100 books. 16 weeks.

You know how sometimes I like a challenge? How sometimes it can be more fun (for me) to do something just almost un-doable, than it is to do something a bit more doable? Heh. I'm so set.

I get to read 100 books in the next 16 weeks. That's right. 50 for my YA class + 50 for my Tweens class = 100 books. Plus whatever reading from textbooks I get to do. Plus, if I'm feeling inclined to, you know read an adult book or two.

That's 6.5 books per week, which is, if you're quick on the math, almost a book a day.

Sounds AWESOME.

Well, okay, in truth, there are some caveats that will make this slightly less impossible, but I'm not focused on those because it is the sheer enormousness of this task that appeals to me. But they don't all have to be "books." I'm supposed to explore various forms of media, so that'd include graphic novels, audiobooks, websites, magazines, movies and TV shows. Still, there'll be a fair number of books. Even though I might, at some point in the next 16 weeks, view (are you sitting down?) an episode of Hannah Montana or something.

I'm so freaking STOKED!!

I'm going to start two blogs (one for each class) to track my books. More on that soon.

A Great Lunch Hour

This is a week old now, but still exciting. Last Saturday I went to work. On my lunch hour, I went to a big chain bookstore. I'd reserved a copy of Breaking Dawn, the fourth and final installment in the Stephenie Meyer Twilight series. After wrapping my book in my sweater (so I didn't get finger prints on the cover) I went up the street to the frozen yogurt store. Got myself some lunch, and then sat outside on their patio. And cracked open a book I'd been waiting eight months to read. Could there possibly be a better lunch hour?

John Green

You may or may not be familiar with John Green. He's written a few YA novels, one I'm particularly fond of "An Abundance of Katherines." He's involved with a site I haven't yet explored fully enough, called Nerdfighters, which is a collection of videos between John and his brother Hank.

The video prompted this post is the one with the two giraffes, and well, suffice to say, it isn't really about what it initially appears to be about. It includes both a Schrodinger's cat reference, and for those of you who've enjoyed Stephenie Meyer's books you can also see (insert minor gleeful squeal here) John Green debating the merits of Edward vs. Jacob. I won't spoil it for you.

Also, the video entitled "Three Things" has a special request for anyone who happens to work at Google. I'm just saying.

And lastly, the video entitled "Cutetacular," really is indeed Cutetacular.

Okay, it was lastly, until I found this one, which is a musical tribute to the last Harry Potter, and contains the line : "I need Harry Potter like a grindylow needs water" and more.

Wow. Wao.

I'm just about to finish listening to "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao." I wanted to love the book, it was replete with geekiness. It's one sentence description says it's about a guy who wants to be "...the Dominican Tolkien." And there were many Tolkien references, and other geekiness, one great line about how Oscar "wore his nerdiness like a light saber." And it had a kinda mystical realism thing going on that wasn't unlike Marquez. That was fine. All in all, I'm just kind of "eh" about this book. It won the Pulitzer this year I think, or some other major literary hoopdedoo. All in all, as I say, it gets a resounding "eh" from me.

However (you must wonder why an "eh" book gets it's own blog post) I was just flipping through the reviews and comments on Librarything, to see what the LT world thought of the book. And I was fairly well shocked by what I found. Lots of people liked it, some people didn't like it, much as you'd expect. But a large percentage of the 32 reviews written (without counting, I'd guess about 25 of them) mention how they found the authors use of Spanish distracting, disruptive or downright despicable. Okay, no one wrote despicable, but I was on an alliterative slope there. I couldn't stop myself.

I was surprised that so many folks complained about that. I found the language off-putting at times, the English, I mean, because it was frequently profane, and while I'm not against profanity to any real degree, sprinkle enough through your narrative and I'll get annoyed. I'm assuming the Spanish was fairly profane as well. I have what could generously be described as a "Sesame Street Level" understanding of Spanish, or what can be made out of understanding a bit of French here and there. And I was listening to the book, so maybe that made a difference. But I never found the Spanish in the book irritating or inappropriate. I'm stunned that other people did. People wrote that they felt like they missed a lot, by not getting the Spanish. I didn't feel like I missed anything. In fact (and again, it could be because I was listening) I liked walking around with the sound of Spanish in my head (blissfully unaware of it's profanity.)

