I have often chosen to teach “Catcher in the Rye” to my Year 12 students, but I have always made sure to choose the class carefully. A book published in 1951 by an American author whom most of them will not have heard of is not guaranteed to immediately appeal to the 21st Century New Zealand teenager.
There will predictably be two groups amongst the readers – those who utterly love it, and those who utterly loathe it – but you need to pick a class where you know the former group will be larger than the latter.
Of course, I love it; I never teach a literary text, visual or verbal, which I don’t love. But I can always accept the reasons that kids give for not liking it. You have to be able to identify in some way with Holden Caulfield, or it is simply too easy to label him as a nerdy, unhealthily introspective, foul-mouthed hypocrite. And a spoilt little rich boy. Those students who “get” the novel, always do well with writing examination papers about it; let’s face it, there is a wealth of very very meaty stuff to write about.
Sadly, I will no longer be able to finish my biography about the reclusive Salinger with the words, “and he’s still alive and living in New Hampshire”.
More than “Catcher” however, I love the books about the Glass family – “Raise High the Roofbeam, Carpenters”; “Franny and Zooey”; “Seymour, an Introduction”. I read and re-read them often, and have done ever snce I discovered them at around 17 years of age.
There is a full and interesting biography of Salinger here.
Ho Ping-ti. Studies on the Population of China, 1368-1953. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1959.
The huge and ever expanding population made known by the 1953 census caused hot debate on population policies in China. Population problem was not only related closely to the possibility of the native development of capitalism in late imperial China, a topic greatly interested the Chinese Marxist scholars, it was also related to current politics concerning socialist construction. At least Mao Zedong’s optimism about population growth decisively shaped the way to modernize China – to achieve rapid economic development by using cheap and massive population. This finally led to almost disastrous Great Leap Forward. Interestingly, while Ho Ping-ti later became a famous Maoist during the Cultural Revolution, at least in the late 1950s he would certainly not agree with Mao. And perhaps this is one of the motives that urged Ho to undertake the task to study population problems from a historical perspective.
In this soundly based and richly detailed study on Chinese population, Ho argues that since the founding of Ming dynasty, the population movement in China has changed from previously a cyclic pattern to a continual and perhaps linear pattern of growth. Especially from 1650 to 1850, China experienced “a unique chapter of population growth” (pp. 266-67) due to the unusually favorable material conditions and the benevolent despotism of the early Manchu rulers. However, the rapid population expansion in the absence of a major technological revolution in modern times created an enduring and increasingly intense tension between population and economic resources. Quoting a Qing scholar Ho claims that the ills of nineteenth-century China were due neither to misgovernment nor to the nation’s lack of ingenuity and diligence, but primarily to an increasing disproportion between population and economy. (p. 274) In short, serious population problems to a great extent account for the economic difficulties of modern China.
Although there are many data concerning population available in Chinese history, they turn out to be of little use for quantitative research on historical changes in population. One of the greatest merits of Ho’s studies is that perhaps for the first time he makes sense of these data that have been misread by other scholars for a long time. In Part One he examines in their institutional contexts the nature of the official population records available for the various historical periods from Ming to PRC. His analyses of the key term of “ting” reveal that in the past the prevailing purpose of population recording was fiscal rather than demographic. Consequently the result has been a low estimate of actual population, because the belief in fixed tax quota, corruption, and tax evasion effectively kept the government from increasing taxes according to the expanding population.
Lacking usable data for quantitative demographic studies, in Part Two Ho instead focuses on a broad range of factors that influenced population growth either favorably or adversely. In particular he goes into a vast and relatively unexplored world of the Chinese local gazetteers in his discussion of land data, inter-regional migration, food production, commercial development, institutional changes, and catastrophic determinants. Based on his insightful and rigorous studies, Ho finally concludes by offering a quite convincing demonstration of certain general population trends and a suggestion of new methods for reconstructing China’s historical population data. And the figures concerning population growth he gives in this book, I believe, are still the best estimations available today despite the need for minor revisions.
