Friday Links

Decatur, GA’s Little Shop of Stories has been named the best children’s bookstore in the country.  The award goes to “bookstores that display creativity, responsiveness to community needs, passion, and understanding of young readers.”  But we knew that already.  We’re glad that everyone else knows it now, too.

Amazon has decided to compile and share the most highlighted passages in books read on its Kindle device. Fascinating.  And creepy.

China Mieville’s The City and The City has won the Arthur C Clarke Award.  (Check out my review.)

Dave Eggers won two LA Times Book Awards at last week’s LA Book Festival.   He took the Current Interest prize for Zeitoun and was also given the inaugural Innovator’s Award.

Speaking of Dave, Nicholas Kristof featured Valentino Achek Deng’s new school in Marial Bai, Sudan in an op-ed piece for the New York Times.  Deng was the subject of Eggers’s book What is the What, the proceeds of which have helped to build the school.

Cory Doctorow compares the iPad to a benevolent dictatorship and urges you not to buy one.

YA author Scott Westerfeld on the centary of Explicity Legal Pants in Kansas and its importance today.

Comedy gold: Check out these officially sanctioned Texas school books.  In a similar vein, check out Texas Textbook on the social networking site of your choice: the Twitter or the Facebook.

I’m Just Saying…

When I saw the “mesmerizing cover” of Laura Bush’s new book (left), I thought I had seen that look before.  Then I remembered the commercials for the sci-fi TV show V that featured a weirdly spooky alien that lives among us (Morena Baccarin, right).  It’s just a coincidence that they’re wearing the same outfit, right?

Conquering Venus

Conquering Venus by Collin Kelley can be found in another section of the book store (way over on the other side of the African-American author section) – The Gay Literature section. Who knew there was yet another special area in the book store where great literature can be found? Pas moi.  But heck, the story takes place in Paris, France, so how could it go wrong?  This novel doesn’t go wrong at all, due to an intriguing story and fantastic writing.

Aspiring writer, Martin, agrees to help his high school teacher friend, Diane, chaperone a group of her students to Paris.  He doesn’t seem to spend a lot of time doing what was expected of him.  Instead, Martin does spend a lot of time hitting on student David and hanging out with his new French friend Irene.

Meanwhile, Martin continues to be haunted in his dreams about the recent tragic death of his lover, Peter.  Diane has recently suffered a devastating blow in her marriage which ultimately leads her to a life changing conclusion, and David is one big tragedy himself.  David passes his time drinking a lot of alcohol and alternating between returning Martin’s affection and swearing that, no, he’s not gay.

Upon arriving in Paris, walking toward the hotel,  Martin makes eye contact with agoraphobic Irene while she is sitting on her balcony.

He was digging in his backpack for the notebook, walking toward the hotel entrance, when he heard music coming from somewhere above him.  It grew louder as he reached the hotel and Martin recognized it – Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings.  Its rising chord section and shimmering strings were almost at their crescendo.  It was coming from the apartment, the one with the balcony full of flowers.  Martin looked up.

Someone was there. The woman from his dream.  He blinked rapidly to clear his eyes of tears, which came with no warning. Maybe it was relief or joy or fear or a mixture of those things.  the woman raised her hand in salutation, as the Adagio reached crescendo.

When they realize they have matching tribal tattoos on their left hands – they feel an instant connection.  Irene has passed the previous 27 years in her apartment reviewing manuscripts and watching the guests in the Bel Air Hotel (where Martin and the group are staying) through binoculars.   Tragedy struck Irene when her husband was “murdered” during the infamous1968 student riots in Paris.

Through a twisting plot involving a bomb, the revelation of hidden secrets, treasures in an attic, dreams and fortune tellers, Martin and Irene become connected in more ways than just the tattoos.  They both have powerful obstacles standing in their way that could cripple many people but with each other’s help they dive in and face them.

Honestly, at first, I had a hard time with the vivid gay sex scenes (not that there’s anything wrong with that) and thought maybe I’d stop reading, but I got over myself and realized they are only part of the story.   The novel is much too complex and Mr. Kelley’s writing too addictive to put the book down.  Mr. Kelley completely develops his characters – I found myself so irritated by Diane that I had to find out what her “deal” was and I kept screaming at Martin that there are plenty of cute gay men – find another one!

