Post 342: Reading Jackie

Reading Jackie by William Kuhn. ISBN: 9780385531009 (eBook).

One of the things I wish had been explored more was the idea that Jackie chose to edit certain works that she wanted to learn more about. This information was taken from a Publishers Weekly article published 19 April 1993. This is certainly how I approach much of my own reading. I may never get the chance to go to India, but I can learn about the culture and the politics by reading works from Indian authors or non-fiction works about the area. I may not need to ever poison someone, but isn't it interesting how many different ways you can do it and how accessible poison really is? I'm probably never going to fly a plane, but I can easily imagine what it might feel like when it is described well enough.

This is possibly the best reason to read, and we make these decisions all the time. Even for pleasure reading there has to be some motivation behind choosing a particular title. We may originally be drawn by the title or the cover, but those things still give us some information about the content of the book (at the very least they tell us what the marketers think the target audience is). Sometimes I need that exotic setting, sometimes I need to know how or why something happened, sometimes I just need to know why everyone else is reading it.

That last one gets me into a lot of trouble. I consistently read things out of my preferred genres. But I like new things, and occasionally I come across books I love that I never would have read otherwise. I like my adventurous reading habits, and I like other adventurous readers. Not only is it fun to see what influences branch across genres, it's easier to see what storytelling elements and techniques actually work for me, which I've found is actually a better indicator of how much I will enjoy a story than whether or not it's literary fiction or memoir, etc.

How often do you think about why you're drawn to a certain book? What do you think you would learn about yourself and your reading habits if you started paying attention to that?

I found a couple of great reviews; the first one by Jaylia at Goodreads, another by a blogger at Beth Fish Reads, and then my favorite professional source Kirkus Reviews.
LibsNote: Library copy from Overdrive Media.

Post 341: Dan Walker (guest blogger)

23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism by Ha-Joon Chang. ISBN: 9781608191666.

I've never known how to feel about unions. I've come to regard them as a double-edged sword, though perhaps one that is past its prime. It's inarguable that they were absolutely necessary back around the turn of the century. Working conditions were inhumanly deplorable and unions were the workers' only way to stand up against the elites who were holding them down. So once upon a time, unions were the only savior of the lower classes.

But nowadays, it seems that unions have grown huge and bloated, taking on the trappings of the corporations they once fought against, looking out only for their own bottom lines. They prevent employers from firing bad employees, they try to squeeze all the money out of corporations that they possibly can, whether it's best for the industry or not. Just look at UAW and the auto industry right now. In some industries (I think of Hollywood, mostly), you can't get a job without joining the union and paying their dues, however high and regardless of skill. How is someone supposed to pay dues when they haven't even gotten a paycheck? The rights the unions once fought for are now enshrined in national and state laws; what, then, is their purpose?

Really, it just seems like the corporate squeezing I mentioned is about the end of it. I worked at a college bookstore once, a national chain, that had one in-store union employee. There wasn't any option for the rest of us to join, I don't think. All that really seemed different about her was that she got extra breaks and the managers tended not to yell at her. That said, I doubt my father would be employed if not for the letter carriers' union he belongs to. The US Postal Service is a pretty shitty business to work for, and the union is often the only thing standing up for workers' rights. So, in certain cases, they seem to have a function still, but otherwise...

Well, that pretty much sums up my view as of two days before this writing. I now have a slightly improved viewpoint of the situation thanks to this book. I'm going to copy the passage that changed my mind here. For context, the author has just finished discussing what happens to unemployed workers in Europe.

"...if you are a worker in the US, you'd better make sure you hold on to your current job, if necessary through protectionism, because losing your job means losing almost everything. Unemployment insurance coverage is patchy and of shorter duration than in Europe. There is little public help with retraining and job search...losing your job means losing your health insurance and probably your home... As a result, worker resistance to any industrial restructuring that involves job cuts is much greater in the US than in Europe. Most US workers are unable to put up an organized resistance, but those who can -- unionized workers -- will, understandably, do everything they can to preserve the current job distribution." (pp. 226-7)

If you lose your job in Europe, you can get unemployment and even retraining if need be. In the US, you're pretty much finished, so of course workers who can resist will. It goes beyond the "I've got mine, jack" attitude that plagues many in the upper echelons of our society; it really is a struggle between working and being homeless.