Collectively, y'all speak too many languages to answer this really objectively, but have you ever felt alienated from a book because it had phrases in a language you didn't speak?

P.S. My favorite review in Librarything a) has a footnote, and b) has a Star Trek reference. Let me just copy and paste it here for you, Librarything's "lampland"'s comment. Temba his arms wide.

He talks like a major geek, throwing in reference after reference to various movies and comics but to what end? He continuously paints himself as an outsider, as not a geek, but then he starts talking like a goddamn Tamarian* by saying things were Mordor or that he was Kaneda and never actually explaining what the hell he meant.

(*Remember that episode of Star Trek: TNG episode where Picard is kidnapped by that race of guys who only talk in metaphors? The universal translator would translate the words but still no one knew what they meant because there was cultural, contextual knowledge that accompanied those words. "Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra" and so forth. Well, that's what this novel is like reading sometimes. Díaz will take the time out to explain Dominican history, but not tell you who Galactus is.)

Brilliant.

Mystery.....

I'm at work, getting a copy of "The Wandering Fire" ready to go out on the shelves. One of the perks of this job is that when I discover the library has made an appalling oversight in its collection, say, they own "The Darkest Road," but NOT "The Summer Tree" or "The Wandering Fire," I can take action. I can put the missing volumes in a shopping cart and they will arrive within the week. It feels good, I tell you, saving the world in this way.

Anyways, I digress.

So, I'm putting barcodes and stamps and tape on this book. It's an edition I've never seen before. I'm not wild about the cover (it's actually kind of hard to find these books these days...I didn't have the option of the cool paperback editions I own.) It's got a fire-colored unicorn/pegasus creature, a horn, stuck on a tree, a guy with antlers on his head, a cloaked lady with a red glowing ring....all in all, not that exciting.

HOWEVER, on the tree on the far right hand side....a heart has been carved, with an arrow no less, and the initials JW and DM. (No plus sign. Not JW + DM, which as we all know, is the appropriate way to carve initials in a tree...) I don't see any notes in the book about the cover illustration. I thought it might be the artist's initials... perhaps it is. I can't think of any relevant characters. Dave Martynuik. That fits. But not with JW. Jennifer Lowell, and Jaelle (who, like Madonna, apparently has no last name.) Those don't work.

I think we have to go with the artist. But I'm opening it up for discussion.

Also, I'd never read the acknowledgments. I'm bad that way. But Wandering Fire was written in New Zealand! In Whakatane. I would have made a pilgrimage, if I'd known.

Rabble being roused

I walk on Sundays with a group of former ILL-ers. Usually at some point in the walk, Sarah and I trade notes on what we're reading. We're both big fans of the YA genre, and we keep each other up-to-date on what we should be reading. (Or what we've read, as Sarah described a book to me today, I asked her, "Have I read that one?") We had a guest walker today, who was around for this conversation and asked why it is we liked YA stuff so much. And we both took stabs at answering the question.

At home, getting caught up on my blog reading, I found a link to this post. I'm not familiar with this guy, so it could be that he's just generally cranky for the sake of stirring up interesting controversy. He makes the claim that adults who read kidlit should "grow up." And a number of good folks commented back to say, in various forms, "go jump in a lake." (Both his point and the comments are much more sophisticated, but I'm summing up.)

Two points I found particularly resonant, in an "I wish I'd said that!" way are
this from Rachel, whoever she might be:

I think children's literature is still invested in "meaning" in a way that it is no longer fashionable for contemporary adult literature to be. That's how I understand Philip Pullman's famous and much-maligned statement about there being some issues too big to deal with in adult books. I don't think that adult books are intrinsically unable to deal with the big issues, I just think that post-theory literary world finds such issues embarrassingly unsophisticated. I do not, and so I read fairy tales.

What a great quote from Phillip Pullman!

And this from Christina, another wise stranger:

I find myself annoyed with adult literature sometimes (or at least contemporary adult lit-- give me Jane Austen any day). It can be so self-important, so egocentric, and so pretentious in its superfluous description, its deep psyche-scouring penetration. It's irritating, to put it bluntly.

I don't find the same to be true of children's or YA books. Out of necessity towards the audience, there's no room for all of that artery-clogging junk. In a way, I think that leaves a much wider scope of interpretation, in addition to being quite refreshing.

I *just* read The Giver... anyone who thinks that THAT is a book for (just) kids needs to read it again.