Not being gay, I can only imagine the confusion that consumes some gay men when they realize who they are.  Conquering Venus gives us a glimpse into this inner turmoil through several of Mr. Kelley’s characters (some are surprises).

While living in Paris, I didn’t spend much time around Place de la Republique where the story occurs, so I immediately Googled all of the locations in Mr. Kelley’s novel and became extremely nostalgic.  As I’ve said in other posts, there is nothing I enjoy more than a great story that gives me a history lesson of one of my favorite cities.  Mr. Kelley helps me out here with details about the Paris riots in 1968.

I only touch on a portion of what transpires in Conquering Venus – check it out for the rest.  The novel is not only Mr. Kelley’s first (he has published poetry), but also the first in a trilogy.  I am very interested to see what happens next with Martin and Irene. I really hope Martin meets a nice boy sans baggage.

P.S. Amazon says they are about out so if you buy via Amazon you’d better act quickly.

Uncle Remus and You

The Wren’s Nest is a beautiful Victorian home and  Atlanta literary museum that celebrates the life of Joel Chandler Harris, a local newspaperman who reached international acclaim by writing the Uncle Remus stories.  The house museum’s director, Lain Shakespeare, has learned that everyone has an opinion on the Uncle Remus stories  - and very few are accurate.   Harris has been accused of perpetuating negative stereotypes and misappropriating African-American folktales as his own (the latter by Alice Walker!).

To set the record straight once and for all, or at least to put a valiant attempt out there for consumption, Lain has written a fascinating 5-part essay that boldly states in its title, Everything That You’ve Heard About Uncle Remus is Wrong.  That means you, too. Check it out.

Eating Animals

Ignorance is bliss.  These words could not ring more true after reading Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer.  Foer’s prior novels, Everything Is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, rank among some of my favorite books so I was eager to read his foray into non-fiction.  I was even more excited that his new book was about something near and dear to my heart – food.  Food has always been a huge, wonderful part of my life.

I am one of those few people who spent their childhood eating dinner with my entire family and now my kids sit down and eat with their parents every night.  Common conversation around the table is what we are eating at our next meal, the opening of a new restaurant, or a great recipe we saw in Bon Appetit.  You get the idea.  That being said, I am very cognizant of what my family consumes and buy local, sustainable products as much as possible. Until I read this book, I thought I was doing a pretty good job.  Well – my pride in being a conscientious consumer has been tossed away now that Foer has seared into my brain the horrors of the poultry, pork, and fish industries.

Foer decided to write this book once his son was born and he wanted to fully understand how he was going to raise his child and what sustenance he was going to provide him.  Foer had drifted in and out of being a vegetarian most of his life but was by no means one of these hard-core vegans.  His grandmother was a big influence in his life and all of his memories of her were related to food and therefore he recognizes and talks a lot about how food is so much more than sustenance.  Food represents family, love, friends, and community which makes our choices much more difficult.  Unfortunately, 99% of animals consumed in this country are factory farmed which is a inhumane, unhealthy, and ruining our environment.  This is the focus of the book.  Foer gives detailed descriptions of how chickens, turkey, pigs and fish are factory farmed and I found every chapter upsetting and revolting.  From an ethics and moral standpoint, the abuses that take place in these factories are horrifying especially after you read the descriptions of how intelligent pigs are (much more intelligent than a dog) and realize the fear and pain that they endure.  Pain and suffering which is caused my man’s desire for cheap, tasty meat.

Why is taste, the crudest of our senses, exempted from the ethical rules that govern our other senses?  If you stop and think about it, it’s crazy.  Why doesn’t a horny person have as strong a claim to raping an animal as a hungry one does to killing and eating it?  It’s easy to dismiss that question but hard to respond to it.  And how would you judge an artist who mutilated animals in a gallery because it was visually arresting?  How riveting would the sound of a tortured animal need to be to make you want to hear it that badly?  Try to imagine any end other than taste for which it would be justifiable to do what we do to farmed animals.

