Will 2010 Be the Year?

Will 2010 be the year it happens? Are e-books and e-book readers fast approaching the tipping point from which they will eventually come to dominate the publishing industry? Will Amazon rethink its approach to e-book formatting before it loses its dominant share of the e-publishing market? I am starting to believe that this could be a pivotal year for publishers and booksellers, alike, one in which independent bookstores continue to close shop at a horrifying pace, the national bookstore chains continue to bleed money, and publishers finally begin to rethink their own business plans.

I do not for a minute believe that e-publishing will ever kill off the publishing of bound books. Newspapers and magazines, on the other hand, could very well be doomed when e-book readers are finally able to cope with color, photos, graphics, and all the other flash that make magazines (and some newspapers) so appealing to the eye. At the moment, reading a newspaper or magazine on a Kindle can be a frustrating experience and it remains to be seen if the new Sony Reader Daily Edition will do a much better job. Newspaper and magazine circulation has already been clobbered by the internet and the availability of more graphically sophisticated e-readers could finish that job.

Sony is probably Amazon’s biggest challenger in 2010 but several smaller companies also have e-readers on the market. What Sony and the smaller challengers have going for them is their decision to use the standard EPUB format on their readers. This means that the owner of a Sony Reader is able to purchase books directly from Sony and other sellers, find hundreds of thousands of free books on the web, and download bestsellers from his local library without ever leaving home. Kindle users do not have those luxuries because Amazon uses its own proprietary format - limiting the usage of Kindle books to Kindle readers, PCs and certain smart phones. As Kindle owners begin to wonder what good all those Kindle books are if they decide one day to move on to a better reader, Amazon might find itself losing market share to companies using the open format.

What makes me think that 2010 might turn out to be a big year for e-books? Simply put: buzz. For the first time, I am hearing people talk about e-book readers and I am seeing them shop for readers at Barnes & Noble, Borders and the big box electronic stores. E-book readers are prominently displayed now, often alongside mp3 players, and shoppers are starting to notice them. Barnes & Noble displays the Nook right at the front door in its own huge display space, making the Nook impossible to miss. Shoppers are getting used to seeing e-readers and they probably know someone that uses one. There is a new awareness of their existence and, if sales progress at the pace that mp3 player sales did, in only a few years e-book readers might be a commodity product with too many manufacturers to count.

I know that something has changed already, though, because a friend of mine purchased a Kindle for his wife this Christmas and she is not a particularly avid reader. Amazingly, she came into the office last week saying how much she loved the gadget and how great it was to be able to buy bestsellers for $9.99 a pop. Time will tell, of course, but for now she is more excited about reading than she has been for years and that cannot be a bad thing for publishers.

As for me, I was one of the Sony Reader early adopters and I have recently upgraded my original reader with the purchase of a new Sony Touch. I am happy with the touch features, the built-in dictionary, the note taking capabilities, and those hundreds of thousands of free books I can read. But what I like most about the reader is that I can download books directly from my local library system - and the “hold” lines are, at this point, shorter than those for the same physical books. Don’t get me wrong. I love books, real books, and I will continue to add them to my shelves, just at a somewhat slower pace than in previous years.

E-books have reached a tipping point in my world - and those are words I never dreamed I would be saying.

The Third Option

The Third Option, published in 2000, is the third book in Vince Flynn’s Mitch Rapp series and, while the book still holds up well as a political thriller, today’s readers will almost certainly think about how much has happened in the decade following its publication. Mitch is in Germany on what he plans as his last counterterrorism mission: taking out a wealthy German industrialist before the man can supply Saddam Hussein’s scientists with the material needed for Iraq to produce nuclear weapons to benefit those waging war on the West.

One more kill, and Vince plans to walk away from his old life and into the arms of the woman he plans to spend the rest of his life with - but, in Vince’s business, things have a way of getting complicated. Vince Rapp is not used to failure but this time, despite his best efforts, the mission goes badly and he finds himself on the run in Europe, wondering who set-him up and why they did it. All he knows is that someone is going to pay the ultimate price for what they did to him - even if the order came from inside the Agency.

When he finally surfaces to confront his bosses in Washington D.C. about their knowledge of what happened in Germany, Rapp becomes convinced that CIA Director Stansfield and Irene Kennedy, Director of the Counterterrorism Center, are as much in the dark as he is. Director Stansfield, Rapp learns, is dying of cancer and Stansfield strongly believes that Irene Kennedy is the only choice to succeed him. However, some powerful government people disagree with Stansfield and they considered Rapp and his mission to be expendable if the ensuing embarrassment would keep Kennedy from the nomination.

The Third Option is a first rate thriller throughout but I was disappointed in its open-ended finish. It is obvious that the fourth book of the Mitch Rapp series picks up exactly where this third book ends - and that might have been more acceptable back in 2000 when there were only three books in the series. But now there are ten of them, and the earlier books can be difficult to find in libraries and bookstores, so it might be a while before I find out how book three’s chief villain is finally brought to justice. Bummer.