So I've come to the conclusion that while some unions may indeed be too powerful, the bad parts of unionization are in fact understandable. It's the system that is to be blamed. Grasping at everything you can is really different when the alternative is having nothing. I just wish I had someone to advocate for me, you know?

Dan Walker (pseudonym) is a writer from Northeast Ohio, who would be teaching ESL if he wasn't unemployed temporarily working at a bookstore. He received a BA in Creative Writing from Wright State University in 2004 and a Masters in Teaching English as a Second Language from Kent State University in 2009. He will make some lucky librarian a wonderful husband someday. 

*This post was originally written February 12, 2011 to allow the regular blogger to play several hours of Zuma's Revenge and spend time with her fiance. Also, this seemed poignant given the events in Wisconsin.

Post 340: a general update

You might notice that I didn't write about Salman Rushdie's The Ground Beneath Her Feet. I'm going to, I just didn't feel like lugging all 600 pages of hardback book with me on the weekend I visited my fiance. So look for posts about Rushdie a little bit later. In the meantime I loaded up my eReader with all sorts of stuff (I may have been a bit overeager with that).

Reading Jackie by William Kuhn.
This is about Jackie Onassis. She's an interesting, near mythical, figure in our history. To be honest I didn't realize she worked as an editor and the thesis of the book was that she "wrote" her autobiography by the books she chose to publish and how she edited them.

Lift by Kelly Corrigan.
This is sort of a short memoir/memory book for Corrigan's children. I could not relate to it as a parent, but it did make me wish my own mother would write a small collection of memories for me.

The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak.
I have been wanting to read this for awhile. I have a secret: I really love stories where Death or Reapers have a large narrative role. I devour shows like Pushing Daisies and Dead Like Me. I think I like the idea of being a grim reaper because death is possibly the most intimate moment in our lives, so it's interesting to me to see how different "Deaths" view their job.

The Caveman's Valentine by George Dawes Green.
I watched the movie with Samuel L. Jackson and it was pretty amazing. Nancy Pearl recommended the novel at ALA 2010, so I thought I'd give it a try.

The Abused Werewolf Rescue Group by Catherine Jinks.
A NetGalley book. I love the title. I was interested in this because I've been meaning to read The Reformed Vampire Support Group by the same author. If I don't like this one I know I can skip the other or at least not bother with seeking it out. I'm hoping for something a bit humorous and spoofy with this... Oh god, I hope it doesn't take itself seriously.

Rage by Jackie Kessler.
The premise behind this series is that Death has chosen four teenagers to be the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Hunger is already out and death chose an anorexic teen to be Famine. This book is obviously about War...and we get Missy who is a cutter. It's almost too bad that Kessler didn't choose someone who died from a gunfight in gang violence, but I like the concept. The question is, will I like the book?

Plastic: A Toxic Love Story by Susan Freinkel.
Plastic is awesome, and kind of not. It does so much for us, and not all of it good. I like non-fiction books that present the good and the bad of everyday objects. We really do need to get away from the Disposable Everything mindset. So, if you have any plastic Kinder egg capsules, my cat loves to bat them around the house, usually at 3AM.

Post 339: Three Hands for Scorpio

Three Hands for Scorpio by Andre Norton. ISBN: 9780765304643.

There aren't very many books I like that are written in an affected manner like this. It's unfortunate, because Norton has a really wonderful story, but it is inaccessible for anyone but the most devoted readers. Many of us do not have the time or patience to be devoted readers. Sci-fi and fantasy suffered from this problem pretty early in the genre.  It seemed a stylistic affectation that most writers were happy to adopt, perhaps to set themselves further apart from general fiction. H.G. Wells immediately comes to mind here. It makes sense for Norton, one of the old guard sci-fi writers, to have continued writing in the style that established her dominance in the field to begin with. Just because it makes sense, doesn't mean it is a good choice.