And from a hygenic standpoint, it is nauseating to read the accounts of these animals wallowing in their own shit.

Every week, millions of chickens leaking yellow pus, stained by green feces, contaminated by harmful bacteria, or marred by heart and lung infections, cancerous turmors, or skin conditions are shipped for sale to consumers.

Foer’s brilliance in writing this book is that he never comes across as proseletizying.   He addresses the horrors of factory farming with eye-witness accounts, interviews with workers, health experts and scientists.  And all the information is presented in clear, concise terms.  When I was only half-way through the book, I made the decision that I would NEVER buy pork, chicken or turkey from the Smithfields or Tysons of the world ever again.  And that I would also try to significantly cut-down on my families’ consumption of animals.  But then I came to the ending of the book where Foer basically says that doing those things are not enough.  His view is that every time you are dining with friends who are serving factory farmed animals or eating in restaurant, then you are contributing to the on-going demand for these animals.  As he states, it is a lot easier to tell your friends when they invite you over to dinner that you are a vegetarian rather than ask where the chicken came from.

This is one of the few books that I have ever read that truly could  impact my life.  I haven’t decided at this point how I am going to proceed.  In the short-term I am going to stick to my original plan and just do my best but it’s not so easy.   As I was making my lunch this morning, I stopped and threw out the Boar’s Head turkey

[Turkeys]…..are given more antibiotics than any other farmed animals.  Which encourages antibiotic resistance.  Which makes these indispensable drugs less effective for humans.  In a perfect direct way, the turkeys on our tables are making it harder to cure human illness.

I can’t say happy reading but I can assure you that this will be one of the more thought provoking books you’ve read in a long time.

Loose Ends

I love to read that having a home library is predictive of children’s performance in school: “Home library size has a very substantial effect on educational attainment, even adjusting for parents’ education, father’s occupational status and other family background characteristics…”  Now I can justify the mountains of books around here.  It’s for the kids.

Speaking of libraries, yowsa!

Comedy gold:

A friend of mine goes to Brown and she has a chemistry class with Emma Watson. She said one day Emma answered a question correctly and someone in the back shouted, “TEN POINTS FOR GRYFFINDOR!” She wasn’t happy.

In an infraction that will make that cherry tree seem like chump change, George Washington has been found to owe $300,000 in late fees to a New York library.  And the meter’s still running, George.

Amazon reports net income up 68% in the 1st quarter.  That’s a lot of Kindles apparently.  The iPad is on the scene just in time to shake things up.

What’s up at Salon?  First they announced a deal to post McSweeney’s content on the site.  Now they’ve inked a deal with Barnes and Noble Review.  I’m just happy to see that someone – anyone- is bullish on book-related content.  Go, Salon, go.

Not only is the Beach Book Festival not at the beach, but their web site is a time machine back to the internet circa ’98. My eyes!

Voting for the finalists for Children’s Book Week awards is ongoing. Children’s Book Week is May 10-16.

Dangers of a single story

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Half of  a Yellow Sun)  speaks at TED about the importance of multiple narratives.

On plagiarism, redux

I’ve had plagiarism on my mind lately, so this news about historian Stephen Ambrose caught my eye.

Ambrose had a long history with the subject. Fortunately, he was called out shortly before he died in 2002 for his habit of repeating things that others had written without putting quotation marks around those things. That’s textbook plagiarism, but because Ambrose more often than not included footnotes that led readers back to the original sources of the words he had appropriated as his own, he did not receive much more than a slap on the wrist from the historical community or from his legions of readers. And lest you think that this problem only cropped up after Ambrose got famous and put together a factory that churned out book after book under his name, you should know that he plagiarized his dissertation and first book. I don’t doubt that a thorough review would show that he plagiarized everything in between, too.

It now appears that Ambrose’s fraud didn’t stop with plagiarism; not only did he appropriate others’ words, he flat out made shit up. And then based his entire, fabulously successful career on that shit he made up. Not to put too fine a point on it, but if you own a book with Ambrose’s name on the cover, you should not trust a single word in it.

