed emotions about e-books.

On the one hand, I am a gadget freak by nature, meaning that I am totally fascinated by the technology that makes e-book readers possible.  Heck, I was so excited about the readers that I bought two of the extremely overpriced Sony Readers when they first came out.  I fell in love with the ease of transporting a small library in my pocket - something that was particularly handy during those years I spent weeks at a time working deep inside the Sahara Desert.

On the other hand, e-books, themselves, have not exactly grown on me.  I find it much more difficult to concentrate on a book's contents when I read it electronically, and I very much miss the feel and smell of a hard copy in my hands.  To me an e-book will never be the real book; that honor will always belong to any book's hardcover version.

Now, though, I'm starting to get concerned that the great new popularity of e-books, and the willingness of buyers to cough up whatever outrageous price publishers demand for them, is going to start directly impacting me at the bookstore when I shop for real books.  Are publishers printing fewer copies of books now that e-books have taken a chunk out of the number of copies they can expect to sell?  If so, does that mean that hardcover prices are being pressured upward because printing costs, distribution, and the like, have to be spread over fewer copies?

Or, how about this?  Are printed book prices being artificially raised in order to maintain the gap between their prices and their e-book knockoffs?  The narrowness of that price gap is already ridiculous, but publishers have to fool customers into thinking that e-books are significantly cheaper than real books if they want to continue increasing their sales.  Don't believe me?  Take a look at a few numbers I pulled this afternoon from the Barnes & Noble website:

1.  Zero Day - David Baldacci - $14.70 in hardcover, $12.99 for the e-book

2.  Kill Shout - Vince Flynn - $18.47 and $14.99

3.  The Litigators - John Grisham - $14.92 and $12.99

4.  Steve Jobs - Walter Isaacson - $18.42 and $14.99

5.  Unbroken - Laura Hillenbrand - $14.67 and $12.99

6.  The Art of Fielding - Chad Harbach - $14.14 and $12.99

7.  In the Garden of Beasts - Erik Larson - $14.13 and $12.99

Come on, 15 bucks for an e-book that I can't easily loan to a friend, or trade to someone for another e-book, or sell back to a used book bookstore?  For less than two dollars more, I can OWN a real book, not rent an electronic one.  Do I look stupid? 

I read 15-20 e-books per year; I read over 100 real books during the same period.  Seldom do e-books make my Top 10 lists for the year's reading - and that's not necessarily the fault of the book.  It's much more the fault of the reading experience offered by the e-book format.

Are those like me, who love flipping real pages, about to get punished for preferring the real thing?  I wonder.

To the End of the War: Unpublished Fiction

Fans of James Jones, a writer well known for his powerful World War II fiction, have long been intrigued by his unfinished last novel, Whistle, wondering how different it might have been if he, and not Willie Morris, had finished it.  But if most of those fans are like me (someone who has read Whistle three times), they probably still give little thought to Jones’s unpublished first novel, They Shall Inherit the Laughter.  Intriguingly, that first novel has now (more or less) been published, and curious readers can decide for themselves whether the publishers of Jones’s day were correct to judge it “unpublishable.”

I use the term “more or less” published because of the manner in which this new book’s editor, George Hendrick, has prepared it for its long delayed release.  They Shall Inherit the Laughter is not being presented as a novel.  Rather, it has been re-titled To the End of the War: Unpublished Fiction, and its best bits have been recast as a series of interconnected short stories that are largely, and obviously, based on Jones’s personal experiences.  Johnny Carter, the protagonist of this short story collection, is simply James Jones under another name.

James Jones

Jones was bitter and cynical about his war experience by the time the military returned him to the U.S. to recover from wounds suffered in the Pacific.  Jones, well aware that he was just being patched up for reassignment to another combat unit, used his repatriation to the States as an opportunity to go AWOL, hiding for a while in his hometown of Robinson, Illinois.  He largely spent his time in Robinson drinking, womanizing, and seeking the company of combat veterans as disillusioned about the war effort as him.  All of this, in fictional format, is at the heart of what Johnny Carter experiences in these newly released “short stories.”