I do understand why she chose to write in a very "courtly" style as the three sisters were writing down their encounter for the historical record by request of the queen, but it was very distracting. I had trouble keeping track of who was talking, and the formal writing wiped out a great deal of possibility for in-depth character development. I also felt it removed me from actually being in the action so much. Obviously things worked out well for the Skorpys because they were writing down their account so there was no suspense involved with that, but it also felt more like reading the diary or letters of someone I barely knew and only have a mild interest in.

So why is it that I can enjoy the epic language and prose of Tolkien, but this particular Norton novel feels so stilted and imposed? Well, it might have something to do with the fact that this is by no means an epic novel. The magic in Three Hands seems to be well established in the world, but no one knows exactly what the rules are or what can be done with it. It just seems that Norton wanted to try and give one last hurrah from her deathbed and this is what came from it.

The thing is, I don't think she needed that last hurrah. Her mark has been left by the publication of hundreds of stories as well as influencing many, many sci-fi and fantasy writers. Would I have had the drive to write one last book with all of that under my belt, even knowing that I might not be able to finish it? Probably not, but I think Norton was more giving of herself than most people in general. And even if I don't like all of her works, I do appreciate and admire her ability to create, collaborate, and inspire the stories of past, current, and future generations.

An excellent review can be found at SF Reviews.
LibsNote: Library copy.

Post 338: Pump Six and Other Stories

"The People of Sand and Slag" in Pump Six and Other Stories by Paolo Bacigalupi. ISBN: 9781441892201 (audiobook).

In this setting, the environment is now toxic to non-modified people and animals. Said people and animals have been genetically altered not only to survive the toxins (slag), but also to be able to eat anything (namely sand). The story follows three hands for hire who discover a non-modified dog. The moral question raised by the story is "Do you allow such a creature to continue living?"

This is an animal that has no way of surviving on its own, despite the fact it seemed to be doing so before it was found. The implications are that it was either very lucky or someone had been taking care of it. Even under the care of the three it still manages to get poisoned, sick, and hurt. They have absolutely no idea how to care for its injuries because they all heal rapidly and can even regrow limbs (there was a disturbing scene involving this feature, by the way). With this knowledge in mind, would it be responsible or even humane to sustain the life of this creature?

I could argue both sides and neither would be wrong per se. I do lean more towards killing the dog, not because I'm a cold hearted bitch, but because it feels like The Right Thing To Do given the setting that was presented by Bacigalupi (whose name I'm finally getting good at spelling).This is a world in which non-modified animals are considered ugly because they don't have hands. It is a world in which people implant knife blades and luminescence into their skin. It is a world in which nothing grows on its own and where nothing can take care of itself without the modifications. If you don't have them, you starve or die from poison. Non-modified animals are kept in zoos, but even those aren't really necessary as bioengineers can simply recreate the animals from DNA samples. It is both cheaper and easier to do this than to maintain a menagerie of animals in this world.

There is no place for the dog. It has no natural food supplies, mates, or relevant survival skills. It would be like keeping a species alive on life support even though it's brain dead and has no chance of making even a partial recovery. This would be a terrible loss, but if that is the world we end up creating, then it is a loss we have forced upon ourselves and every other living creature on the planet.

An excellent review from another Goodreads user can be found here.
LibsNote: Copy borrowed from my library.
Also, if you are curious about steampunk and/or this particular volume you can actually read the first story for free over at Google Books. I freakin' love previews.

Post 337: Dan Walker (guest blogger)

Lord of the Flies by William Golding.  ISBN: 9780140283334.

This post is going to be equally about the novel and an article that I read recently.  If you read it, make sure you click the two follow-up articles the guy wrote.