In addition to her Jane Austen plug, she captures some of what I was trying to explain to our guest walker. I sometimes find that adult writers are too invested in showing off their vocabulary, or their, oh I don't know, depth or something. I finished a long book this week about wealthy intellectuals living in Manhattan scorning others for their lack of wittiness and poor fashion sense, while wrecking their relationships with each other in various fashions. It was 16 discs of audio book!! And, like Christina above, I followed that with Lois Lowry's 3 disc "The Messenger," and felt I learned a whole lot more about the world and good and evil and the nature of human beings from the kid lit thank you very much.

Anyway, if you want to get riled up, check out the aggravating post. Oh, and then you can enjoy this comic. Are you reading xkcd yet?

I think we should hang out HERE more

Are you all using Google Reader yet?? I follow millions of blogs since I got Google Reader, and it's ridiculously easy. It puts new stuff from all the blogs you like in ONE PLACE. I suppose all feed readers do that, but you know you want to try the Google one, right?

Believe it or not, this post isn't about Google Reader. I got off on a tangent, because I found reference to a book in my Google Reader last night. I have a whole bunch of blogs that tell me which books I need to know about to be a hip librarian book referer type person. Anyway, the book in question is called, "Not Quite What I Was Planning."

It's put out by the folks at a place called Smith Magazine. I haven't fully explored Smith Magazine yet, but they seem to be almost "This American Life" esque. Though perhaps with a tendency for shorter stories. Check it out, let me know what you think, but don't miss the Flickr slideshow of Geeky Tshirts. This is reminiscent of an idea I had while at a Google event one day. I thought to myself "If one were to map the density of geeky tshirts world wide at this particular moment in time, I must be standing at the epicenter of Tshirt Geekiness." The Smith Magazine folks went for a less-mathematical photo essay, but their method has the advantage of being able to see the wide array of geeky shirts roaming the world.

Ah, yes, I haven't told you about the book yet. It's a collection of life stories, by famous and not-so-famous people, each told in exactly six words. You can read thousands of them at their site, it's kind of addicting. It's amazing to me how much of a sense of someone you can get in six words. Most of them don't grab me, but probably one in 25 really makes me think. And of course, there's the inevitable, you can't help but write your own six-word-life-story. I've still got one adjective in mine that needs work. It's not ready for "publication" yet.

Addiction Update

So I've finished reading the three books in the Twilight series. And then I went through and read books one and three over again. And then I sort of sunk into a funk, pleased with how they ended, but sad that they did in fact end. Sure, they are making a movie (thanks Dad!) but I'm not at all optimistic that it'll be all that good.

Good news, though, my coworker (you remember, the one who makes up the puns?) had read only the third one, and he'd done some research on wikipedia, and it turns out, she's writing not one but TWO more books in the series. The fourth one is just what I needed (I need to see someone go from being human to being a vampire) and the fifth one is a retelling of the first one from a different perspective. So, though there's no instant gratification (well, there is one chapter from book five on Stephanie's website, so there was some small gratification instantly.) I suppose it's good to draw it out some.

However, I'm in the phase where I can't really imagine liking other books.

Still, there is hope!

I went to a class this week, or a talk, or a presentation, well, whatever...by an "expert" in Young Adult Literature. (How cool is it that this is part of my *job*! A whole day listening to someone list their favorite new books for young adults?) And he gave us a LIST! You know how I love a list! A list of things to read, really my favorite kind of list!! Want to see it? Here it is.

I've read two books from the list already. Just because, even though new books might not ever be interesting again, still, you should read them. I read "The Beautiful Miscellaneous" by Dominic Smith and "Hush" by Donna Jo Napoli (which is in the kids section at our library as of now, but I'm going to suggest we move it to teens.) Both were just okay. They had their moments, but they weren't quite enough to restore my faith and interest in the world of literature beyond Stephanie Meyer. :)

Addictions

I've been obsessed by a series of books lately. By "lately" I mean "the last four days." Not longer than that, because I get through them too quickly. The first in the series, "Twilight" by Stephanie Meyer, I had as an audio book, and I listened to it compulsively. I contemplated taking my iPod to the kids desk, and trying to listen while answering reference questions. Like the classic sitcom moment with the doofus dad trying to listen to some sporting event while in church. I talked myself out of it. The second book, "New Moon," I just read in book form. In a day. That was yesterday. I had to give myself a pretty strict talking to, so as to avoid launching right into the third (and I believe final) book. I have to have something to do while we fly to Hawaii.