Maybe Tom Hanks can start making movies based on non-fiction books that contain only non-fiction.

The Beats

I’ve always had a fascination with the Beats since reading On the Road in high school.  Recent beat-related reading like The Awakener and the tangentially beat-related Just Kids has only fueled that fascination.  When I came across The Beats: A Graphic History with text by Harvey Pekar et al. and art by Ed Piskor et al., I had to check it out.  As the et als suggest, The Beats has numerous authors and artists as contributors.  Given the number of people involved, it should be expected that the book would be a little uneven – and it is.

The book starts off with biographical sketches of the lives of Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs. All three stories sketches are by the Pekar/Piskor duo, so I thought that it was weird that each of the biographies had to mention that Burroughs took off for Tangier because “the narcotics and young boys were cheap” (p.24), “the dope [was] plentiful and cheap, as were the young boy prostitutes” (p. 56), and “dope was easily obtained, as were young male prostitutes” (p.86).   The pictures that accompany these nearly identical passages are as similar as the text. Each features smiling boys and a creepy looking Burroughs in a minimalist exotic setting that is meant to suggest Morocco. (For some unknown reason, a boy in one of the pictures calls Burroughs “meester” .) In fact, the Pekar/Piskor duo seem a little too interested in everyone’s sex life and come off as the equivalent of leering-while-elbowing-you-in-the-ribs creepy uncles themselves.  If that was all there was to this book, I wouldn’t recommend it.

The second part of the book is called The Beats:Perspectives and features shorter biographies of the others on the Beats’ scene as well as some background on the various people, places, and influences that shaped the movement.  These start out with more (but much shorter) pieces by Pekar and Piskor (and I swear that the have at least one more young boys/cheap drugs Burroughs reference left in them, but I can’t find the page.)  Eventually the pair yields the floor to other authors and writers, and that’s exactly when this book begins to take off.

Standouts pieces for me include pieces on the City Lights Bookstore, the picture poems of Kenneth Patchen (an example of Patchen’s work), Philip Lamantia, the Beatnik Chicks, and Tuli Kupferberg.  I was also happy to see Patti Smith got a few shout outs along the way as well.  Overall, the book does a reasonably good job of balancing the good and the bad of the movement and the people involved.  There are few hagiographies included in this volume.  Do check it out if you too have a fascination with the Beats or just want to learn more about the movement.  Feel free to roll your eyes regularly at the Pekar/Piskor shenanigans.

Call to Arms

In its infinite wisdom, the Georgia House decided to submit a State budget that includes the figure $0 next to the Geogria Council of the Arts. This would effectively eliminate any state spending on arts programming and would distinguish us by becoming “the only state in the U.S. without an arts agency.”  Awesome.  The actual budget for this year would have been less than one million dollars, so clearly this was the place to make a huge savings in budget crunch time.

Georgians: Go here to send a note to your legislators.

Atlantans: You can show your support by joining the artists march to the Capitol on Monday.  The march starts at The Rialto Theatre downtown at 1:00 PM.  I’ll provide a link with more info when I find one.

Lost in Translation

My daughter, who is in kindergarten, goes to a school where the foreign language that the children are learning is Chinese (Mandarin).  That’s great, except when it comes to helping with school work at home.  I have no idea what she’s saying or what I’m looking at when presented with Chinese characters.  Even the phonetic spellings don’t help much.  The books that she takes home from school are generally pretty good, and there’s a CD that comes with them so you can follow along.

We recently acquired a cache of what I can only assume are – ahem- Chinese knockoffs of Chinese language educational materials.  They are completely baffling – even with an English translation.  At least they were cheap.  Check this sample page out:

So first you have talk to your kindergarten student about the medical healing properties of nine-colored deer’s liver for the treatment of weird diseases.  Kindergarten kids will not let you be vague about this sort of thing.  But what do you do with, “Seeing that, the snake catcher came to the palace to blow the gaff”?  Given the fine eye for quality of the translation, I can only assume that the ink used in this book is lead-based paint.  Don’t worry, there’s plenty more where this came from.

Prose. Poems. A Novel.