What got me thinking about this article in conjunction with the novel was the way the boys treated Piggy.  He's the fat, awkward kid, a serious mama's boy, always speaking his mind to try and get things to work the way he thinks is proper, and so he gets picked on and shunned a lot.  There's a scene where a very tense moment is diffused by someone poking fun at Piggy; it comes off as business as usual, and everyone relaxes.

So, yeah, I was bullied in school, and I won't even begin to guess why.  I remember being laughed at and called names, spit on, and occasionally beaten up on my way to or from school.  That last one was the worst; it didn't happen often, but it did cause me to alter my route to school.  I do hold it accountable for my cynicism, however.

The silly thing is, I never told anyone about anything that happened.  I actually went to great lengths to keep people from finding out what had happened to me.  I can't even begin to understand why I didn't tell anyone.  The best I can guess is that maybe I thought there was something wrong with me and that's why I got picked on all the time.  It's that internalization that keeps bullying something tolerated.  Like the guy in Single Dad Laughing says, the bullied have voices and need to use them.

Still, the treatment I received could have been a lot worse in some ways.  I knew a girl in middle school who was picked on far more publicly, and far more often than I was.  I actually tended to avoid her because she was lower on the social ladder than even me.  Also, the physical abuse I underwent never really did any lasting damage, although I did experience something Single Dad Laughing described, where hot girls would ask me out and then laugh in my face.  That left scars, that have only just recently begun to heal.

It also could have been much worse, because I at least had people to turn to, and I think that's really the most important thing for someone who's being tormented in school.  In high school, I made friends with a bunch of other social outcasts, and we banded together, and we turned our collective ostracized status into something that allowed us to feel better about ourselves.  We didn't need anyone but ourselves, we were better than the 'normals' because we made an effort to be different.  That kind of mindset has sort of warped me for later life, but at the time, it was a most necessary survival mechanism.  My friends gave me a way to be myself, and they gave me something to live for.

I think anything else I could say on the subject is said much better by the article, so I'll just say, if you were holding off on reading it until you finished reading this post, go back and read it now.  It's worth it.

Dan Walker (pseudonym) is a writer from Northeast Ohio, who would be teaching ESL if he wasn't unemployed temporarily working at a bookstore. He received a BA in Creative Writing from Wright State University in 2004 and a Masters in Teaching English as a Second Language from Kent State University in 2009. He will make some lucky librarian a wonderful husband someday. 

*This post was originally written October 16, 2010 to give the regular blogger a break.

Post 336: Dan Walker (guest blogger)

Lord of the Flies by William Golding.  ISBN: 9780140283334.

I first read this book in tenth grade, and I remember really, really liking it until we started to discuss the symbolism (and I know I'm not the only one who felt this way).  What really appealed to me at the time was the surface story: about a bunch of kids having to fend for themselves, living off the land, and forming a society outside the influence of adults, even if it fell apart.

I was really into books like My Side of the Mountain when I was a kid.  I'm not sure what it is about survival stories that's so compelling.  I mean, if I had to go through a situation like that, I'd most likely wind up like Piggy: fat, whiny, ineffectual, striving to maintain decorum, and ultimately, dead.  I'm certainly in no shape for taking care of myself in the wild.  I don't know a whole heck of a lot about cold weather survival, what things to eat, how to hunt...  Like most people, I'm simply not prepared for roughing it.

To be honest, as much as I like visiting parks and forests, I kind of hate being outside.  There are two reasons for this.  The first is the sun.  The sun hates my eyes.  The sun hates my skin.  I don't know that I've ever suntanned, because I usually just turn red and start peeling.  It's unfortunate that we kind of need the sun for living and stuff, because it's really inconvenient.

The second reason is bugs.  Spiders aside, I'm not what you'd call bug-phobic, but I really, really, really hate it when bugs think they can just walk all over me.  There's something about having a bug land on me that makes me react as if I have seen a spider.  I will do anything to avoid coming into contact with most bugs, and I will do anything to get them off of me once they've landed.  I blame mosquitoes for this.