Now, it's important that I be clear. These books aren't (strictly speaking) great literature. I don't think I'd even recommend them to any of you Teos reading this blog. I think you'd find them trite. And perhaps you'd be right to think so. But I seriously can't get them out of my head. At the moment, I can't imagine ever finding another new book (see what I did there, exempting old favorites) that I would enjoy more. I think I have an unhealthy relationship with these books.

These have been a sensation in the world of Young Adult literature, and they are, you'll probably be surprised to hear me write it, vampire stories. Yep. Addicted to a vampire story. But really, the "vampire" is just the gloss that surrounds a pair of star-crossed lovers. See, she's human, and he's a vampire. See the problem? I thought you would. And oohhhhhhh, every Santa Cruz Feminist would simply tear her hair out, if she saw how these books I was loving were setting back the cause of the sisters. It's really quite shocking. She's not only human, but in constant need of rescue and shockingly devoid of much self esteem. I can't help it!! These books are like Cheetos. On every level, I know they aren't good for me, and yet, I can't stop obsessing over them. Perhaps our heroine will kick butt in the third book. I can't say it matters to me if she does or doesn't.

On the plus side, I think we might like the author. She could come to one of our fictional dinner parties where we try and mix interesting musicians and authors just to see what they'd say to each other. I haven't worked out yet who else would come, but from the interviews I've read (see what I mean about obsessed, I've been tracking down interviews with her. I've been to her blog!) she has a good sense of humor and a fair sense of her place in the world. I mean, she did a fine job writing the books, they are clean and funny and age appropriate, I'd say, and aside from the wimpy heroine thing I'd say they were harmless.

Maybe it's the cover design that's altered my mind. All three volumes of the trilogy are as pretty as the one above, and I know how nice they look because I speedwalked to the bookstore (a chain bookstore even) on my lunch hour and bought the set (in HARDBACK!!)

I'm just saying, y'all may have to stage an intervention at some point. I'll keep you posted. (Get it? This is a blog, "posted?" Get it? It really wasn't worth getting was it?)

Feasting on Asphalt & Tolkien

Nathan and I just spent the morning watching the entire first season (well, entire is kind of the wrong word, we watched it all, but there were only four episodes....) of "Feasting on Asphalt." Two link choices for you, either here or here. Have you seen this show? It's Alton Brown, whom we love, from "Good Eats." (When we talk about AB around our house, it could be either Alton Brown, or our original AB, the Adventure Bunny.) Alton Brown driving across the country on a motorcycle with his buddies, eating great local food. Downside to watching the show, no matter what you are currently eating, or what you've eaten recently, the people on TV are eating better than you are. Season Two is on the air now (DAD!! They just cruised through MOLINE on their last episode. No Fish Fry, but they did go to the John Deere factory.)

Anyway, as the show goes to commercial, they always have some "road" quote, which they show paperclipped to all the great photos they've taken of themselves along the way. And in season one, they quoted Professor Tolkien, you know the quote about how one never knows where the road is going until one gets to the end of it.

Nathan posed the question : "Is Tom Bombadil really Tolkien?" and of course my first reaction was "no," because we know that Professor Tolkien really identified with Beren, so much so that it's on his tombstone. (Where is he buried? Why haven't we been there?) But with a little more thought, I do see the appeal of the idea. Tom's the Eldest, he's almost outside of the story. Tom was there, in a sense, before the story started. Tolkien himself is outside of the story. My new theory, if Tolkien put on the ring, he wouldn't have been invisible.

We said we should put the idea before Tolkien scholars. And so, I have.

My Cool Job

From Library Stuff

Something you may or may not know about me, is that I have a real fondness for travel guidebooks. I like to read them before I travel, I like to take them with me while I travel, I like to admire them on my shelf after I travel. Heck, sometimes I imagine purchasing travel guides for places I don't actually have a real interest in visiting. I like the idea of a place in a book. Usually there are pretty pictures. It's really the BEST things about a place in a book.

Of course, at home, I don't indulge in this obsession, except when I'm actually going somewhere specific. But at WORK, it's actually my job to tend to the travel section. Last week, I found a steal on the Lonely Planet website, and went crazy. I tried to fill all the holes in our collection. Do you see that Ukraine book in there? Greenland and the Arctic (visit now while you can!) Dubai? That's right, I ordered a book about Dubai. Trekking in East Africa? I've got you covered.