As I mentioned in yesterday’s ode to chapbooks, Jamie Iredell’s Prose. Poems.  A Novel. began life as three separate, but related, chapbooks.  Iredell is a local author and is a professor of English here in Atlanta.  He’s also the host of the Solar Anus Reading series, which I just found out  has its own Facebook group.  After one of these readings, I tagged along for a few beers with Iredell and other men of letters.  It may have been the beers, but I remember these guys as being among the most brilliant book talking dudes I’ve ever heard talking about books.  It was a little intimidating. When I found out Iredell had a new book out, I had to pick it up just to see what would end up on the page.

Prose. Poems. A Novel.  is a series of – wait for it – prose poems that, taken together, constitute a novel of sorts.  Each prose poem is a page or two at the most.  The poems construct a narrative arc of a man’s journey from the west to the east.  It is divided into three sections (Books I-III), Before I Moved To Nevada, When I Moved to Nevada, and When I Moved to Atlanta.  The book is beautifully designed.  The book contains spare illustrations by Christy Call that blend well with the text without drawing attention away.  The cover is designed to look aged and worn, as though it has made the trip with our narrator.

The prose poems, brief snippets of scenes really, tell the story of man’s often journey from high school to adulthood. The journey is fueled by booze and drugs and often descends into chaos.  Our narrator struggles between the competing forces of what appears to be a downward spiraling trajectory and the desire to impose some order to his life.  It’s a constant battle, and one that he often appears to not realize that he’s engaged in fighting.

Prose. Poems. A Novel reads like a novel in which everything that was not absolutely essential to the story or critical to understanding our narrator at his very core has been ruthlessly stripped away, leaving only vivid descriptions, glimpses of pivotal scenes in a life, and shards of memory.  I’ve never read anything like it.  Check it out.

Chapbooks? Chapbooks!

Until very recently, I had no idea what a chapbook was.   I’ll own up to my ignorance.  Over the years at various readings, I would hear an author tell another author, “hey, I have a new chapbook out.”  And it was always authors talking quietly among themselves.  It all sounded very mysterious, top-secret-literary-inside-baseball-I’d-tell-ya-but-then-I’d-have-to-kill-you type stuff.  I never saw anyone hold something up and say, “Here’s my new chapbook, you should buy it.”  Maybe I just go to readings by shy authors.

My path to enlightenment came when friend of the blog, Chicago author Ben Tanzer announced on his blog that he had a new chapbook out and discerning readers should pick one up.  I had no idea what I was ordering, but it was $3 and I am a fan on Ben’s work, so how wrong could I go in picking one up?  Was it even possible?

The Tanz-Man’s (as we’ve never called him) chapbook I Am Richard Simmons arrived from Mud Lucious Press in a discrete plain brown wrapper with another, unordered, chapbook.  Was it a complimentary freebie?  Did they make a terrible mistake?  We may never know.  The chapbooks were small (see guitar pick for reference) – perfect for tucking into a shirt pocket for later.   They chapbooks were also clearly handmade and bore the rubber stamp of the press’s colophon on the cover.

Inside, I Am Richard Simmons uses a minimalist layout with tasteful font choices.  That Tanzer is a classy fellow.

Nothing left to do but read.  And what is I Am Richard Simmons exactly?  It’s not a short story, and it’s not  poem.  It reads almost like a meditation, or maybe a prose poem – a reflection perhaps – on the existential idea of  Richard Simmons-ness.  Who is Richard Simmons? Why is he like that?  What is his deal anyway?  Tanzer shows us that these are merely rhetorical questions:

…you know who, & what Richard Simmons really is; Richard Simmons is you.

Damn straight.

So what have we learned?  Chapbooks are the punk-rock-7″-singles-that-are-pressed-in-that-one-dude’s-basement-and-passed-around-from-friend-to-friend of the literary world.  Chapbooks reflect the DIY ethos of people creating for the love and not for the money. (Where do I buy my Corporate Literature Sucks t-shirt?) Chapbooks are bad ass.  But then you knew that already.  I was the one who didn’t know what was going on.

