Baby Got Books

It’s time for the Finals at The Tournament of Books. It has come down to The Plot Against America and Cloud Atlas. Catch up by reading through the column on the right-hand side to see how the action went down.

3 newbies to report here, today, now. Sorry, but though I enjoyed all 3, I can’t in good conscience recommend any to anyone without the precise, narrow, geeky interests of me, my ego and my half dozen or so other personalities. Anyway, here goes…

1: I finally polished off Joseph Campbell’s Myths to Live By. It made me tired.

Plot: none. Not even close. It’s a series of lectures Joe gave in the 60’s on the value of myth–generally as the precursor and necessary alternative to organized religion–from the beginning of time throughout the world (he tries to include the Moon, but I think he fails miserably on that stretch). So it’s temporally and geographically broad, enough to make my head hurt. OK, ‘nough complaining.

What I Learned: That organized religion blows. A lot. Especially Western organized religion: “we (westerners) have been bred into one of the most brutal war mythologies of all time.” As Joe seems to see it, it is our hard wired mythologies (e.g. the struggle against common enemy, nature) that historically resulted in epic tales of internal and external odyssies and that are the cement that holds our various societies together. These mythologies spawned organized religion–all of them–as a way to express their lessons. Eastern religions historically have remained pretty true to their mythological base, but western religions have for the most part completely bollocksed it up in favor of more mundane pursuits (mainly money, societal control and killing people). Relatively deep stuff for a dummy like me.

B. Keeping with the Joe theme, and wanting to rest my noggin, I picked up James Prosek’s Joe and Me. It made me nostalgic.

Plot: Old man befriends young man (author) and teaches him how and where to fish in rural Connecticut. Elvismith keeps waiting for old man’s hand to slide across the front bench seat of the old pickup and land on authors knee, and is sorely disappointed.

What I Learned: Fishing is fun!

III. Keeping with the “things that live under water” theme, I next polished off a heapin helpin (with drawn butter) of The Secret Life of Lobsters (don’t miss the lobster blog!), by Trevor Corson. It made me hungry.

Now this one is, I guess, pretty non-fictional, if Mr. Corson can be trusted on his lobster facts and the descriptions of the lives and loves of the lobstermen and scientists who obsess over our favorite red bug day and night.

Plot: The typical: boy meets lobster, boy marries lobster, lobster leaves boy for a neurologist, boy writes country song.

What I Learned: Lobsters are just like us, because they like the nasty. Lobsters are not like us because they can breathe under water and females have complete control over the mating ritual.

As long as we’re commenting on other blogs, apparently there is a job for one of us at the Dukes of Hazzard Institute.

A friend just sent me this link to a Ga. Tech student’s blog about her recent experience at a dook game. I commend it to all college hoops fans–especially those in the babygotbookserati who’ve drunk the blueberry kool-aid.

My next book is the well regarded Marvel 1602 by Neil Geiman. Marvel, like the comic books? Yes, Marvel like the comic books.

Although, this is a graphic novel. It’s another “what if” book, that reimagines what it would have been like if some of the Marvel characters had existed in 1602 during the reign of Queen Elizabeth and her succession by James I. I won’t bore you with any more of the plot, because none of the BgB crew care. It’s themes are familiar though: religious opression, fear and suspicion of the “other” - all that good stuff. I enjoyed it, and the artwork that begins each chapter is spectacular. I found out about this book from this year end review (#5)

Somebody read God’s Politics and report back to the group. An interesting interview with the author is here. (link via Bookslut).

So as to keep himself relevant in today’s society, William Faulkner discusses the Bush Administration at Slate.

“I don’t like to read books. They muss up my mind. History is more or less bunk.”
- Henry Ford

If you don’t know the basics of the plot, Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America is a “what if” novel that describes an America where FDR is defeated by the isolationist Republican’s candidate, Charles Lindbergh, and America is kept out of WWII. The American aviation hero was known to be anti-Semitic, as was our man Henry Ford, quoted above. (Anybody want to buy my truck?) The author does include historical notes as an epilogue that help to sort out what is fact and what is fiction, and I am sure that every bit of it is hotly contested in some corner of the internet.

