Updated blogroll
Here, and at my more general, more absurd blog, I’m updating my links to include David’s Very Short Novels, Azahar’s Casa Az, and Archies’ Archive.
It’s about time, since I visit rather regularly, and they seem to visit me.
Enjoy their sites, if you haven’t gone already.
Everything is connected
My hubby sent me a link today that he thought might interest me. It’s a post on James Sherrett’s blog, on his website for his book “Up in Ontario”. The blog post in question is about Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma, and other writing he’s done.
Now, as my loyal reader(s) will know, I’m reading Pollan’s book right now, with the crew at BookTalk.org — and it’s a very readable book.
What you may also know is that I’m currently producing a forum on food security — this book is so damned relevant that I’m going to get a bookstore in town to cross-promote his store with our event, and come to the event with a number of the books to sell.
But what you may not know is that James Sherrett was one of the first presenters at the Shebeen Club in its inaugural first few months (before it had its own name!) — a club that I helped found, and unfortunately, I am no longer close enough to go to every month.
Everything is connected.
Top Ten Literary Crushes
Found this concept on Chelsea’s Blog on Vox. I’ve never really thought about this, but here are some of her faves:
7. Mercutio, from Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. Although Romeo has become synonymous with romantic lovers, he never did much for me. Far from being loyal, he actually strikes me as inconstant; if it hadn’t been for the forbidden nature of his and Juliet’s relationship, they would have been over each other within two weeks, tops. But Mercutio- there’s loyalty. He’s well aware of the stupidity of the feud but remains loyal to the Montagues nevertheless, ultimately laying down his life. The cynical bitterness of the character is also intriguing, as is his obvious intelligence and his sharp sense of humor.
6. Rhett Butler, from Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell. Rhett Butler is the only traditional romantic hero to appear on this list; he’s pretty much the prototypical rakehell that’s starred in every Harlequin or Mills & Boone romance since then. Scarlett was absolutely crazy not to recognize what she had; Rhett may not be perfect but he was perfect for her. Like he said, they were both “scoundrels.” His devotion to his daughter was also charming; his brokenness after the death of Bonnie Blue remains one of the most heart wrenching things I’ve ever read.
5. Inigo Montoya, from The Princess Bride by S. Morgenstern abridged by William Goldman. Westley is nice, I suppose, but at his core he’s pretty dull, and why he loves Buttercup (who may be beautiful but is as dumb as a box of hair) is beyond me. Give me the tortured soul of Inigo Montoya, seeking to avenge his father by killing the six-fingered man. Inigo’s athleticism, skill, and dedication are all worthy attributes.
I don’t think I’ve ever crushed on a literary character. I have favourite heros, of course. Samwise Gamgee, Zorro, Miles Vorkosigan, and Friti Tailchaser to name a few. But I am curious about who other people have had crushes on. Share them with me.
Dystopian Literature
Today would be a good day to comment on the classic SF genre of dystopian lit. You know the books: 1984, A Brave New World, The Handmaid’s Tale…books about totalitarian governments that use media manipulation and torture, among other techniques, to control their populations.
Why today? If you’ve been sleeping the last couple of days, then you may have missed the scary news that the Shrub, and the USA, are well on their way to bringing the nightmare of the dystopian world view to reality…the Powers That Be can now torture to their cold hearts’ content. Here’s raincoaster on the topic, and Metro.
On a related note, here is Creatrix on the state of art education in the USA — a report that again makes me glad I don’t live there.
Dystopian literature is supposed to be a labratory for what should not be, not a blueprint for the way a government could function…
on my addiction
A friend (who has recently entered the blog-world, here) lent me a book today, Biblioholism: The Literary Addiction by Tom Rabbe.
biblioholism is defined as: “the habitual longing to purchase, read, store, admire and consume books in excess”
This helps, ’cause it’s not necessarily about just reading. Browsing books, touching them, admiring their covers, typeface, smell…even owning them — all of these are sometimes more important than actually reading them.
An example of a book that encompasses all that is beautiful about books — Tree: A Life Story by David Suzuki and Wayne Grady, with original art by Robert Bateman. (The Amazon Look Inside here.) This book is physically beautiful. Obviously, with Bateman art, but it is more than that: it is a lovely small book, with a gorgeous typeface, pages designed with the reader in mind. The text is wonderful as well — the authors follow the life of a douglas-fir, from its first moments as a seed to the final stages as it decomposes, drawing the reader in with historical glimpses to give the tree a moment on our timeline of human history, and weaving science into the prose in easily manageable doses.