Now that I am actually aware of what a chapbook is, they are everywhere. A few weeks ago Shaft wrote about Chris Cessac’s Eros Among the North Americans.  I found out that Jamie Iredell’s Prose. Poems. A Novel.  started out as three chapbooks! (More on that one soon.) And in my package, a second chapbook – free! – Michael Martone’s Thucydides at Syracuse.  Also worth your time.   It was all right there in front of me the whole time.  And about five minutes after reading I Am Richard Simmons, I was convinced that there needs to be a BGB Press.  Why not?  Nothing stopping us.  (Besides the usual…TIME)

Because I am nothing if not super timely, Mud Lucious is now all sold out of I Am Richard Simmons.  From what I understand, the last two copies IN THE WORLD are available from Powell’s.  Still $3.

Radiant Days Two

Having read Tim’s gushing review of Michael Fitzgerald’s debut novel Radiant Days, I had to follow suit.  Both with reading it, and with posting a gushing review.

Radiant Days tells the story (in the first person) of Anthony Sinclair, an American originally from the beautiful lakeside town that my father-in-law lives near (Skaneateles, New York), who moves to San Francisco and finds himself somehow employed in the dot-com boom of the 1990′s (without really knowing what his job is), who meets an attractive Hungarian bartender named Gisela and agrees to go with her to Hungary to look for her child.  Or at least that’s what he thinks is going to do, although whether he is being driven by his heart, his brain, or his loins is a question mark.

When they arrive in Budapest they meet some other non-Hungarians, including a journalist named Marsh, and Anthony learns that there is both more and less to Gisela’s story for their journey.  She leaves him alone in Budapest for a number of weeks and he begins to come apart a bit, physically, mentally, and emotionally.  When she returns, though, a plan is made that will take Anthony, Marsh, and Gisela out of Hungary and into Croatia.  And on this journey, while we are treated to descriptions of great beauty, we are also provided many perspectives on the dynamics that have torn Yugoslavia apart.

As someone of Serbian descent who grew up amongst many other Eastern Europeans (including Croatians and Macedonians), I am ashamed to admit how little I knew of the hatred that seems to exist (and has existed) in that region amongst the Serbs, the Croats, and the Bosnians.  It was eye-opening to say the least.  And not just because the Serbs seem to have made out to be the bad guys.

While this book was educational on that front, it was also a fascinating story about some fascinating characters — not all good people, mind you — that took place in a fascinating area of the world.  Fitzgerald is a talented writer whose observations of the various locales in which this book is set were so vivid that I found myself picturing myself there.  The last writer I read to have written about the European countryside with such skill was Hemingway (in The Sun Also Rises).  A lofty comparison, I know, but whether Fitzgerald’s, for that matter) description of the area was accurate, it made me feel like I was looking at it through my own eyes.

(Be sure to check out BGB’s interview with Michael Fitzgerald, too.)

Friday Links

Hey, Kids! Here’s an important ProTip from the gang here at BGB: Just because The Ethicist says its OK for you to download that illegal bootleg of the new Stephen King novel, it doesn’t mean that the judge is going to see it the same way. Legal and Ethical.  Two different things.  Still, I mostly agree with his assessment.

The Portland Mercury finds Sean Hannity’s book shelved where it belongs.

Comedy Gold:

Communications major: What the hell is a palindrome?
English major: No, it isn’t.

Is nothing sacred?  Scrabble changes its rules to allow proper nouns.

Lifehacker has some tips to convert various e-formats to the ePub format so that you can read them on your iPad.  It shouldn’t be necessary at all, but…

One person’s literary classic is another person’s steaming pile of doodoo.  Of course, that other person might be a moron.

The Windup Girl

The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi was named a finalist for sci-fi’s Nebula Award.  Cory Doctorow named it the current sci-fi “it” novel.   After noting that fact in an earlier post, commenter Tom B. gushed that Windup Girl is “potentially transformative for the genre in the way Neuromancer was back in ‘84 or whenever. It’s been years since an sf novel so impressed me.”  This week the novel made the shortlist for the Hugo Award, another sci-fi prize.  Is the novel all that?  Yes it is.