The story is told from the point of view of an 8-9 year old Philip Roth. Virtually all of the characters in the book are real. Besides the author’s family, the author includes many contemporary local and national leaders. As the story unfolds, the Jewish community of Newark becomes increasingly alarmed as their most paranoid expectations of an anti-Semitic President begin to be realized, and it appears that Lindbergh is prepared to side with Hitler. The “pro-Nazi Lindbergh” story line is actually much more subtle than it seems when read on the jacket cover. It’s presented as a slow erosion of democracy and freedoms, with lots of political double-speak supporting the Republican actions. Which makes it so much more believable. It really seems like “this could have happened”. I didn’t sleep for three or four days as I pounded out this book to see how things would play out - since we are not, in fact, speaking German right now.

The otherwise theoretical effects of creeping fascism and anti-Semitism are personalized through the perspective of the Roth Family and their immediate neighbors. However, the 8-9 year old Philip may not be a 100% reliable narrator, since he was a child, after all, and the story is his “remembrance” as an old man. Also, the way he perceives the world around him, like all children, is shaped through the actions of the adults closest to him. And their actions are not necessarily consistent over time. Some reviewers have complained about the ending. Without giving too much away, some chance of a mild reprieve is given to Lindbergh. Although, the adult telling Philip the “truth” is implicated in the “plot” and is therefore unreliable as well.

Roth has indicated in interviews that the novel should not be treated as a roman à clef for our current administration. However, you really can’t help but make some comparisons. Lindbergh jets into speaking engagements and repeats the same 6 lines of “speech” at each stop in his aviator suit. And the crowd goes wild for his simple explanations and no-nonsense approach. No, that doesn’t sound like anyone I know. Creeping fascism? Hmm, “you’re with us or against us”, “why do you hate our troops”, repression under the guise of religion, half of high-schoolers believing that the press should “get government approval” before printing - no that doesn’t sound like we’re slowly losing our democratic ideals.

It’s an impressive piece of writing, it’s a gripping story, and it makes you think about the world around you. I read a lot of hype about this book, but I wasn’t sure that I found the “Nazis in America” thing very promising. I finally decided to pick this book up after reading Neal Pollack’s brief review (#4). His take home message: “An important book in an age when books aren’t important.” Amen to that. Also, it will make you sad that you can’t vote for Fiorello LaGuardia.

What the heck — I haven’t posted anything in almost 18 hours, so I’ll throw one more up here. Suspect is Michael Robotham’s first book (I think), and what a start for this guy.

This murder mystery centers on Joe O’Loughlin, a psychologist who is called in to opine on a case but who becomes the prime suspect in short order. The story takes plenty of twists and turns as we follow the investigation and Joe O’Loughlin’s own private investigation into what ghosts from his past may be creeping back into his life for revenge. It’s a rollercoaster ride, and it doesn’t stop until the very end. And it’s set in England, so you can take heart in the fact that the weather there is worse than it is here. Every day. Highly recommended for anyone who likes suspense.

As an added bonus, the wife and I have each read it, so you’re welcome to borrow our copy!

Hunter Thompson is dead by his own hand at 67. You can go to virtually any web site and find extensive articles celebrating his writing. One of my favorite quotes comes from a Rolling Stone piece about the last election:

“I almost felt sorry for him, until I heard someone call him ‘Mister President,’ and then I felt ashamed.”

HST began his journalism career unlikely enough in the Air Force for a military paper at Eglin AFB in Florida. It seems fitting that one of the last regular outlets for his writing was his Hey Rube column for ESPN. Here’s a piece that Thompson wrote for ESPN that I though was interesting. Tom Wolfe has writen a great piece on HST in today’s Wall Street Journal, but you’ll need to pick one up ’cause those bastages charge for access to their site.

