Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

If you don’t buy one e-book this year for reading on your electronic reading device – let it be Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs.   My wife and I were looking for a book that we both might want to read to download onto our brand new Kindle.  We clicked through some menus, came across a familiar title – which we both vaguely remember hearing something interesting about – and hit the buy now button.  In mere seconds we were reminded that it was the cool collection of found vintage photographs presented throughout the book that was the interesting thing that we had heard about the book.  Cool found vintage photographs that look like ass on a Kindle.  Dammit!

The found pictures are a grandfather’s proof to his grandson that the fantastic stories of taking refuge during World War II on a Welsh Island are all true.  According to the grandfather’s telling, the island was home to a children’s home filled with kids with fantastic abilities and pursued by evil monsters are all true.  When the now high-school aged grandson sees his grandfather attacked but what seemed to be a monster (large animal?) of some sort, he becomes more sure that his grandfather’s stories were true.  Everyone else begins to doubt his sanity.

In therapy, the grandson plans a trip to Wales to visit the island.  Everyone agrees that having the boy see that the setting  of his grandfather’s stories is a non-magical island in the middle of nowhere will be a step to getting over his delusions.  Of course, the trip proves just the opposite, and the boy learns that his grandfather’s life was more dangerous and complicated than he ever knew.

The story is marketed for a young adult audience, and it often reads as a modern fable.  The grandfather’s stories are a tidy metaphor for his escape from the horrors of WW II to the bucolic island.  The monster’s pursuit of the “peculiars” through time highlights the inherent danger of being different.  Miss Peregrine explains the dangers of being “peculiar” at its most basic level – “Can you imagine, in a world  so afraid of otherness, why this would be a danger to all peculiar-kind?”

These themes of otherness are sure to resonate with the angst-y teen reader.  For this adult reader, the story sometimes comes across as a little forced and chances to develop the thematic elements on a deeper level may have been missed.  Still, it’s not a bad book, and it’s worth checking out for the unique use of found vernacular photographs into a coherent and magical story.  But whatever you do, DO NOT read this novel as an e-book; spring for the hardcover.

The Fault in Our Stars

The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green, has garnered gobs of critical acclaim already; here’s some more.

The story Green tells is that of Hazel Grace Lancaster, a teenager living with terminal cancer in Indianapolis, Indiana.  While that’s not generally the first ingredient for an uplifting novel, the way he tells her story is nothing short of magical.  She speaks like a tamer version of Holden Caulfield, but not in a way that would alienate anyone.  Insightful, witty, and able to relate the day-to-day thinking of a teenage girl within the context of someone with much bigger issues on her mind, both mental and physical (e.g., her oxygen tank), I became a huge fan of Green and of his characters from the get-go.

The story begins with Hazel attending her “cancer kids group” at a local church (referred to as The Literal Heart of Jesus Church).  At this meeting, she becomes captivated by a “guest speaker” named Augustus Waters, a teenage boy who has beaten cancer, albeit with the loss of one leg as a result.  They meet and feel a mutual attraction toward one another (although Hazel is a bit confused and bewildered as to why this handsome, engaging young man might be interested in her).  The two of them share some of their “likes”, and begin to bond over a book called “An Imperial Affliction”, by Peter Van Houten — a book that Hazel has read countless times and is obsessed with.  Their mutual curiousity surrounding what happens to the characters in Van Houten’s book after the book ends leads them on an adventure to discover themselves and what life really means.

There are  some sad and heartbreaking topics touched on in this book; but the way Green handled them left me smiling.  I think this is a book that will be talked about for quite some time.

Fantastic is Right

The short animated film The Fanatstic Flying Books of Mr Leonard Lessmore won an Academy Award.   It sounded like the king of thing I should check out.  As it turns out, last night the movie was available for FREE from the iTunes store (no longer the case).  The price was right.  (It turns out the movie is available in its entirety – at least for now – for free on YouTube.)  It is an amazing little film that book lovers will love.   The story is by children’s author William Joyce, and it is also available as an “enhanced e-book iPad app.   Check it out already.