In the last analysis, Ho’s treatment of the population problem is obviously different from other research projects of the period that strongly favor political, diplomatic and intellectual history from a top-down perspective. It is really amazing that he deals with various important issues in a single book, including day-to-day operations of local government, the non-Han minorities, the Taiping rebellion, social control under the Guomindang, migration, crops and land utilization, and so on. His broad concerns make this book a significant contribution not only to demographic studies, but to social and economic history as well.
Arthur Waley. The Opium War through Chinese Eyes. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1958.
In this 1958 book, Arthur Waley broke new ground in English-language studies of the Opium War by using Chinese sources to paint a picture of the conflict “through Chinese eyes.” Waley’s is not a typical history book. There is no introduction, no conclusion, and no overarching argument beyond that the Chinese participants deserve more respect than other English-language accounts have given them. Instead, Waley brought his formidable skills in the classical Chinese language to play by interweaving lengthy segments of direct translation from Chinese diaries with concise explanatory passages. By including details from the diaries on aspects of daily life (weather, illness, religion, eating and drinking), Waley enhances the readers’ sense that they are learning “what the war felt like on the Chinese side” (p. 5).
The first part on Commissioner Lin is by far the longest. A man of culture, religion, friendship, and determination, Lin (though often wrong) was not the ignorant, rash, and unfathomable personage other English-language accounts have reportedly portrayed him to be. (While Waley and reviewers of the book alike attest to this shortcoming in the literature, none mention specific examples of such accounts.) His failure to stop the opium flow into China resulted from the sheer imbalance of military power rather than from any failing on his part.
The following three sections are in some ways even more intriguing for the windows they provide into the experiences of more “ordinary” Chinese people in the Chinese attack on Ningbo, the English capture of Shanghai, and the fall of Jinjiang, respectively. The final section provides an amusing set of short biographies on Gutzlaff (the Prussian magistrate of Ningbo) and a number of known Chinese traitors.
Contemporary reviewers agreed that the greatest contribution Waley made with this book was the introduction of important Chinese sources on the Opium War to Western readers. Hsin-pao Chang (Journal of Asian Studies, 19.1:67-71) also understandably appreciated Waley’s unprecedented sensitivity to the Qing state’s perspective in which the seizure of British opium reflected an equal application of the law on foreigner and Chinese alike. On the other hand, Chang noted a number of minor translation errors and factual mistakes and complained about sometimes spotty evidence and a general lack of footnotes.
J. Chester Cheng’s critique (Pacific Affairs, 33.1:68-9) focused more on the content of the book. For Cheng, Waley’s neglect of the emperor, Grand Council, and other policy-making bodies in favor of the relatively powerless Lin created an unbalanced account. He was further frustrated by Waley’s failure to ask the big question of how an approach to the foreign threat different from Commissioner Lin’s might have allowed China to “have sooner embarked upon the path of modernization and industrialization” (p. 69).
While I disagree that modernization theory should have played a significant role in the book, I, too, find that Waley’s evidence points to conclusions he does not explore. In particular, he could have made a strong case for the idea that the Opium War was simultaneously a struggle between the Chinese and British states and the Chinese state with the Chinese people. His materials show that deceit and corruption ran rampant through the military and security forces. Chinese troops also often had terrible relationships with the peasants, and urban people as well seemed to have little faith in the Chinese military leaders. Furthermore, the state’s opium-suppression policies met with intense resistance from opium smokers, farmers, and merchants, particularly once the negative effects of trade cessation began to be felt. Their anti-British sentiment was only aroused when they began to experience British war atrocities (p. 88).
In short, while the Qing state’s confrontation of British imperialism was of course central to the events of the Opium War, so too were the efforts of the Qing to bring the Chinese people under tighter control economically, politically, and physically (with regard to consumption of opium). Other readers would no doubt come to other conclusions about the information presented in the book. What Waley does not provide is a big enough historical argument to do justice to his abundant and fascinating data. Perhaps, for his purpose, he does not need one: the book’s literary qualities certainly stand on their own.