Rated at: 4.0

2009 Unfinished Business

I'm coming into 2010 a little bit further behind than I like to start a new reading year because I finished several books in the last 10 days of December 2009, three of which I have yet to review: Summer by Edith Wharton, The Third Option by Vince Flynn and My Prison, My Home by Haleh Esfandiari.

And, because I was able to sneak in a few extra reading hours today, I was able to finish my first book of 2010 and I have another review to add to my to-do list: The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris. Speaking of Ferris, in a strange bit of sheer chance, this makes two years in-a-row that I have started off with a Joshua Ferris novel (and he has only written two of them, I think). What are the odds of that happening?

Here's hoping that you all have enjoyed the holidays and are ready to move into the new year. I am hopeful that 2010 will be a better year for this country, and the rest of the world, than the year through which we all just suffered. Surely, that will be the case. Right?

Best Books of 2009

This year I have combined my fiction and my nonfiction reading into one list of my 2009 favorites. The only two nonfiction books to make the list, in fact, sandwich my eight favorite novels of the year. After studying similar lists on other book blogs these last few days, I am fascinated that there is so little overlap on any of them, including this one. So many great books...so little time to read them.

Even more fascinating to me is that six of the eight novels listed are debut novels. I doubt that will ever happen to me again.

1. Louisa May Alcott: The Woman Behind Little Women – Harriet Reisen
This Louisa May Alcott biography answered all the questions I had about the Alcott family and its relationship with many of the literary stars and great thinkers of its day. The book is written in a very readable style and, because most readers already know so much about Louisa and her family, it almost reads like a novel. From my review of the book: "There is so much here that even the biggest Alcott fan will come away with a new appreciation of what this great writer accomplished in her relatively short lifetime."

2. Spooner – Pete Dexter
Pete Dexter has what some would consider a rather peculiar sense of humor – and I enjoy it so much I could listen to him tell stories all day long. The next best thing to that experience is reading a Pete Dexter novel and Spooner, in which Dexter creates one of his more memorable characters (Warren Spooner), is a real treat for Pete Dexter fans. From my review of the book: "He arrived only a few seconds after his more handsome twin brother and, even though his twin never took a breath, Spooner knew that his dead brother would always be his mother’s favorite child."

3. Bad Things Happen – Harry Dolan
Harry Dolan pays tribute to those who preceded him. Bad Things Happen is of the Raymond Chandler/James Cain/Dashiell Hammett school of mystery writing and this, Dolan's first novel, does not suffer in the comparison. From my review of the book: Its finely-crafted plot, filled with unexpected twists and turns, will keep readers guessing the murderer’s identify all the way to the end – wondering even to the last page if they have it figured out this time.”

4. The Brightest Moon of the Century – Christopher Meeks
This debut novel, based on one of my favorite Chris Meeks short stories, begins when Edward Meopian is 14-years old and ends when he is 45. A lot happens to Edward in those three decades, very little of it planned, and most of it seeming to get him no closer to achieving his dream. And when he does finally get there, life happens. From my review of the book: “Meeks’s characters, and his slightly off-centered view of life, continue to remind me of John Irving’s early work, definitely a good thing.”

5. Etta: A Novel – Gerald Kolpan
If you’re like me, I’ll bet you still have an imaged embedded in your brain of Etta Place riding a bicycle in that classic move about Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. I’ll also bet that pretty much everything you know about Etta Place, you acquired from that one movie. Really, not much is known about Etta and how she became an outlaw, but Gerald Kolpan’s version of “what if” is great fun to read. From my review of the book: “First-time novelist Gerald Kolpan now offers Etta, the perfect companion piece to the movie that reintroduced Etta to the world some forty years ago.”

6. Travel Writing - Peter Ferry
This is a first novel that takes a (excuse me for this) novel approach to storytelling. Peter Ferry is the main character of his own novel and, beginning with the book's dedication, the reader will be wondering what is real and what is not. Ferry pulls off to great effect here one of those "novel within a novel" things and I suspect he drove more than a few readers nuts in the process. From my review of the book: "Peter Ferry is a storyteller and his debut novel, Travel Writing, is one terrific story.

7. American Rust: A Novel - Philipp Meyer
Yet another debut novel, but a much more serious one than the ones previously mentioned, American Rust takes a long, hard look at life in small town America. Meyer's story is a tragic one involving a bright young man whose life goes wrong in an instant, so wrong that he fears he could end up spending the rest of his life in prison. From my review of the book: "American Rust, Philipp Meyer’s debut novel, is a hard story to forget. Beyond a doubt, it is one of the bleakest portrayals of small town America written since the Great Depression and its plot, for good reason, is a reminder of the fiction that came out of that era."

8. Rain Gods: A Novel - James Lee Burke
James Lee Burke is a master at his craft, a man I've read since the '80s and whose work I always snap up as soon as it is published. I feel like Dave Robicheaux is a personal friend; I even own a baseball cap that features Dave's old bait shop on the front and I actually wear it around town just to see if anyone gets the joke. Rain Gods, though, is a Hack Holland novel, not one of Dave's. I don't yet feel quite as attached to Hack as I do to Dave but Mr. Burke is getting me closer with every novel. This is one of the most atmospheric novels I've read in a long while and the writing is simply beautiful. Enough said.