The Windup Girl is a thoughtful novel that packs a lot of social commentary into an action-packed story.  The novel imagines a future where our worst fears of environmental catastrophe have come to pass.  The days of oil are long gone. Long-distance travel is largely unworkable, effectively shrinking the world back to its pre-industrial roots. Work is accomplished almost strictly by mechanical means – human sweat on the small scale and by giant genetically engineered elephants, called megadonts, on the industrial scale.  Calories replace oil as the driving fore behind economical development.  Think about the implications of that for a moment.

Environmental destruction has collapsed ecological niches and the world’s food supplies are in grave danger (the source of the calories necessary for world economies as well as basic sustenance).  In a vicious cycle, Calorie conglomerates offer sterile seeds at high prices while engineering blights to obliterate competing foods, driving up the costs of their feed stocks.  The drive to regulate the world’s calorie markets is a cutthroat business where the losers may well find themselves eliminated from the global marketplace, if not the actual globe.

The novel takes place in Thailand.  The world’s oceans have risen, having long vanquished most coastal areas, but a closely guarded flood wall protects coastal Bangkok  from being consumed by the sea.  The sea wall and Bankok’s very existence are a symbol of Thailand’s relative place of strength in the new world economy.  The Environmental Ministry  (Thailand’s EPA) necessarily wields substantial power to limit the use of greenhouse gas creating fuels, eliminate infected crops, protect its valuable seed banks, and guard its closed borders from outside environmental assaults.
In this global environment, many formerly prosperous societies have collapsed leaving chaos in their wake.  Ethnic clashes erupt as one group blames another for their troubles.  In Thailand, a complacency begins to settle in regarding the Environmental Ministry’s relative success at keeping the country alive.  Power plays with other ministries play out as back room deals are made with global Calorie companies.

The titular Windup Girl is a genetically modified human.  She was created in Japan to serve as a Geisha to a wealthy businessman. Her creators felt it necessary to imbue genetically modified humans with a tell tale jerky movements (like a windup doll) so that they could be readily distinguished from “real” humans. She found herself abandoned in Thailand and left to fend for herself, eventually coming into the hands of an unscrupulous strip club owner.  In Thailand, the Windup Girl is genetic contraband and subject to immediate destruction if discovered by the authorities.  Huge bribes are necessary to “hide” her presence.  The fate of the Windup Girl has implications far beyond what anyone can imagine.

If it sounds like there is a lot going on in this novel, it’s because there is.  And I’m not doing this novel of incredible ideas justice by half.   Bacigalupi let’s it all emerge on the page organically without sacrificing the story for the “message” or to showcase gee-whiz “what if” scenarios.  It all plays out as a very real and very possible dystopia.  This feat is even more impressive considering that this is Bacigalupi’s debut novel.  I am pulling for him to win all of the upcoming awards and I’ll be going back to read his well regarded short story collection Pump Six and Other Stories.

The Ask

I was a HUGE fan of Sam Lipsyte’s book Home Land.  It was a hilarious observation of the dynamics of high school relationships during and beyond high school, with a funny storyline woven in.  And even though not much of that book was reminiscent of my high school, it didn’t matter because the book was so flat-out funny.  So when I saw that his latest book The Ask was out, I made a beeline to the bookstore.  I even quit reading the book I was then reading so that I could start on The Ask immediately.  Not a great idea.

The Ask tells the story of Milo Burke, a development officer at a lower-tier college in Manhattan, as he goes through some bizarre times.  Unfortunately, in this instance ”bizarre” does not equal ”funny” or “endearing”.  Milo loses his job for lashing out at a student whose father happens to be a bigshot, but is specifically called back because a potential donor requests to work with him.  This potential donor, Purdy, was a college acquaintance of Milo’s, who wants to work with Milo because he thinks Milo can provide a quid pro quo.  Unfortunately, though, as I read along waiting to get pulled in, it dawned on me that Milo is not likeable, and neither are his co-workers, his old college cronies, or Purdy’s illegitimate son.  I suppose with the exception of Vargina, Milo’s boss, who was a crack baby blessed with a sympathetic nurse who added an “r” to her name on her birth certificate.