Friday Links

Strunk & White rap about The Elements of Style.  10 points for originality – 5 for execution.

I think that I have to buy Nathan Englander’s new book of stories after hearing him make Terry Gross snort on Fresh Air.

I really enjoyed the novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.  Not everyone did.  Those that didn’t like really didn’t like it.  The same split, perhaps even more so, seems to apply to the movie.  The Guardian asks, “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close: why do so many people hate it?”

The Millions break down the field for best adapted screenplay.

2011 Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalists announced- interesting list – The Art of Fielding is up against Ten Thousand Saints for best first novel.  I loved them both.

JK Rowling has an upcoming book for adults.

Amazon bullies distributor for independent publishers.  Boo!

The Hunger Games soundtrack album tracklist has been announced.  Decembersist, Arcade Fire, Neko Case, Carolina Chocolate Drops…

Steven Colbert’s children’s book, the one he discussed with Maurice Sendak, is actually going to happen.

Manhattan’s “guerrilla library system”

Ann Patchett is My Hero

I need to plan a trip to Nashville just to check out Ms. Patchett’s bookstore:

Buzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in All the Confusion?

While it has no dragon tattoos, hornets’ nests, or fire (well, maybe a little fire here and there), Johan Harstad’s Buzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in the All the Confusion? was nonetheless my first foray into Scandanavian fiction.  And an interesting foray it was, despite the lack of spies, crime, and international intrigue.

The book tells the story (in the first person) of Mattias, a gardener from Stavanger, Norway.  Mattias has an interesting outlook on life, which is epitomized (at least in his mind) by Buzz Aldrin — you want to be effective, you want to get done what has to get done, but you don’t want to be the figurehead or the center of attention.  Aldrin was the second man on the moon and thus lost much of the spotlight to Neil Armstrong, but Aldrin was apparently the main man on that mission to the moon.

Mattias has an average life in his youth and successfully avoids the spotlight, until one night at a high school dance he decides to join the band onstage and sing a song, demonstrating that he has an unbelievably good singing voice — a talent that no one expected, and which he doesn’t want to show again.  His performance attracts the attention of a girl named Helle, though, and the two become a couple and remain together for over a decade.  However, his relationship with Helle and his job at the nursery all hit the skids around the same time, leaving Mattias confused and directionless.  He opts to join his friend Jorn on a boat ride to the Faroe Islands where Jorn’s band is playing a gig, and the next thing Mattias knows he is lying on a rural road in the rain with no recollection of how he got there or how he got the scars on his hands.  He gets picked up a nice man who takes him to a remote village, specifically to a factory that has been converted into a halfway house of sorts for psychiatric patients who are no longer committed in an institution.

Mattias is invited to stay at the Factory with the other residents, Palli, Anna, and Ennen, all of whom are looked after by Harvstein, the man who picked Mattias up from the road.  Each of them has their own issues, and each is struggling to build an identity that will allow them to function in society.  Ennen, a young lady that Mattias begins to bond with, is totally obsessed with The Cardigans, a band from Sweden that I personally was obsessed with in the mid-1990′s, even flying from Atlanta to NYC to see them the first time they came to the U.S. to play live shows.  (Exhibit A) I would have been Ennen’s hero, as I weaseled my way backstage and ended up hanging out with the band for the evening.  Good times, good times.

Anyway, back to our story.  The book is divided into multiple sections, each of which is named after a Cardigans album.  Interesting literary device.  Plus, Norwegian is certainly an interesting language.  While I read Harstad’s book as translated into English, the names of many of the people, places, and things sometimes apparently couldn’t translate directly and thus would feature some strange characters that I couldn’t recognize.  Of course, even the ones that could translate into our alphabet were still such strange combinations of consonants that they didn’t really really register with me and I kind of disregarded learning how to spell or pronounce them — in my head, when I came to one a second time, I would just think “Oh yeah, that’s the one that started with a J and had that cluster of t’s in the middle”.