I get to spend my time today playing with my new books. I'm going to enter them into our circ system, then update them to "received," and then, I'm going to feature them in our blog.

And here are two pictures of my desk area, that I threw in because I was taking pictures.


Jean, that's my postit note board for things I need to read, watch and listen to.

Great Books!

I've been on a spurt of great books lately. You will have seen them over there on the right hand sidebar, in my Librarything widget, but I feel I need to tell you more about them. I feel this so strongly, that I've even written most of this post twice. Because apparently just letting Blogger autosave your message doesn't keep it in draft form. I guess you actually have to save it to save it. I wrote about most of these books on Saturday before I left work, and the message is gone! All this to say, these books are so great, I'll tell you about them twice.

My list is in reverse chronological order, so the first one I read back in Dallas, and the last one, I just put down this morning.

• The Last Summer of You and Me, by Ann Brashares -- This is the first grown up novel from the lady who wrote "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" books. Ann did a great job of getting readers inside the heads of her characters, and though I would have been even more impressed if she didn't take the easy way out of the love triangle she'd so carefully built, I still loved the story. Very well done.
• Dedication, by Emma McLaughlin and some one else -- The same two ladies who wrote "The Nanny Diaries." I loved this book, partly for the plot, who doesn't love a story where a girl with a life long obsession with a boy finally gets to be with him? But more than that, I loved the references to being a teen in the late 80's early 90's. These ladies had me at "Salon Selectives."
• The Amelia Books, by Marissa Moss -- Amelia is a grade school kid, she's an author, an artist, and bless her, an avid journal keeper. Moss has created a series of notebooks with Amelia's thoughts and her drawings, and they are funny and intelligent. And somehow Moss dumps a life lesson in each one without sounding obvious. I want to be like Amelia when I grow up.
• Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan -- Both of these authors have written other young adult books that I've really loved. The book alternates between Nick's perspective, all written by David, and Norah's all written by Rachel. I love stories with multiple points of view. And I love this story. One night, two people, and the sweetest edgy little love story you'll ever read. Warning, lots of profanity. But it's sweet.
• A Certain Slant of Light, by Laura Whitcomb -- This is a story about a ghost haunting a high school English classroom. Y'all know I'm not much of a ghost story person, but this was touching and only barely spooky in a few small places. As the story opens, the ghost realizes that for the first time in 130 years, someone can actually see her. And, another bonus, this book totally did not end the way I thought it would.
• Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by JK Rowling -- Plenty of hype around this book, last of a seven part series. I think I liked taking part in something like literary history almost more than I liked the book itself. But, all good things must end and all that. It was still a good read. And Hermione rocks. Obviously, I recommend this for folks who've read the others. For non-Harry Potter fans, I'll just add this to demonstrate the sweep of good books I've been reading.
• The Uglies Trilogy, by Scott Westerfeld -- I checked out this series after seeing the wait list for it at the library. And because it has a pretty cover. In a future version of the world, everyone gets an operation when they turn 16 that makes them stunningly gorgeous. Of course, as it turns out, it also makes you a bit slow witted. Rats. I've read Uglies and Pretties, and I'm waiting anxiously for my turn with the last volume, "Specials."
• The Higher Power of Lucky, by Susan Patron -- This is the Newberry winner that raised such a fuss 'cause it has the word "scrotum" on the first page. Somehow I managed to overlook that travesty and enjoy this book heartily. I'd recommend it in audio format, especially, since the reader does such a good job. Lucky reminds me a bit of Ramona, and her friends are quite likeable. The residents of Hard Pan, CA remind me of the characters you'd find in a Barbara Kingsolver novel.
• Inkheart, by Cornelia Funke -- Okay, I'm cheating with this one, because I'm not even halfway through it, but it's wonderful. It's Gabriel Garcia Marquez meets that artist I like, Michael Parkes. It's about a girl who's father is a bookbinder who has the unfortunate gift of bringing people and things out of books just by reading them aloud. And you really, really should listen to it as an audio book. Lynn Redgrave does a splendid job of reading this story. It has one of my new all time favorite characters, Meggie's aunt Eleanor, who is wonderful. She's like Farmer Maggot telling off the Black Riders. That's another thing I love about this book. When Meggie is leaving her home, she suspects for a long time, she packs up only her most-favoritist books ever. One of them is the Lord of the Rings. You have to like book characters who like your favorite books, don't you. I think this one will become an all-time life favorite. Though I've still got two and a half books to go.
  