There is this notion that philosophers are after the “Truth” based on the assumption that they have this urge to go to the tiniest details and exhaustive possibilities of a concept. I beg to differ. Once a philosopher starts building structures for his line of thinking then it is the system that tows and guides the “Truth”. It takes an insurmountable character of honesty to shake off the inertia erected by a system for a philosopher to restart his independent reflection in search of truth.
Philosophy from Antiquity to the last century was what is currently called “Ideology of the power to be” of the politico-economic system (the dominant classes of the period). Philosophy was the super-structure or the apologetic social structure of a culture that has been flourishing for decades: philosophy tried to make sense of the mood of the time.
What is striking is that most philosophical systems refrained to include the economical structure aspect into the equation; at best, the economic structure was indirectly referred to. For example, slavery was accepted as a qualitative level in human nature: since animals are difficult to communicate with then it is better to leave it as is. It was if economy was a taboo notion because the class structure could not be altered.
Every politico-economic dominant class needs a valid interpretation of the statue-quo coupled with a rational for the intelligentsia to take stock of the inevitable status that settled in and come along. Thus, philosophers’ interpretations always were phased out by several decades of the “has been reality”.
In periods of alliances between the religious institutions and the monarchy it was required for God to taking center stage: people had to get used to letting God run their destinies. Usually, the philosophical lines of thinking revolved in that guideline; these philosophical trends lasted long because the power was concentrated in the hand of the almighty alliance. Superstition was king and empirical works led the bold experimenters to the fire to be burned alive as witches. Knowledge was built around abstract concepts or the realm of religious dogmas. Religious institutions dictated how the universe functioned and detailed the proper mental activities.
In periods of the rising middle classes (of traders, merchants, and lately the industrial class of entrepreneurs) philosophical systems set man in center stage of the universe. It was important that man regains his place instead of God: The church-monarchy alliance was not to regain political-economic supremacy and control. Consequently, man was to discover and investigate his “backyard” (earth and universe). Scientific knowledge, empirical experiments, discovery, and world adventures were the result of opening up new market for exploiting many more people for added values of merchandises.
Hegel realized the historical interpretation process of philosophical structures as a fundamental aspect of civilization changes; Hegel failed to find the intimate connection with the politico-economic source. The historical dialectic method could make sense of the super structure of “knowledge” development in posteriori phase; thus historical dialectics could not forecast the synthesis for the current period since the source of the dialectics (politico-economics) was not within his range of expertise.
It was Marx who realized the power of historical dialectics when applied to politico-economic realities. It made sense from Marx position to declare that history started when class struggle was identified as the catalyst for change and knowledge development. It means that if a “hot” culture wants to understand or create a history for its society then it must invest in gathering artifacts and ancient manuscripts that shed light on the class structures through the phases of its history.
**The review below was written by Josh as part of the Teen Fine Alternative Program. If you’re interested in working off fines owed on CLP materials and are between the ages of 12-18, please contact your local CLP location.**
We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank By Modest Mouse
1. Explain what genre you think this music fits into and why in one or two sentences:
Light rock, alternative.
2. Write a sentence or two about what mood the music creates and why:
It creats a calming, happy mood because of the high pitched guitars, smooth bass lines, and the calming lyrics and singing.
3. Write about how you would recommend this to a friend, or why you wouldn’t recommend the music:
I would recommend this CD because it is very unique and is very hard to find any other artist that shares the same musical attributes as Modest Mouse does. It is definitly a good CD to listen to if you are interested in alternative. It is also a good choice to listen to to at night if you are having trouble sleeping because the music is very relaxing.
