The Bookman's Tale

Reading novels about books, bookstores, and book collectors is something that I have a long history of enjoying, particularly those novels that immerse the reader into the world of antiquarian book collecting.  So Charlie Lovett’s The Bookman’s Tale seemed like a perfect choice for me.  But because I also have a history of not enjoying conspiracy theory novels, especially those that depend heavily upon coincidence to make the plot work, this one did not work out as well for me as I had hoped it would.

Peter Byerly is a recluse by nature.  Because he has preferred his own company since he was a child and has always felt awkward in one-on-one conversations, Peter is both shocked and thrilled to finally meet his soul mate.  Amanda is the perfect woman for Peter, someone who brings out the best in him and completes him in a way he never dared dream possible.  And then she is gone.

Still stunned by his loss, Peter moves back to England to ease his way back into the rare book business he has been so badly neglecting.  There, Peter is contacted by a man hoping to sell some of the books that have been in his family for generations.  While assessing the value and collectability of the man’s books, Peter makes what could be the discovery of a bookman’s lifetime.  He may, in fact, have just stumbled upon the “Holy Grail” of the book-collecting world: indisputable proof that William Shakespeare was truly the author of all the works attributed to him.  Some scholars still argue that a man of Shakespeare’s education and background would not have been capable of such complicated and distinguished writing.  Peter knows that by ending the “did he or didn’t he” debate once and for all he can link his name to Shakespeare’s forever.  His discovery could be that big.

Charlie Lovett

But first he needs to prove that his documentation is authentic and not the work of one of history’s master forgers, an investigation that seems to get the attention of someone willing to kill in order to make Peter go away for good.  Peter Byerly has inadvertently involved himself in a multi-generational two-family feud he could never have imagined when he stumbled upon what appears to be a Victorian era watercolor portrait of Amanda inside a nineteenth-century book.  Now, getting to the truth might be the only way he can save his own life.

Bottom Line:  The Bookman’s Tale is fun for a lot of reasons.  It offers in-depth insight into the closed world of rare book dealers, the techniques and history of document and signature forging, and the whole Shakespearean authorship debate.  But, while the premise of the book and its main characters are intriguing, the book’s plot relies too much on coincidence to make it plausible.  I was unable to suspend my level of disbelief to the degree required of a reader to buy into the book’s ending - and that disappoints me.

From Forbes: World's Top Earning Authors" - Yuck

Forbes magazine has just released its annual reminder to me (otherwise known as "The World's Top Earning Authors List") that, relative to the kind of fiction that is sold in grocery stores across the country, serious, high-quality fiction is seldom rewarded in the marketplace.  

Yes, it's always good to see that books are still selling well enough to make some serious money for a handful of authors, but come on, world, can't we do better than this?

1.  E.L. James ($95 million) - for poorly written soft porn?

2.  James Patterson ($91 million) - for books he doesn't even to pretend he writes himself anymore?

3.  Suzanne Collins ($55 million) - for milking a one-trick pony series way beyond the point it deserved 

4.  Bill O'Reilly ($28 million) - for a co-written series of pop history books and regurgitating the same old mantra to the faithful

5.  Danielle Steel ($26 million) - on average, more than 3 romance titles per year - and it shows

6.  Jeff Kinney ( $24 million) - I'll give you this one, world.  The "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" books are exceptional and young readers seem to love them

7.  Janet Evanovich ($24 million) - How many times can an author write the same old book over and over again?

8.  Nora Roberts ($23 million) - Just the cover of a Nora Roberts book is enough to make a reader cringe

9.  Dan Brown ($22 million) - Proving that a very nice living can be made from poorly written conspiracy theory novels

10.  Stephen King ($20 million) - Still has his moments but is starting to become a parody of himself lately

11.  Dean Koontz ($20 million) - A whole career that would probably never happened if not for Stephen King's success in kickstarting a dead genre...interesting that he made almost exactly the same amount of money that "the master" made last year

12.  John Grisham ($18 million) - Like King, Grisham still has his moments but does seem to be slipping

13.  David Baldacci ($15 million) - Maybe it's me, but I just don't get David Baldacci's tremendous success

14.  J.K. Rowling ($13 million) - Not bad considering that no new Potter books were released

15.  George R.R. Martin ($12 million) - Thrones, thrones, thrones, everywhere, it seems; a one-trick pony who owes much of his success to the HBO network

I think it is a shame that more literary authors never come close to earning this kind of money.  But who ever said the world was fair?  