When I found I was going to meet one of the design team from Greystone (Douglas & McIntyre), I was excited…I wanted to express my utter admiration for such a beautiful work of art.
Yup. Books are for more than just reading.
The Pillow Book
Sometimes, book-movie-life connections all fall into place, in that instant of far-seeing understanding.
Today it happened while surfing over to one of my ‘regular read’ blogs, Tian’s Hanzi Smatter. (He was just featured in the latest issue of Macleans magazine, so he’s getting a lot of hits right now.) This guy collects instances of epidermal stupidity — white folk getting Asian tattoos, usually Chinese characters, that they don’t understand.
A tattoo, does not come off (easily or painlessly), unlike, say paint, or ink…as was used in the rather disturbing but erotic film The Pillow Book…
…where references are made to The Pillow Book by Sei Shonagon over a thousand years ago in Japan. It’s quite a lovely book, essentially a collection of observations, thoughts, and gossip by a woman in the royal court.
But don’t read about it, read it — or excerpts of it — here.
A Milestone
In so many ways, the Doomsday book is important. It is the earliest surviving public record in Britain. It’s history. Public policy. Art.
The National Archives now has it online, and searchable. Check it out here.
Thanks to my buddy Nag, on her Private Book Club blog, for bringing this to my attention last week. Since then, I’ve seen it in two newspapers.
Good. I’m glad it’s newsworthy.
Recommendations
Okay, so, I write this book-related blog…
…and then people actually expect me to know lots about books. Mike, for example, emailed me, wanting to know who I’d recommend for someone who really enjoyed Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk.
Now, I’ve seen the movie, but never read the book. But, I can imagine what it’s like, so I recommended Sailor Song by Ken Kesey. He says he’s started it, but couldn’t finish it.
Okay. So my credibility is on the line here. I’ll try a different tack.
I keep getting emails from Storycode.com — maybe I’ll pop back there and check it out for Mike and his reading needs.
What is Storycode? From their website:
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| Every time you finish a book, tell us all about it. | Our questions will code your exper- ience of the story. Code a Story… Tell me more… |
Our system finds matches and makes recommendations. Recommendations… Tell me more… |
Books found through StoryCode will surprise and delight you. |
So, if enough people read enough books, “code” them, then I may be able to find some good matches for someone who likes psychological dramas with lots of action. Here are the top results for Fight Club (the % is how close the match is):
Choke (Chuck Palahniuk) 79.18 %
Set this House in Order (Matt Ruff) 78.40 %
Geek Love (Katherine Dunn) 77.11 %
Secret History, The (Donna Tartt) 77.01 %
Contortionist`s Handbook, The (Craig Clevenger) 76.19 %
Invisible Monsters (Chuck Palahniuk) 76.11 %
Brooklyn Follies (Paul Auster) 75.11 %
A Scanner Darkly (Philip K. Dick) 75.09 %
Wind-up Bird Chronicle, The (Haruki Murakami) 75.05 %
Sparrow, The (Mary Doria Russell) 74.68 %
God of Small Things, The (Arundhati Roy) 74.45 %
Vernon God Little (D.B.C. Pierre) 74.29 %
Rottweiler, The (Ruth Rendell) 74.18 %
Case Histories (Kate Atkinson) 73.88 %
Shadow of the Wind (Carlos Ruiz Zafon) 73.62 %
Lullaby (Chuck Palahniuk) 73.28 %
A Clockwork Orange (Anthony Burgess) 72.68 %
Oryx and Crake (Margaret Atwood) 72.59 %
More exist…but I thought, for the sake of blog-brevity, to stop at Margaret Atwood. Notice, that yes, there are more books by Palahniuk, but look at the other options!
Mike, let me know how those work out. 
Apt reading
The book I’m reading right now, one I’ve mentioned before, is A Peace to End All Peace by David Fromkin, is utterly apt reading right now. The subtitle is: “The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East” — I’m buzzing through it as quickly as I am able, because now more than ever it is important to understand what’s happening right now in Lebanon, Syria and Israel.
[Go to Cold Desert's blog to get the Lebanese point of view. See Metroblog for disgust at the Canadian PM's response.]
In this book, Fromkin is approaching the history of the area through the personalities of the European politicians making policy from 1914 to 1922 — essentially examining motivations, decisions, points of view and the like that lead to the parcelling out of the Ottoman Empire at the end of WWI.
Wow. A simplistic summary. Again, for in-depth analysis of the issues in the book, check out the discussion forum on BookTalk.org — some pretty intense discussion going on…good stuff. Very helpful to my reading.