Under pressure : the final voyage of Submarine S-5 New York : Free Press, c 2002 A.J. Hill S-5 (Submarine)Cooke, Charles Maynard, Submarine disasters United States, Search and rescue operations Atlantic Ocean Hardcover. First edition and printing. viii, 239 p., [8] p. of plates : ill. ; 23 cm. Includes index. Clean, tight and strong binding with clean dust jacket. No highlighting, underlining or marginalia in text. VG/VG
Hanging on display in the United States Navy Yard in Washington, D.C., is a battered and scratched steel plate, two feet in diameter, edged with more than one hundred little semicircles. For more than ninety years, people have wondered how it came to be there and at the story it could tell.
Under Pressure: The Final Voyage of Submarine S-Five is that story. On Monday, August 30, 1920, the S-Five, the newest member of the U.S. Navy’s fleet of submarines, departs Boston on her first cruise — to Baltimore for a recruiting appearance at the end of the week. Two days later, as part of a routine test of the submarine’s ability to crash dive, her crew’s failure to close a faulty valve sends seventy-five tons of seawater blasting in. Before the valve can be jury-rigged shut, the S-Five sits precariously on the ocean floor under 180 feet of water. Her electrical system is shut down, her radio too weak to transmit, and one drive motor is inoperable — and, because of a last-minute course change, the sub has gone down in a part of the Atlantic deliberately selected because it is well outside any regularly trafficked sea lanes. Rescue by a passing ship is virtually impossible. No one expects them in Baltimore for another two days. And forty hours worth of air is all they have left. The S-Fives are on their own.
Her captain, Lieutenant Commander Charles M. “Savvy” Cooke Jr., tries to pump the seawater out, but each of three pumping systems fails in succession. The salt in the seawater combines with the sulfuric acid in the sub’s batteries to create a cloud of chlorine gas. They have little air, no water, and only the dimmest of light by which to plan their escape. By shifting the water in the sub toward the bow torpedo room, Cooke is able to stand the 240-foot-long sub on its nose, bringing it close to vertical, and, using trigonometry, he calculates that at least part of the boat’s stern is now above sea level. In a race against time — will the crew die of asphyxiation before chlorine gas poisoning? — Cooke assembles his crew into three-man teams charged with cutting a hole out of the highest point in the sub: the telephone-booth-size tiller room. With no acetylene torch, no power tools — nothing but ratchet drills and hacksaws — the crew must cut through nearly an inch of strengthened steel or die in the attempt.
Under Pressure is the story of the thirty-six-hour-long ordeal of the crew of the S-Five. It is a story of the courage, endurance, and incredible resourcefulness of the entire forty-man crew: of Charlie Grisham, the sub’s executive officer, a “mustang” promoted to the navy’s officer corps from the enlisted ranks of Chief Electrician Ramon Otto, whose baby daughter was born just days before the S-Five’s departure of Machinist’s Mate Fred Whitehead, who at the last minute is able to dog the all-important watertight hatches shut of Chief of the Boat Percy Fox, who redeems himself for the failure to close the induction valve that sank the S-Five; and of the sub’s indomitable captain, Savvy Cooke, leading his crew through sheer force of will.
An incredible drama, a story of heroism and of heroes, Under Pressure is that most remarkable of books, a true story far more dramatic than any fiction.
How can I win the war on “Terrorism”? Part two; (Jan. 28, 2010)
I set the fundamentals in part one. This part dwells on details. Ilyass Kashmiri is presumably the Pakistani leader of the Islamic Kashmir independence movement (from the Indian Kashmir region). Ilyass’s movement is called Lashkar Al Zil (army of the shadow). In Arabic, Zil means shade and Zol means indignity; thus, it depends how the word is understood or pronounced in that part of Pakistan. Lashkar Al Zil was known as Brigade 055 (was it initially a brigade of the Pakistani army?) Lashkar Al Zil has vast networks for intelligence gathering. It is understood that currently most of the radical Sunni Islamic movements, including Al Qaeda, are taking umbrage under Lashkar Al Zil and not the way around since it has established popular bases in many self-autonomous districts in north Pakistan.