To the End of the War, one must remember, is very early James Jones.  However, even though it does not live up to the standard of Jones’s later work, it is a clear link to what was to come, both in theme and in style.  The book makes clear why Maxwell Perkins, despite refusing to publish They Shall Inherit the Laughter, saw enough in Jones to encourage him, if indirectly, in his second attempt at a novel, one that would become world famous as From Here to Eternity.   There are certainly enough flashes of the real thing here, particularly in the dialogue between Johnny Carter and other combat vets, to make To the End of the War a worthwhile reading experience for all fans of World War II fiction.

Rated at: 3.0

Favorite 2011 Cover Art

All this year, I've been adding cover images to iPhoto of each of the books I read.  The index has turned into a surprisingly colorful and fun-to-look-at bunch of images that gave me the idea to choose my favorite half-dozen covers of the year.  As it turns out, three of the books featured will be also make my Top 10 fiction or nonfiction lists, and three will not.

I love these images (and seem to be partial to landscapes, don't I) because of their beauty and because they so perfectly capture the mood of each of the books.  Not so surprisingly, there is only one nonfiction title represented here, but it does have a great cover (Following Josh).

I realize there are countless great 2011covers.  Remember that these six are the best from the 121 books I've read to this point of the year - a very small sample from all the books published in total.

Lost Memory of Skin

With Lost Memory of Skin, Russell Banks has accomplished something I would not have believed possible.  Not only has he used a convicted sex offender as the lead character of his new novel, he has managed to make the young man both likable and someone readers can respect and root for as the novel progresses.

This twenty-something, young sex offender, known only as “The Kid,” finds himself living under a Miami Beach bridge as the novel opens.  Like all the rest who share this horrible living space with him, the Kid is caught up in an irony of his conviction.  His probation terms require that he not leave the county, but he is not allowed to live anywhere within 2500 feet of where children are likely to congregate.  Living under the causeway is the only way he and his fellow offenders can meet this term of their probations.

For all his lack of experience, the Kid is a complex character.  He knows nothing about his father except for the man’s name, and he was raised by one of the most indifferent mothers imaginable.  The Kid, in fact, can be said to have raised himself.  His addiction to Internet porn, an addiction he acquired as a young boy, was probably the defining event of his life.  That his mother only got upset about her son’s addiction to pornography because he maxed out her credit card, is indicative of the moral guidance he received at home.

When “The Professor,” a hugely obese college professor from a local school, appears on the scene, the Kid’s life begins to change.  Suddenly, someone wants to hear what the Kid has to say about his situation and wants to organize things under the causeway in a way that will make life a little easier for those who live there.  At first suspicious of the Professor’s motives (even to suspecting the Professor of wanting to molest him), the Kid gradually comes to trust the man.  When the Professor is revealed to have problems and peculiarities of his own, things will take an even darker, unexpected twist but the Kid, true to his own moral code, will somehow manage to persevere. 

Russell Banks (right)

Lost Memory of Skin does not overtly argue that the rest of us should try harder to “understand” what drives sex offenders to commit the horrible crimes they commit.    Banks is much subtler than that.  His message is more about the “big net” approach to punishment that treats all degrees of sex crime as being pretty much the same.  Readers will have to judge for themselves whether or not Banks’s argument is a sound one.

It was only after I heard Banks speak about Lost Memory of Skin at the 2011 Texas Book Festival that I became curious enough to want to read it.  Frankly, prior to that event, the idea of reading a rather long novel about convicted sex offenders was not an appealing one.  Thankfully, my curiosity won out over my natural aversion to the topic, and I did not miss out on one of the year’s best novels.  It was a close call.

Rated at: 5.0

Author Dolls for Your Shelves

I am seriously thinking about giving this to myself for Christmas. It's a 4 1/2 inch tall Joyce Carol Oates doll that I think would look great sitting on the bookshelves near the almost 100 JCO books that I've collected over the years.

Take a look here for all the cool little creations available for book nuts (and others) around the world.  

You could end up spending an hour wandering around this website; don't say I didn't warn you.