Rant over; feel free to throw rocks at me.  I even supplied the rocks for you.

 

One Second After

Probably because I was a child during those dark days during which teachers still had students climb under their desks as practice for what they should do when the Russians nuked our little town of 12,000 people, I have been a fan of post-apocalyptic fiction for as long as I can remember.  As it turns out, there is still plenty of it out there, and it does not always involve nuclear bombs falling from the sky.  This time around it takes only a split second for every electrical device in what appears to be (at least) most of the United States to be fried into permanent uselessness.

The premise of William Forstchen’s One Second After is that a hostile government or well-funded terrorist organization manages to explode a nuclear device over the United States at precisely the correct altitude needed to unleash an enormous electromagnetic pulse that will do just that trick.  All anyone in John Matherson’s little North Carolina town knows is that they are instantly off the grid: no radio, no television, no telephones, no anything electrical - including all of their computer-chip-controlled cars and trucks.  It takes a while to hit them, but when people finally realize that no one is coming to help them, society begins to break down.

After the initial panic and scramble for available groceries, medicines, cigarettes, booze, and anything else still on store shelves, someone has to bring order to the chaos if any of the townspeople are to survive for more than a few months.  John Matherson, a local college professor with years of military training, calling upon the help of dozens of his former students, is the town’s best chance.

William R. Forstchen

The threat of electromagnetic pulse warfare does not exist just in books; it is a very real possibility in the real world, one that Forstchen does not believe authorities in this country takes seriously enough.  One Second After (which includes a forward by New Gingrich) is the author’s attempt to place the topic into mainstream awareness and conversation.  One can only hope that this 2009 novel caught the attention of a few people in the right places.

Bottom Line:  Readers will be fascinated by the ingenuity of the novel’s characters as they attempt to reconstruct the things they were taking for granted only a few days earlier.  At the same time, they will be appalled by how quickly the elderly and those with certain chronic illnesses begin to die off when life-sustaining drugs are no longer to be found.  But most disturbing of all is the realization that there are people out there who desperately want to turn One Second After into reality.  This one will scare you.

Indie Bookstores That Ask for Donations: Good Idea, or Not?

For those of us who truly love books, bookstores, libraries, and most anything to do with publishing, these are strange times.  We watch helplessly as our favorite bookstores disappear one after the other, all the while knowing there is really nothing we can do to help save them.  Or is there?

From the New York Times comes word about a new bookstore trend in which indie stores are forced to ask for patron donations in order to ensure their survival for even another few months.  This kind of thing seems to be the trend...even grocery store cashiers are pushing pricy bags of school supplies this time of year that often leave me wondering how much profit is in them for the grocery chains.

Where do we draw the line?  Is a one-time donation tied specifically to some catastrophic event acceptable but not a fundraiser to help a small bookstore meet its increased rent burden?  What obligation, if any, does a bookstore have after raising money this way?  It certainly cannot be forced to keep its doors open, but what if management squanders the money and then calls it a day?  How would that make you, a donor, feel?

I have mixed emotions about this kind of thing, wanting to help but wondering what good I am really doing in the long run.  I wish more of us were just willing to pay a "book tax" by shopping at indie bookstores in the first place:

In San Francisco, a campaign for Adobe Books successfully raised $60,000 onIndiegogo.com in March after the store faced a rent increase and nearly went out of business.

In Asheville, N.C., the Spellbound Children’s Bookshop collected more than $5,000 when it appealed to customers for help moving to a new location.