That all said, there is at least one thing that I like about being outside: eating stuff.  I get a serious thrill out of being able to pick fruit outside, whether it's from the blackberry bushes in my backyard, the apple trees at the other end of campus, or that plum tree outside where I work that doesn't produce plums anymore because it's got some kind of disease (when it did produce, they were great).  Even if we're talking something that I've grown, like a carrot, I just find something supremely satisfying about being able to pull something out of the ground, or off a branch, and consume it.

Of course, you have to be careful.  I once tried eating a puffball that was growing in the backyard and boy was that nasty.  I still gag a little when I think about it. 

Dan Walker (pseudonym) is a writer from Northeast Ohio, who would be teaching ESL if he wasn't unemployed temporarily working at a bookstore. He received a BA in Creative Writing from Wright State University in 2004 and a Masters in Teaching English as a Second Language from Kent State University in 2009. He will make some lucky librarian a wonderful husband someday. 

*This post was originally written October 16, 2010 to give the regular blogger a break.

Post 335: Dayna Ingram (guest blogger)

Pariah by Bob Fingerman. ISBN: 9780765326270.

There's a moment very early in this book when a certain character is resting peacefully on the window ledge of an apartment building, inconveniently surrounded by zombies. He chats with his wife, he smokes a cigarette. Oh shit he falls out the window! He becomes a victim first of gravity, then of hungry zombie hordes. This guy right here is totally me if I ever find myself in the midst of a Zombocalypse.

I am the poor sucker who will be killed not by zombies but by my own stupidity, or susceptibility to gravity, which is more or less the same thing. I am the idiot who will avoid being bitten for days, maybe even weeks, and then I'll forget to lock up the garage, or I'll scrape my knee on a rusty nail, or I'll run out into the middle of the street trying to save a stray dog. I'll bust the heads of a writhing, unquenchable mass of gooey, drippy dead dudes, only to trip and fall down a well on my way back to safety. I'll shoot my own undead mother in the noggin' and then step on a live wire that's been downed in a shallow puddle on the sidewalk and go to my grave regretting only that I forgot it had rained or that I forgot how electrocution works.

You read me right. In the event of a Zombie Apocalypse, I would not hesitate to shoot the reanimated corpse of my own dear mother. I guess I'm pretty proud of this inner knowledge. Whatever idiotic things I may do in the quest to not be eaten by my former friends, neighbors and countrymen, I will never die due to a misplaced sense of compassion/empathy/sympathy for my zombified loved ones. Because, as the old adage goes, there's no
OH-SHIT-MY-WIFE'S-A-ZOMBIE-I-CAN'T-POSSIBLY-SHOOT-HER-IN-THE-FACE in SURVIVAL.

Remember that, loved ones. If the Zombocalypse comes, maybe don't beep me.

Dayna Ingram is a writer and student living in the Bay Area. She received her BA in Creative Writing from Antioch College in 2008, and is currently working on her MFA in Creative Writing at San Francisco State University. She works at Half Price Books, where she buys more books than she can reasonably hope to read in a lifetime.  She is also the author of Sleep Like This.

Dayna's review can be found on Goodreads.
LibsNote: guest blogger did not disclose where she got the book from. Also, I am not a good candidate for saving your or my own ass during the Zombocalypse either. I'm both slow and callous.

Post 334: Wizard's First Rule

Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind. ISBN: 9780312857059.

Richard Cypher is kind of annoying because he's just so darned good at being good. There's also this weird disconnect between how devoted he is to the truth and the amount of deception he uses to achieve his ends, especially as the book comes to a close. There is something that doesn't sit well with me about someone who is supposed to be trustworthy deceiving anyone, and he does this throughout the story. On the other hand, it's sort of appealing in a Trickster/Brer Rabbit sort of way. We kind of like the guys who purposely break the rules for their own benefit as long as it doesn't actually hurt anyone else.

Seriously, you know you love it when someone files a fraudulent claim that the insurance company actually pays out.

Anyway, Richard kind of throws out a bastardly line to Darken Rahl at Rahl's defeat. I think it says a lot, not only about Richard's personality, but about anyone who is in the least bit sneaky, gossipy, or ambitious enough to step on your head for personal gain. Here's the line:

"Once you teach me something, it's mine to use." Page 563.