Lest ye think my second posting of the day means I do nothing but read, rest assured that it speaks more to my binge-and-purge personality. While I’m blogging, why not go ahead and post about TWO books that I’ve read recently. You know, economies of scale and efficiencies and whatnot.

Anyway, stop reading this blog and go read this book. It’s that good. One of the (if not THE) most moving books I’ve ever read. Written by Andrew Sean Greer, the book tells the story (in the first person) of Max Tivoli, a boy who suffers from a genetic disorder by which he is born in the body of a seventy-year old man but ages backwards. So while he grows mentally and emotionally, his physical appearance grows younger and younger. It’s a story about love and friendship, and about how Max navigates his way through the world in his condition. I won’t reveal any more about the plot, just trust me — read it and let it take you where it goes.

This Greer fella is an amazing writer. He uses metaphor like a trusty mechanic uses a wrench. Oh no, wait — that’s simile. Well, you get what I mean. Everything from story structure to sentence structure is masterfully executed. His writing seems completely effortless; while the story and the feelings it evokes are so strong, there is absolutely nothing challenging or difficult about reading the book. This is absolutely, positively a keeper, and I will probably read it again.

Sometimes when you’re at the cash register, you impulsively buy a candy bar or some gum, or one of those soap opera digests, or a tabloid with a picture of some movie star’s unsightly cellulite on the cover, or something like that. Well, when you’re in the gift shop of the Carlos Museum at Emory, they don’t have any of that stuff. So instead, you grab the book from the stack that’s sitting next to the register and buy it.

That book is “Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies“, by Jared Diamond, which won the Pulitzer Prize (I think because they wanted to give the award to someone with a hair band name).

The book attempts to answer the question of why certain societies flourished during the course of human history, while others either vanished or languished. If you don’t want to know the answer, stop reading right now, because I’m gonna tell you. In approximately three million fewer words than Mr. Diamond used.

Geography and meteorology are the main culprits. Basically, all humans are created equal, but the ones that started out in certain areas that were home to domesticable plants and animals got a huge head start on everyone else because they could develop food production. Food production lets a group of people abandon their hunter-gatherer lifestyle and sit around inventing stuff. It also means that people hang out with domesticable animals, from which they catch microbes and develop restistances. Then when they go to another part of the world and cough on someone, that person gets sick and dies. And if they don’t get sick and die from germs that they’re not used to, they get killed with one of the fancy guns that the visitor invented before he came over. That’s pretty much it in a nutshell. Apparently the Fertile Crescent and parts of China were the best places to get started, while Australia was pretty much the worst. Interesting factoid: did you know that Cro-Magnon man was way more sophisticated than Neanderthal man? Neither did I, and I’d been badmouthing Cro-Magnon all this time.

All kidding aside, it’s a pretty fascinating concept and an interesting book. But it sure has a lot of words in it.

The 35th Annual Atlanta Open Orthographic Meet (“The Bee”) has passed into the annals of history, and another winner has taken home a stein engraved with a word that 99.998% of us have never heard of. Unfortunately, although the babygotbooks bloggers apparently represent the cultural and intellectual elite, none of us walked away from the meet clutching that coveted tankard.

Before I recount the details of this year’s competition, a bit of history. First held in 1971, the Bee began as a small, informal gathering of self-proclaimed spelling nerds at the legendary Stein Club. The Bee caught on, and spellers young and old enjoyed 30 consecutive years at the Stein Club. In 2001, after the bulldozers of Atlanta’s urban renewal razed the Stein Club (R.I.P.), The Bee moved to another historic pub, Manuel’s Tavern. [An interesting bit of bar trivia: Back in 1956, Manuel Maloof – a three-term CEO of DeKalb County and the “Godfather of Georgia Democratic Politics” – opened Manuel’s Tavern. At that time DeKalb County was still dry, so Maloof chose a location just over the border in Fulton County, as close as he could get to his beloved DeKalb and still serve beer.] The 2005 Bee was the fifth at Manuel’s, and drew a sizeable crowd of eager spellers.