In the Flatiron district of Manhattan, Books of Wonder raised more than $50,000 in an online campaign last fall after the recession and other losses depleted its financial resources.

Web sites like Indiegogo and Kickstarter, originally made for the public financing of creative projects, have simplified the logistics of raising money, and bookstores facing financial distress are seizing the opportunity. They can set up a Web page explaining what their fund-raising goal is, why they are asking for it and what the deadline is. Donors pitch in as little as $5 or $10 with a few clicks and a credit card number.

Read the article here before you make up your mind.   

"Books to Have and to Hold"

Despite trying to make some of these same points here in the past, I never said it half as well as Verlyn Klinkenborg says it in a New York Times piece in today's "Sunday Review."  Here's a taste of what she has to say about reading e-books vs. reading tree-books:

I finish reading a book on my iPad — one by Ed McBain, for instance — and I shelve it in the cloud. It vanishes from my “device” and from my consciousness too. It’s very odd.

When I read a physical book, I remember the text and the book — its shape, jacket, heft and typography. When I read an e-book, I remember the text alone. The bookness of the book simply disappears, or rather it never really existed. Amazon reminds me that I’ve already bought the e-book I’m about to order. In bookstores, I find myself discovering, as if for the first time, books I’ve already read on my iPad.

All of this makes me think differently about the books in my physical library. They used to be simply there, arranged on the shelves, a gathering of books I’d already read. But now, when I look up from my e-reading, I realize that the physical books are serving a new purpose — as constant reminders of what I’ve read. They say, “We’re still here,” or “Remember us?” These are the very things that e-books cannot say, hidden under layers of software, tucked away in the cloud, utterly absent when the iPad goes dark.

Exactly...and here's the whole article.  Please check it out.

The Good Lord Bird

In the late 1850s, abolitionist John Brown hit the state of Kansas like a tornado.  Pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions were already at each other's throats by the time Brown arrived to avenge the sacking of Lawrence by a pro-slavery mob, but soon his name would strike fear and loathing into the hearts of the state's pro-slavers.  His story does not easily lend itself to comedy, but much of The Good Lord Bird, James McBride's fictional account of Brown's attempt to start an armed slave rebellion in the South, is as funny as it is serious.

Told through eyes of Henry Shackleford, a little slave boy whom Brown mistakes for a girl, the novel offers a factually accurate portrayal of Brown's deeds and end that is somewhat distorted by the innocence of its narrator.  Because Henry (who pretends to be "Henrietta" for almost the entirety of the book) is telling the story, all the characters, when they speak, do so in the vernacular and tone of a little black boy who has lived his entire life within the confines of one tiny Kansas community.  Admittedly, the conversations can be a little jarring at times but they are a constant reminder that everything is being filtered through the eyes of a child.

James McBride

James McBride is a master of characterization and the beauty of The Good Lord Bird comes from the distinct personalities he creates for Brown, several of his sons and one of his daughters (Brown fathered 22 children by two wives), Frederick Douglas, Harriet Tubman, and so many of the fictional characters with whom they interact.  McBride's approach, as is generally the case with the best historical fiction, is a vivid reminder that history is more than facts and dates.  It is about real people who had the same hopes and dreams that motivate people today, and seldom was their story as black and white as it appears in history books.

By story's end, a rather beautiful bond has developed between John Brown and his "little Onion," and their relationship is one that readers will long remember.  The child grows close to a slow-witted son of Brown's, falls in love (still disguised as a girl child) with one of Brown's daughters, is awed by the persona of Harriet Tubman, and forms a rather disparaging opinion of Frederick Douglas whom he/she sees as more politician than activist.  Almost lost in the story is the tragic end that Brown inflicts upon himself, members of his family, and others who believe as he does.

Bottom Line: The Good Lord Bird is an excellent piece of historical fiction that revisits one of the key events and periods in American history.  Readers will, I think, find it helpful to remind themselves of the key elements of John Brown's history beforehand as it adds a certain amount of tension to the book's reading.

(Review Copy provided by Publisher)