The second thing I noticed about the way the story was written was that it seemed to fluctuate between sections that looked like normal English prose and sections in which two pages could go by without a single period — basically a string of clauses separated by commas. I don’t know if that’s something that’s normal for (and peculiar to Norwegian), or whether Harstad’s writing style was simply inconsistent.  Not a bad thing, just an observation.

Anyway, back to our story (again).  Mattias begins to essentially build a new life at the Factory and in the Faroe Islands, not really seeing any reason to go back to Stavanger.  He misses his parents and his friends, but I think he just doesn’t really feel that he has anything to offer to them that merits him being present physically.  So he works a couple of different jobs near the Factory, including as a gardener subsidized by the state to plant plants that are destined to die because of the climate.  As he leads this new life, the people around him in his new environment cause him to re-think who he is and what his value is.  It’s difficult to necessarily think like him, but you root for him and want him to be happy, even when it seems like he’s sabotaging his own chances at happiness.  The book takes a strange but fascinating turn near the end, leading the characters and the reader to a place that you honestly didn’t think you’d go.

It’s an entertaining and engaging read, with plenty of pop culture references.  Strangely enough, though, I couldn’t really tell when I finished the book whether I was happy or sad or indifferent, or maybe so much of each that they cancelled each other out.

Also: Check out Tim’s review.

Friday Links

The 100 Best Books for Kids

20 most beautiful bookstores in the world

Top 10 First Person Narratives

The Millions outs one of Britain’s most serious men of letters, Martin Amis, for one of his earliest works: Invasion of the Space Invaders:An Addict’s Guide to Battle Tactics, Big Scores and the Best Machines.  Busted.

The New Yorker rounds up its best Dickens cartoons to celebrate the author’s 200th birthday.

Meanwhile, across town, The New York Times visits the completely depressing Dickens World.

Real life Doogie Howser writes book  called “We Can Do” – hmmm, not loving the title, Doogie.

Trying to justify the purchase of that iPad?  Check out “iPads in Education – How you & your iPad can volunteer together in your child’s classroom” Parts 1 and 2.

Lev Grossman adds two books to your reading list.  OK.

Big news in the academic publishing world: the “academic spring” is here.  Would you think it unreasonable that government-funded research should be freely available to the citizens who paid for it?  Elsevier, the largest scientific journal publisher, begs to differ.  Scientists are getting pissy.  You don’t want to get the scientists pissy.  MobyLives has the scoop here, here, and here.

The inevitable

Washington Post book reviewer Ron Charles reports on sh*t book reviewers say.

I’m guilty of about 67% of those. More or less. Only gripe: he forgot to use the word “limn”.  Also: why so many pairs of glasses?

Things we didn’t learn in history class

The book Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith (who also wrote Pride and Prejudice and Zombies) has found its way to the big screen:

Tim Burton is the producer.   Hmmm.

Also, unrelated, behold this 34-foot tower of books about Abe Lincoln.

Let’s Hear it for Public Broadcasting

Last night I watched the new PBS documentary, Slavery By Another Name, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Atlantan (and neighbor) Douglas Blackmon.  It’s a powerful look at a shameful episode in US history (it is Black History Month).  The show is punctuated by a remark that Blackmon makes near the end that a court case in 1942 (!) marked the technical end of slavery in the US.   Yipes.

After watching the documentary I was forlorn and despondent.  Perhaps even melancholy.   I tuned into the radio (via the internet) to catch the rest of yesterday’s Fresh Air, which  featured a strong interview with actress Viola Davis.   What I missed while driving around town earlier in the day, however, was Terry’s interview with Flight of the Conchord’s Bret McKenzie about his Oscar-nominated song “Man or a Muppet.”  Awesome.

And there you go.  The full range of human emotion compliments of public TV and radio.

Comix Roundup

I’m attempting to get caught up on overdue reviews (some of which date back into last year).  I always find it difficult to write about comics and graphic novels.  To satisfy both conditions, I present a roundup of unconscionably brief reviews of comics/graphic novels that I’ve read in the recent to near-recent past.

Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword

I picked up Barry Deutsch’s Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword based almost entirely on the tag-line at the top – “Yet another troll-fighting 11-year old Orthodox Jewish girl.”  It seemed like the sort of thing that my daughter would be very into.  Mirka is certain that she’s destined to be a hero.  She argues constantly with her step-mother, Ferma, and gets into all sorts of trouble.  Along the way she learns lessons about tradition and how to be a strong woman and a hero.  My daughter loved it.  (Check out more about Hereville at the author’s website.)

The Martian Chronicles

I hadn’t read Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles since I was a kid.   I remembered enjoying it, but I couldn’t recall much about the stories.  When Dennis Calero’s graphic novel adaptation popped up in my mailbox, I had to check it out.  The stories mostly read as a space version of The Twilight Zone.  These tales, in its original or graphic novel form, definitely would appeal to the fabled reluctant young male readers.  For me, it was like traveling back in time.

Dark Rain: A New Orleans Story

I’ve read a novel novel by Mat Johnson that I completely enjoyed.  I’m from New Orleans.  This one jumped into my cart without a second thought.  Dark Rain is a robbery/caper story that just happens to take place in New Orleans.  During Hurricane Katrina.  It could really have been set anywhere, but the flood and the historical weight of the moment certainly add tension and seriousness to the story.  I dug it.   Here are some sample pages.

Feynman

Feynman is a graphic biography of the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman.  I read about this one somewhere or other and decided to check it out.  I didn’t know much about Feynman, but the tagline If this is the world’s smartest man, God help us all” is certainly a memorable one.   What struck me about the book was Feynman’s insatiable curiosity about the world and his humility about the limits of what physicists actually understand about their own work. This is a great read, and it was easily my favorite of the books in this roundup.  Read more about it and check out some samples of the artwork in this article from American Scientist.

The Influencing Machine

Brooke Gladstone’s On the Media is a staple on NPR stations around the country (just not Atlanta’s WABE).  Her graphic novel The Influencing Machine is a great crash course for those of us who can’t tune in regularly.  The take home messages for me – the media has been vilified as long as it has existed (i.e., it’s not a new phenomenon) and as screwed up and imperfect as it is, a free news media is essential to democracy.  That may sound obvious, but the historical perspective presented in the book really helped me to appreciate the truth of those statements.  Check out the animated book trailer.

The Arrival 

I bought and read Shaun Tan’s The Arrival yesterday.  I’ve read glowing reviews for years and always meant to get around to checking it out.  It finally jumped into my basket.  The Arrival is a brilliantly conceived and executed story of immigration and assimilation.  Our nameless protagonist leaves his young family behind to set sail for a new country and a chance at a better life.  There is no dialogue in the story, but the drawings are ripe with metaphor and depth.  It’s a fantastic story, and I am looking forward to reading and discussing with my daughter soon.  For more on the story and some examples of the beautiful art work, visit the author’s website.

Friday Links

Two business models.   Random House says it will sell e-books to libraries with no restrictions on the number of check outs. Penguin will no longer make e-books available to libraries.

Meanwhile, California has cut ALL state funding for libraries.   Yikes.

Different business model – The Humble Bundle: e-books bundled together for sale.  You determine what you’re willing to pay.

I love this idea: Q:  Should you get a free e-book copy with your dead tree  book purchase?  Or vice-versa? A: Yes.

Check out the writing office that National Geographic has lined up for its explorer in residence.  WANT.

Charles Dickens celebrated his 200th birthday with his own Google doodle.   I’m celebrating his birthday by picking out one of his books to read in 2012.

Beautiful reading lamps hand-made from books.

Are literary women finally getting the attention they deserve?

Unrelated: Why is it more interesting to spend an evening with this book than a beautiful woman?

Amazon has rounded up trailers for some of its best books of February.

Fine Sentiment

I picked up this happening refrigerator magnet last week while visiting Malaprops Bookstore in Asheville, NC, which is a bookstore we love.

Downton Daily Double

If you missed the SNL “Downton Abbey on Spike TV” skit, you can check it out in this amazed review in the UK’s Daily Mail.