Three of our bloggers competed in The Bee this year: Dr. J, DJ Cayenne, and Weezie. Although “penuts” was not among the words challenging the competitors, several food-related words were included – blanch, macedoine, vichysoisse, and paillard. Animals were another popular theme, with such words as rhinoceros, oryx, hellgrammite, beviss, and baudrons. (Running for your dictionary yet?) Not to be outdone by the fauna, the flora were well represented by nectar, detritus, rye, pipsissewa, marram, and chytrid.

Our bloggers should be proud. Dr. J displayed some impressive spelling prowess, scoring a perfect 20 in the first round, and advancing to the third round. Weezie gave a solid performance, spelling 19 of 20 correct in the first round. Weezie stumbled in round two, however, and failed to move on. DJ Cayenne make a respectable showing, with a score of 16 in round one – not high enough to advance, but definitely qualifying him for “spelling nerd” status. As nerdy as we may be, however, we must give spelling props to the winner of The Bee, Nancy Nethery, who correctly spelled 37 of 53 words.

Just to make things interesting, instead of simply listing all the words in this year’s Bee, I thought I would set up our own blogger challenge – match the word to the definition. Sometime next week I’ll post the correct results, and you can see how well you scored. Take the Quiz here.

Reminder: The 35th Annual Atlanta Open Orthographic Meet is tomorrow night at Manuel’s Tavern, Highland Avenue just off Freedom Parkway, 7 PM. Always a good idea to get there early for good seats. DJ Cayenne, Dr J, and Weezie will be available to sign autographs for the little ones.

First post on the new domain - woohoo! Thanks to DJ Cayenne for all this computer geek stuff - and some might ask - where does he get the time????

Anyway - I was eager to read the latest book from Jhumpa Lahiri since I loved her first collection of short stories, Interpreter of Maladies, which won the Pulitzer; alas - as it always seems to go - the 2nd is never as good as the first smash hit.

The Namesake is a coming of age story about Gogol, an Indian boy/man, who struggles with being raised by first generation immigrants in suburban America. While the story was certainly an enjoyable read, it fell short in its character development. All of the characters, particularly the protagonist and all his girlfriends, are very shallow. In extreme contrast to a recent book read by many of us, Lahiri goes in the opposite direction of Jonathan Lethem in that she does not do enough to delve into who Gogol is and what makes him tick. I actually preferred his parents as characters but again - Lahiri barely let us get to know the dad even though the whole premise of the book - naming his son after his favorite author, Nikolai Gogol, stemmed from him.

The most puzzling aspect of this book was why Lahiri chose to write from the male viewpoint. I think that she probably could have done a much better job had she picked Sonia (the sister) as the main character. The richer, better developed characters (the mom, Maxine and lastly Gogol’s wife - Moushumi) were all female. I don’t think that all writers must write on their own gender but if you’re struggling - stick to what you know………….

All that being said - it was a lighthearted and enjoyable read and I would recommend it as a good lazy Sunday or vacation book.

Well, geez, that was quicker than advertised. Here we are, open for business. Ok then, back to work.

All of the valuables have been carefully placed in double layers of bubble wrap, and the boxes have all been labeled and taped shut. All we’re waiting on is the van and the movers. I am told that in the next 24-48 hours all will be ready at our new digs, and off we’ll go. Our new domain name (which is already proudly displayed on our mast head) will be http://babygotbooks.com. Our winning name came on a last minute write-in suggestion by Dr. J. If all goes well we will be up and running there very quickly with few hitches. However, I fully expect that the Law of Unintended Consequences will be enforced, and things will go quickly south. Update your bookmarks, and tell all your friends. See you there soon.

For those of you that want to celebrate in a more cerebral, clinical-type way, PBS is premiering Kinsey on American Experience. Apparently our Republican overlords (and cultural arbiters) were asleep at the wheel. Kinsey was the subject of T.C. Boyle’s Inner Circle, which Nitro discussed here.