9. Woodsburner: A Novel - John Pipkin
Would you believe another excellent debut novel? This one is about what had to be perhaps the worst day in Henry David Thoreau's life, the day he accidentally set fire to the Concord Woods and almost burned down the city of Concord. Pipkin uses this largely forgotten incident from Thoreau's life to create one of the best character studies of 2009. From my review of the book: "In the process of creating a back-history for each of his main characters, Pipkin provides a revealing look at Massachusetts society of the 1840s and theorizes on how Thoreau’s mistake heavily influenced the rest of his life and career."

10. Where Men Win Glory - Jon Krakauer
Pat Tilman is a hero, a special young man who felt it was his duty to defend America after the 9-11 murders. Most everyone knows how Tilman gave up a multi-million dollar contract to join the Army's special forces and of his death in Afghanistan. Jon Krakauer tells the rest of the story, including the military's attempt to cover up what really happened in the tragic firefight that killed Pat Tilman. From my review of the book: "Human nature being what it is, almost from the moment Tillman’s body was recovered, some on the ground seem to have been more concerned with covering up the poor tactical decisions that contributed to his death than they were about reporting the truth."

Shoptimism

There is no doubt about it: America is a nation of shoppers and ours is an economy driven more by consumption than by production. For some of us, the craziness of Black Friday is to be avoided at all cost; for others it is a contact sport they look forward to all year long. Lee Eisenberg’s Shoptimism: Why the American Consumer Will Keep on buying No Matter What, attempts to explain why that is.

Eisenberg divides Shoptimism into two parts, one from “The Sell Side” (Them Versus You) and one from “The Buy Side” (You Versus You). The first part focuses on the efforts retailers make to convince unwary buyers they cannot live without what the seller has to offer. It includes a history of retailing, advertising, marketing research and what, at times, seems like psychological warfare being waged upon the buyer by the seller. Eisenberg, in a past life, was executive vice president of Land’s End and he knows exactly how “They” play the game of getting cash from your pocket into theirs.

The book’s second part focuses on the “Why” and the “Who” of shopping. Why do we shop the way we do? Why do brands mean everything to some shoppers while others see avoiding popular brands as a badge of honor? How do male and female shoppers differ? Can shopping truly be an addiction or is that just an excuse some shoppers use to rationalize their spending habits? This section of the book includes chapters on “The Classic Buyer,” one that tries to get the most for his dollar and is willing to do the research needed to increase his odds of succeeding, and “The Romantic Buyer” that shops more with an impulsive heart than with a fact-filled head.

Although he uses graphs, tables, lists and illustrations for summary and clarification purposes, Eisenberg builds his case largely through the anecdotal style he uses to recount his own shopping experiences and observations. Thankfully, he also puts today’s shopping habits into historical context, explaining how we arrived at the point that President Bush would dare suggest shortly after 9-11 that the best things Americans could do for their country was to return to its shopping malls. According to Eisenberg, it was during the 1950s that America “underwent a bloodless coup that transformed us from engaged citizens into self-indulgent consumers.” In postwar America, Americans found that buying things made them happy – and American consumption has only gotten more frantic with each succeeding generation.

Some might find it easy to ridicule the shopping habits of their fellow citizens but before getting too carried away they should consider some of the things that now eat up such a large chunk of their own disposable income, expenses our grandparents never dreamed of: mobile phones, cable television, internet bills, hugely expensive printer ink, and the like. As one consultant tells Eisenberg, “The average American household spends more a year on technology-related products and services than it does on clothes, health insurance, prescription drugs or entertainment.” Consumerism has a way, in other words, of sneaking up on the best of us.

Rated at: 4.0

End-of-Year Stats

Another year is done and I've managed to pull together some end-of-year numbers that reflect the kind of reading year 2009 was for me. I find that I was fairly consistent from month-to-month with my reading but that I had extended periods during which nothing really impressed me as being even remotely special. Sometimes when that happens I think I'm more to blame than the authors because I do seem to go in streaks of mediocre books vs. really good books. I wonder how much a reader's mood has to do with his reaction to a book, even to a classic?



Anyway, here's what 2009 looked like for me:

Number of Books Read = 124
Fiction = 86
Nonfiction = 38

Novels - 85
Short Story Collections = 1

Memoirs = 11
Biographies = 9
True Crime = 4
Essay Collections = 2
Sociology = 5
Business = 2
Health = 1
Education = 1
Current Events = 3

Written by Men = 80
Written by Women = 42
Co-Authored = 2

Abandoned = 10
Review Copies = 79
Translations = 4
E-Books = 7
Audio Books = 7

Author Nationality:

British = 13
Irish = 1
Canadian = 2
Spanish = 1
Iranian = 2
American = 105

I don't usually start the year with reading goals, but I think I'll do that this year without getting extremely specific about my aims. In general terms, though, I hope to read more from the rest of the world, a little more nonfiction, more short story collections, a series or two, more classics and more from some of my favorite genres. That should be vague enough to give me an alibi for whatever I fail to do by this time next year.