Ilyass Kashmiri may be orchestrating most of the suicidal operations in Pakistan and Afghanistan; his movement has extended its influence in Yemen and Somalia (Al Chabab). Saleh Al Somali was killed by a drone in Pakistan in 2008. David Coleman Headly was arrested in Chicago for preparing the aggression on the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten; he participated in the Bombay massacre of November 2008 and Ilyass was one of Headly’s contacts.
Another Al Qaeda leader working with Ilyass is Yahya Al Libi. Yahya Al Libi is from Libya and his pragmatic goal is to overthrow the Kadhafi regime. In the mean time, Yahya Al Libi is taking the strategy of antagonizing the Islamic Shiaa sect movements (the Shiaa are mostly concentrated in Iran, Iraq, and India); the bombing of the mosque in Ramadi (Iraq) is of his doing (23 dead); the bombing of the Shiaa mosque in Karachi (Pakistan) resulted in 30 dead victims. Al Libi has a different strategy than Zawahiri (Egyptian and second in command in Al Qaeda) who wants to unite the forces of all Islamic forces.
Ilyass and Yahaya want the Western forces to intervene militarily so that they can infiltrate the Islamic masses at no cost to them. Currently, their first target is the Pakistani army that finally got carried away with the US pressures to attack the fundamentalists. The Pakistani government is realizing that the gamble was premature: the Pakistani army is suffering from this unpopular civil war and losing its status as the backbone for Pakistan unity among the various ethnic diversity groups.
The Lashkar Al Zil and its Afghanistan allies are preparing a counter offensive as snow melts against the Pakistani army in the districts of Khyber, Kurram, Hungu, and Orakzai (in Pakistan) and in the valley of Tera (facing the Afghan mountain chains of Tora Bora). Saudi Arabia is heavily involved in Yemen because this Wahhabi monarchy is conscious that the vise of the fundamentalist movements is closing on from all directions (Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, Iran, and eventually Egypt). Saudi Arabia has extended $two billion to the Yemenite government and moved its army and air force in operations in Yemen.
Some people believe that the USA is indeed fomenting these Islamic movements in order to have excuses for militarily accesses in Yemen and Somalia, in addition to Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Arab Gulf mini-States. People believe that the US wants to secure Africa and the oil shipments in the Middle East. People have reached this implicit feeling of US definite conspiracy from past evidences and because the US is the only superpower to dominate all the seas and oceans by its naval forces. Actually, the US drones have been bombing targets in the sub-Sahara States of Africa (Mauritania, Chad, and Niger) for sometimes.
During the Bush Junior Administration, the CIA was extended the mission to develop its paramilitary branch (Special Activities Division SAD) in order to carry out vast secret operations. The former “private security service” company of Blackwater (re-named Xe) was and is sub-contracting a few of these CIA secret operations. Currently, the US government is pressuring Congress to drop all judiciary cases leveled against Blackwater operators.
The CIA was recently exposed by the suicide bombing of Humam Al Balawi in its Khost (Afghanistan) advanced post that killed 7 CIA agents and 6 other soldiers in December 2009. The Jordanian secret agent, Humam Al Balawi, was lent by Jordan to the CIA to facilitate intelligence gathering on extremist Sunni movements in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The CIA installed a series of support bases in South and East of Afghanistan to gather intelligence for drone attacks on particular “targets” of extremist leaders. The US military has boasted of killing over one hundred targets; most of the victims were civilians in “collateral damages”. The increased number of civilian casualties prompted the Pakistani government to get involved in the rules of engagement and drone operations.
The Afghan army is heavily infiltrated by Taliban elements: last week, the Capital Kabul awoke to a nightmare: it was rocked by 5 attacks on 5 government institutions, including the Presidential Palace of Karzai.