And if you ever wondered what the cast looked like away from Downton, check this out.  Some of these transformations are pretty amazing.

Zeitoun Pleads Guilty

This is terrible news.  The titular hero of Dave Eggers’ excellent non-fiction account of one man’s Hurricane Katrina heroics and nightmare has plead guilty to domestic abuse charges.

Friday Lit Links

Aint no party like a Ben Tanzer party, cause a Ben Tanzer party don’t stop.  Or something like that.  People of Chicago, you must check out friend of the blog Ben Tanzer’s gala fundraiser tomorrow evening – An Evening with Ben Tanzer and Friends, a fundraiser for the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography.  Tomorrow.

The Millions has  a nice piece on the price of fame featuring Nirvana and Tennessee Williams.

Worst book ever?  Sure sounds like it might be in the top 5.

The snarkiest announcement of the upcoming production of Atlas Shrugged Part 2:  The Crap-enning that you’ll read all day:

But do not underestimate such men of the mind, who would fight for the virtue of their pride, fight for the essence of that which is man, and fight for the necessary financing to make a sequel to a film that earned just under a $5 million return on a $20 million investment—financing that could be seen as an altruistic donation under the circumstances, if altruism were not something that only communists and lepers believe in.

Man, I hate Ayn Rand.

J Franz: E-books = bad.  NPR: Can we stop with the e-books vs print books arguments, please?

Flavorwire has your guide to faking that you’ve read James Joyce

10 of the best books set in Tokyo

The 10 most dangerous novels of all time

Best YA novels of 2012

American Psycho as written by P.G. Wodehouse

How Bloggers Sparked the Indie Publishing Revolution.  In other news, there is an indie publishing revolution…

Where can you go to see poetry readings like this? And do you really call a female poet a “poetess?”

After Dark

I’ve never read anything by Haruki Murakami but I’ve seen his name a lot lately.  Looking him up at the library I found his novel After Dark.  Not having any clue about Mr. Murakami‘s style or the subject of the story, I inserted the audio book with much anticipation. I popped that CD right in.

Taking place during the wee hours of one night when most people are sleeping, we are told from the very beginning that we are mere observers into the story – a bird flying above or a solitary camera.  The narration begins objectively to find nineteen year old Mari Asai reading alone in a Tokyo Denny’s.  She is approached by college student Takehashi, a  part time jazz trombonist who reminds her that he has met her and her model sister Eri before.  This chance meeting drags Mari into a virtual foreign world far from her suburban life.  Fluent in Chinese, Mari soon finds herself in a “love hotel” helping a Chinese prostitute who had just been beaten.  As the night continues, she becomes familiar with the hotel’s staff and not only learns their secrets, but confesses her own.  Many of Mari’s secrets relate to her insecurities surrounding her beautiful sister.

During Mari’s story, Mr. Murakami reminds us that we are just observers as we frequently visit Mari’s sleeping sister Eri.  We learn later that Eri has been sleeping for two months and no one knows why.  And frankly, neither do I.  Mr. Murakami takes the reader on a bizarre journey from Eri’s sleeping room, into a television set with a man with no face. Uh, ok.

The camera also jumps into the life of the man who beat the Chinese prostitute.  Not a very interesting man, he works a lot of hours at a company while his wife dutifully waits for him at home.

I found After Dark very odd.  The individual stories were compelling enough to hear through to their respective conclusions, and the third party observer perspective was unique. Although not giving any obvious insight into the actual thoughts of the characters, I was able to form my own judgments based on their dialogue and actions.

After traveling through the book as a simple observer, my take away is the story of the two sisters, one who deeply cares for the other.  I also enjoyed the Tokyo setting and little American references – the Denny’s where the story begins and the mention of Hall & Oates on the sound system.

Once in a while I am interested in broadening my horizons to challenge myself.  I’m not giving up on Mr. Murakami, he has received accolades for his work.  Maybe after experiencing a couple more books, I will come back to After Dark and say “A-ha, of course!”