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My Favorite Marathon and Tidal Waves

Ah, blog friends, I'm sorry that for the most part you live too far away to come to a movie marathon. But we did have a great one this last weekend. We started at 10 a.m., a little later than we intended, and it lasted until one in the morning. Sarah wins a prize for being the only guest to make it through all three movies, but both Lisa and N.S.L. arrived not far into The Two Towers.

It had been SO LONG since I'd seen the movies. Even little bits of the movies. I mean, at one point, I was watching some part of the movies almost daily, and it had been probably close to 18 months since I'd seen any of them. There was stuff in there I felt like I'd never seen before. Lines that seemed completely new. AND, this time through, there was the bonus of being able to say "We were THERE!" when we saw familiar bits of New Zealand.

Oh, and we had good food!! Gina stopped by and dropped off HOMEMADE donuts! Donuts, the traditional food of Bastille Day of course. Nathan and I had made homemade ice cream. There were Toll House cookie bars. I made an enchilada casserole. We had dips and chips and salsa. Sooooo much good food.

The best part though was the thoughtful discussion that came up. The Teos had some great questions about Middle Earth. "So, if orcs are descended from elves, are they also immortal?" or "If Gandalf is somewhat super-human, a Maia, how come he couldn't kick Saruman's fesse in the first movie?" or "How would Aragorn and Arwen have kids, if they aren't the same race?" I mean, these are the questions of TRUE Tolkien dorks. Between Sarah and I and Nathan searching the Encyclopedia of Arda, we came up with the answers.

I've spent every free moment since watching the commentary on ROTK. I'd never watched it before. How is this possible, I ask you. Or if I'd watched it, I'd forgotten it. But there's a bit in there about the dream of the tidal wave that Faramir has in the book, and that Eowyn has in the movie. Turns out it was Tolkien himself who originally had the dream. I'd known this at one point, but forgotten it, so I got to have the "Whoa. That's so cool!" moment all over again. I remembered we'd had a great email exchange about this. I've also had tidal wave dreams in the past and found them oddly relevant. And there are some interesting allusions to tidal wave dreams in other things I've read. I'm including our previous conversations here, because I find us so interesting. This'll be long.

Ah, technology. I've used my Google webspace and put it all on it's own little page.

Two things:
1) I got so engrossed in this project that I forgot to go upstairs and tell the knitters that their Knitting Librarian was out sick today. Argh.
2) I'd forgotten that we used to use the fact that Jim took Greek as a general Trump Card of Geekiness. "Oh yeah? You think I just did something chart worthy? Well, you took Greek!" (Jean, kind of a "You like Keeler!" moment.) But you know what Jim? Jean also took Greek.

Stephen King said it best

I don't get to say that very often. Read this great column by Stephen King about the end of Harry Potter, and the end of stories we love, generally. Funny, he doesn't mention the end of Gilmore Girls.

The Wild Trees

Thanks for all the anniversary wishes folks! We had a great trip, and we're glad to be back. I have tales and photos to share, hopefully later today.

I'm just popping in to tell you about a book I'm reading, called "The Wild Trees" by Richard Preston. It's about the crazy ecosystems that exist in the canopies of redwood forests, and about the even crazier people who climb these trees and wander around hundreds of feet above the ground. I saw the author on both The Daily Show and the Colbert Report, then I saw the copy come into our library.

Anyway, it's a very compelling read. AND, it turns out these crazy tree climber / scientists are also Tolkien Dorks. One of the tallest trees they've discovered so far they named Laurelin, and the section I'm about to start reading is called "The Fall of Telperion." Go Tolkien Dorks!

Overly Enthusiastic, Perhaps

I was just leaving the Circulation Desk, and one of our staffers was just about to take over for me, when she said, casually, "Didn't I see you reading 'Ysabel?' I just finished reading it." Turns out Ysabel was her first GGKay novel. Well, you know how exciting that is, when someone's reading GGK for the first time. I was, perhaps, a shade overly enthusiastic in my response, given that this person doesn't really have any context for that which is Jenn, beyond a certain friendliness and a few circ desk shifts. There may have been just the slightest bit of squealing involved.