I hate to say it, but I was utterly disappointed in this book.  The idea was there — Milo going through troubles in his career and in his marriage, and some people from his past coming out of the blue to perhaps provide a shot at redemption — but none of the potential of the idea materialized.  Maybe Lipsyte’s earlier book set the bar a bit high, but this one came in so far under that bar that I was left puzzled at how I could have been so excited to read it.  Enter at your own risk.

One Amazing Thing

If you read Bel Canto by Ann Patchett then you’ll be familiar with the setting in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s One Amazing Thing.  In an unnamed city (my guess is San Francisco), seven people have waited hours to obtain their Indian visas.  A severe earthquake blocks all exits and they are trapped with no escape.  At first there is the  power struggle between two men as to who will be in charge.  Cameron, who has been in similar situations in the Army, wins.  It helps that Tariq carelessly runs through an open doorway and ends up being briefly buried under plaster fallen from the ceiling.

Uma has been watching everyone for hours, amazed at all the different people who are going to India.  She knows they all must have a story.  To calm everyone and to ignore the reality of the moment, Uma suggests they all share one story from their lives that they’ve never told anyone.

At first, everyone is reluctant to share their secret, but what did they have to lose?  After the first person tells their tale, each of them waits with anticipation to tell their own.  In between each unique story, we return to the cold, dark flooding room where everyone is huddled together on top of two tables in order to stay dry.

Each character represents such different areas of society.  Uma has rebelled against her Indian parents as a teenager. Cameron, the army sargent, is saving the last puff from his inhaler in order to be able to tell his story. Tariq, the newly converted Muslim, is going to India to see the girl he thinks is his girlfriend.  Lily and her grandma Jiang who is ethnic Chinese but raised in India and had to secretly escape to America are returning to their homeland.  The counsulate employees Mangalam and Malathi had just stolen a forbidden kiss as the earthquake hit.  Mr. & Mrs. Pritchett are surprised to learn secrets about each other that they never shared after 30+ years of marriage.

I felt like I was reading several short stories in one novel, each story was simply fascinating on its own and each character could have an entire book dedicated to them.   After telling their story, each of them learns something about themselves.  There is nothing like facing death to make us reflect upon our lives.  Put in the same situation, what story would we share?

My only personal disappointment was the end.  I like to be told what happens.  But since I don’t read the endings first, how would I know?  That said, I really enjoyed all of the different characters coming together to share One Amazing Thing.

Friday Links

Word that Cory Doctorow was to pen an approved sequel to Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged appeared yesterday.

Even though I live on almost the exact opposite end of the country.  I’m sad to hear that the Elliott Bay Book Co. is closing at its Pioneer Square location in Seattle.  I’ve been there a few times and loved the vibe.  It’s moving to Capitol Hill to what should be a cool location, too.  Still…

An unnatural fear of palindromes is “aibohphobia”.

Two variations on a theme: (1) a New York Times article about a father/daughter nightly reading streak that lasted more than a decade and (2) there’s an iPad app that let’s you record a story for playback so that your child can go to sleep listening to a disembodied parent

The Guardian presents a digested version of Karl Rove’s new book, whatever it’s called.

The Reading Rainbow presents American Psycho:

Out of Print

Coolest thing ever?  The Out of Print Clothing makes t-shirts that sport classic book covers on the  front.  And they are sweet.  Out of Print also makes sure to license the use of the images so you won’t get a beatdown from a crazed lawyer.  Which I appreciate.  Out of Print also donates a book to Books for Africa for each shirt sold.  Which provides easy rationalization for buying more than one. These guys are on it.  This is from the company’s mission page:

How we read is changing as we move further into the digital age. It’s unclear what the role of the book cover will be in this new era, but we feel it’s more important than ever to reflect on our own individual experiences with great literary art before it’s forever changed.

I’m trying to choose between these three:

Check ‘em all out here.  Some titles that I’d love to see make the leap include (with links to prefered covers): The Sound and the Fury, The Call of the Wild, The Jungle Book, The Old Man and The Sea,  To Kill a Mockingbird, and on and on.  What book would you want to see get the t-shirt treatment so you could wear it everywhere?