This is Richard telling Rahl that he's the one who taught him how to defeat him. Rubbing-one's-face-in-it is so attractive in a hero. But this is actually really excellent cautionary advice as well as an empowering motto. Once you have any kind of information or skill you can use it any way you choose to and no one but you can stop you from doing it. However, that goes for everyone else too, so maybe you should be a little extra careful about who you tell whatever secrets to.

I think we all learn this lesson the hard way. We have that one friend, or friendly person, we think we can talk about a mutual friend with and then we find out said person has blabbed everything you said to the very person you didn't want to know. It's not necessarily that you had any malicious intents or feelings towards that person, but you're not going to have warm happy feelings about everyone all the time and it is normal to want to vent. You can be as upset about this as you want, but ultimately, you were the person who gave that information out.

This is becoming more and more of a problem as information becomes more and more global and easier to access. It's harder to recover from making those mistakes because now all of your friends know what you said about Cindy getting pregnant or that Josh has an STD. You might lose a whole circle of friends rather than just the one you offended before you even have the chance to explain yourself.

In some ways I really don't envy kids growing up today with access to Twitter and Facebook. They have the opportunity to royally screw up their social and professional lives before they've even really learned what they've done. Maybe this will lead to everyone growing much thicker skins and better communication skills in the long run... but from what I remember of teenager relationships, the first instinct is to immediately take offense, consequences be damned.

My review can be found at Goodreads.
LibsNote: Copy checked out from my local library.

Post 333: Wizard's First Rule

Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind. ISBN: 9780312857059.

So, we have a fairly typical example of the "Chosen One" trope here. I think most people are probably somewhat familiar with the altered storyline of Goodkind's novels thanks to the Legend of the Seeker show. This mostly made me think about why Chosen One myths and story arcs are so appealing to us.

Really, they're some of the oldest and most popular stories: Hercules, Jesus, Moses, and of course the more modern Neo from The Matrix. Why do we still feel drawn to these stories?  Do they fill our need to feel special, like we might one day be the one to fulfill a prophecy? Or do we like the idea of putting the responsibility of saving our asses on one person?

I think I'm going to go with that last one. I don't know many people who actually want to be responsible for saving the world. If that were the case, we'd have a lot more people actually speaking up over atrocities. Somehow we have become comfortable with the idea that we don't really have to worry about fighting off evil unless God or prophecy or something taps us on the shoulder and says, "Hey, you're up." We like these stories because we prefer to have a champion, someone who will fight for us rather than having to do it ourselves and risking our own lives or families or TV time.It's too hard to get involved; most of us don't do anything more intensive than signing our names to a petition. There's nothing wrong with that really, except that how much "evil" has slipped into our political system while we weren't watching?

In some ways, it feels like Obama definitely took advantage of our hopes and dreams for a Chosen One. It felt like he was going to be The One to change the world, to beat the snakes from the grass, and to return us to Better Times. But it doesn't really work that way in real life, does it? Obama can't be the Chosen One because there's no such thing. He's doing what he can in the political situation he's in. We can hope for more, but we shouldn't expect godlike powers and sudden endless prosperity. This is really just one example of many problematic issues that come from the Chosen One mentality.

Sometimes I wonder if we might be better off having never introduced this trope into our storytelling arsenal. It would mean reducing Jesus to a mere mortal and a son of God rather than The Son of God, but maybe that's okay. Maybe we don't need The One to save us (from anything). Maybe we just need a couple of regular people that we can relate to to step up and change the world so we can step up behind them. Why are we so willing to wait for The One when we can be one of many working towards fighting off evil or at least what we perceive as wrong? Should we really ask The One to give all for us when we feel like signing our names is a sacrifice?

And another thing, how many Chosen Ones can you name who are female? I'll give you a head start with She-Ra and Lyra from His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman.

My review can be found at Goodreads.
LibsNote: Copy checked out from my local library.