She had moved from Ysabel to Last Light of the Sun, and claimed to be enjoying it. I got into our catalog with her and talked about the pros and cons for various reading order scenarios. I was shocked and saddened to discover we own The Darkest Road, but not The Summer Tree or The Wandering Fire. I spent some time on my lunch hour making her a list, sorting them into varying intensities of fabulousness. The Tapestry listed as the penultimate work, Tigana and Lions and Ysabel as "Life Altering," Song for Arbonne as "Excellent" and the others as "The Other Stuff."

It's a bit of a puzzle, as I'm sure you see. Normally, with new Kay people, I suggest an Arbonne, followed by either Lions or Tigana. Then, assuming they won't be offended by fantasy, of course there is the Tapestry, and now I'd suggest one wait until after that for Ysabel. Then I leave it up to folks to try or skip Sailing to Serantium and Last Light, as they feel best. She's read Ysabel, but not the Tapestry. She's reading Last Light. Next, should I encourage her to treat herself to one of the tastiest morsels, or should she work her way from least amazing to most mind boggling, since she's on the path. She says she'd read them all, but I'd hate to lose her to the second book of Sarantium, you know?

fictional mortality — part two

There are a few conventions authors seem to follow, archetypes, perhaps. I thought I’d jot down the ones that came to mind, so we can talk about people who break them. The good way and the bad way.

Who’s not going to die? William Goldman said it this way. “Well, since the book is called ‘The Princess Bride’ and since we’re barely into it, obviously the author is not about to make shark kibble of his leading lady.’ In the Sally Lockhart mysteries, by Phillip Pullman, I’m not that worried about Sally in Book Two, as there are at least two books to come that bear her name. The exception to this rule, of course is that the title character may die at the end of the book, if there is only one, or at the end of the series, if there are several. Hence all the hubbub around J.K. Rowling and the fate of Harry at the end of Book Seven. Will she, won’t she? That’s right, J.K. I’ve got more to say to you later.

Who CAN go? Well, there are a few obvious categories, aren’t there. There’s what Jean and I call “The Random Ensign” phenomenon. Based on Star Trek, and my ST of choice is TNG. So, if Riker, Troi, Data, Worf and some guy you’ve never heard of form an away team, you can lay money only four of them are coming back. It’s easy, I see why they do it. Gives Picard something to be incensed over, but doesn’t require much emotional drain on the audience.

The aged teacher is disposable as well, the Obi-Wan Kenobi, if you will. Really, once he’d taught Luke, what role was there for him? Again, his death provides a kick in the pants for Luke. Right, we were talking about books. Galapas, from the Hollow Hills. Brom, from Eragon. We could look to JK again, though of course that raises the question “Just how much like Gandalf is Dumbledore, really?” Verdicts still out.

An aged king with a healthy heir won’t survive. Else why is he old? Why have an heir? (In thinking this one through, I got sidetracked contemplating how bad things happen to Tolkien characters whose names start with a “th”….Theoden, Theodred, Thorin, Thingol, all though the last didn’t have it so bad…anyway, I’ve digressed.) Certainly Theoden fits here, and so does Denethor, if you want to consider him a self-styled King. Kay gives us Aillel, though more on Kay later as well, he’s the master, as far as I’m concerned.

Who else? Who do you know is doomed the minute you first run across them?

~ by meteowrite on February 16, 2007.
One Response to “fictional mortality — part two”

1.Then of course there is the fate of multiple heirs to the old Kings estate; some or one of them must go to allow the “rightful” king emerge. Ancient High Priestesses also seem to have a high mortality rate, for the same reason as ancient Kings.

The Greeks give us the whole hubris thing, which leads to the certain knowledge that any mortal who has gotten “protection” from death (a la Achilles) is going to be done in at some point.

The analog to the “unknown Ensign” in most war stories is the “ne Lieutenant”. At some point the “old Sergeant” will be taking his dog tags home. You can’t kill off the Captains, they are the veteran leaders, and you can’t kill off the Sergeants, because they keep the men together. But incoming, eager lieutenants are perfect. Mow ‘em down. The naval story equivalent is usually an overage midshipman. They seem to be cannonball magnets.

Goodyear said this on February 20th, 2007 at 9:33 am

fictional mortality — part one

I’m reading a book, and a character died. I won’t get into the details, so I won’t ruin things for folks who might read the book, and really it’s not important. I thought the death of a particular character served no literary purpose. I get it, sometimes people die, in real life and in fiction. I have no problem understanding that. But in this case, I think the author had no business killing off a particular character, in that it didn’t make the story more interesting. It didn’t make me believe more in the characters. Anyway, it got me off on a long line of thought about authors killing off characters. Which I’m going to break down into blog chunks, if you will. You see, I’ve prepared an outline in my journal. But I don’t have the stamina to write it all out at once.

So let’s start at the beginning. I asked myself (and now I’m asking you, the half dozen or so of you who read this) “Who was the first book character I remember losing?” and “Who was the first author who really got me when they killed off a character?” I think Charlotte was the first character to die in a book I was reading. She was a spider, I don’t remember being particularly broken up about it. I mean, sure it was sad, but she was a spider. Spiders die all the time. Even talking spiders, I assume. A lot of the other classic kids books with death scenes, I don’t think I ever read. Or I didn’t read them until much later. Old Yeller, never read it. Little Women, not until I was in college if you’d believe it (that great scene in “Friends” where Rachel’s reading “The Shining” on Joey’s recommendation and he’s reading “Little Women,” and they get mad at each other and try and ruin the endings? Good times.) I only read Bridge to Terebithia a few months ago, and by then I knew how it ended. Just like I know the key points of “The Sixth Sense” without ever having read it.

The first one that really made me sad? I think that would have been several years after Charlotte’s Web. I think it might have been Mathhew Cuthbert, in “Anne of Green Gables.” And then shortly after that, Emily’s dad, in “Emily of New Moon,” and that happens right out of the gate, in chapter two or something.

Wow, on an unrelated note, I just helped a little girl find a book on a famous female ornithologist. Way to be into female ornithologists!

~ by meteowrite on February 9, 2007.
3 Responses to “fictional mortality — part one”

1. I think killing off minor characters is an author’s way of neatly getting rid of them once they serve no real purpose. I actually got that idea from “Anne of Green Gables”, if you recalled that writing group that Anne started with her girl-friends, one of the girls (Diana perhaps) would kill off the characters because she just didn’t know what to do with them…and I think that real authors do that, just so they can concentrate on the important characters and events that are going to happen.

silverneurotic said this on February 9th, 2007 at 6:03 pm
2.I’m not sure exactly where this notion stands in relation to the mainstream, but I’ve always heard/assumed that the only really acceptable way to kill off a character is if the character seems to kill himself off. That is to say, that any time an author says something like, “Hm, maybe I’ll kill this character now,” he’ll be in the wrong, whereas saying something more like, “Oh, no, I think this character is about to die,” he’ll be in the right. And I was also under the impression that this was the generally held opinion on the topic.

elletrice said this on February 10th, 2007 at 9:33 am
3.The first bookish death I remember was, of course, crucial to the story–Arthur’s death at the hands of Modered. It was some childrens version of the great story, and it got me started on a lifelong trek into the Arthur cycle. I keep looking for “alternative endings”, but of course there aren’t any that make sense, or at least there weren’t until Finovar.

Goodyear said this on February 12th, 2007 at 11:02 am

The Best Book I’ve read in awhile

If you like books about girls named Zazoo,you should read Zazoo, by Richard Mosher. It’s the best book I’ve read in a long time. It’s sweet. It’s timeless, the story seems outside of time. Kind of Gabriel Garcia Marquez-esque. It’s a fast read. It’s set in France, who doesn’t love that. Zazoo and her grandfather live in a mill, they mind Lock 43 on a canal. Zazoo has a plum colored punt she uses for boating up and down the canal. It’s like Griffin and Sabine, a bit too, though less “arty.” Read this book. It’s great.

One Response to “The Best Book I’ve read in awhile”

1. Hm… sounds intriguing. When I am back in a place where I can read for pleasure I will definitely pick it up. Right now all my reading these days are in blog form or snippets from magazines. Even my beloved Dwell is sitting in a stack on the coffee table, waiting for me to pick it up. It can be a dense read at times and I guess I am not in the mood for heavy reading these days. (I find it amusing that my definition of heavy reading is magazine reading and that blog reading is about all I can handle. Oy!)

   jean said this on August 16th, 2006 at 9:56 am