What is happening in the region are series of civil wars; the factions are mainly borrowing the discourse of Al Qaeda but this movement is plainly limited to fringe countries in Africa. Nevertheless, US Medias refuse to change the decades catch all term of Al Qaeda to means civil unrest and “terrorism” in Islamic states: they prefer disinformation instead of educating the public to the new realities. Is it simply because it is too “complex” for the little mind of the public to comprehend?
So far, the US has heavily fallen in the trap of disseminating the image of fighting Islam instead of targeting “terrorist” bases. More military involvement is bound to stick this image in the mind and heart of moderate Islamists who will be pressured to extend leniency attitudes to the extremist elements and factions.
Lost is NOT just a television show. It has become larger than that—a massive story filled with mystery that has garnered over twenty million participants. Some might call them viewers, but one does not just watch Lost, one participates in it.
Ok, I admit it. I am a BIG fan of Lost. It is one of the few dramatic series shows I watch with any type of regularity. So, when I heard about this book by Chris Seay, I knew I wanted to read it.
I found it to be a very easy, enjoyable read. Drawing parallels between the story and characters of Lost, and real life, Chris brings out some very fresh insights on faith, community & our own tendency to find ourselves feeling “Lost” from time to time.
If you have not watched any of the Lost series over the past several years, you may have a difficult time following some of the examples in this book. However, I would recommend it to anyone even slightly intrigued by the show.
Kit is a member of Thomas Nelson’s Book Review Blogger program. Find out more here: http://brb.thomasnelson.com/
Why was I given this book? What did the giver expect? Would he prefer I praise it for being bold and original, or would he like me to criticize it fairly? Might he even want me to tear it apart?
Who is Padgett Powell? Why did Saul Bellow say he was the best writer of his generation? What psychotropic substance got those words out of his mouth? What psychotropic substance got this book out of Powell’s brain? What was his editor thinking? Was he trying to get out of his contract? Why is he allowed to teach writing to other people? Why did he choose to write a book entirely made up of questions? Do you think you could get paid for writing a book entirely made up of questions? Do you think I could get paid for it?
Is it a novel? Is it a disguised personality test? Is it a thought experiment? Is it none of these, or all of them, or some combination of them? Is it interesting? Is it engaging? Is it a fun read? Even if it is a fun read, does that make it a narrative? Does the Latin verb narrare mean “to be fun to read”? If it is not a narrative, can it still be a novel? Does that terminology agree with the technical definition of “novel”? Have we just lost sight of exactly what a novel is?
Why do the blurbs on the back of the book say that it is “intimate and hilarious,” “immensely readable, ingenious, witty and ultimately important-feeling,” or “a delightful stylistic flight”? Why don’t they say that it’s a waste of paper, even though that’s undoubtedly what it is? Why doesn’t Sam Lipsyte admit that The Interrogative Mood isn’t “another brilliant work of fiction”? Why does Luc Sante think I should feel “as rich as Haroun al-Rashid on the thousandth night”? Why are all these people who presumably know literature better than I do giving this book such puff when it is, above all other things, lazy?
What makes a book lazy? Does the author have to just not work at it very hard? Or is it the idea of the book – the germ, if you will – that makes it lazy? Can an idea even be lazy? Does it depend more on the execution of the idea? So, if the idea is “a book made up entirely of questions,” do you need an amazing writer to execute it correctly? Would you need a better writer than Padgett Powell? Would you need a writer prone to delightful stylistic flights? How should I know? What if the questions are, with few exceptions, independent of one another and form a narrative no more than the dust bunnies in my room make up the Great Wall of China? Would that change your answer? Would it change if I told you that there are plenty of follow-up questions like the previous one, and overlong silly ones like this current one that often reveal some inconsequential fact about the questioner, who is the only character in the book, and that really the book is just a stupid fucking piece of literary overcompensation and should be recycled on sight?
Would you prefer it if I calmed down? If I used less profanity? Does profanity upset you? Did you often hear cursewords when you were a child? Do tangents like that one upset you? Did you know they’re sprinkled throughout the book? Did you wonder whether I meant cursewords or tangents? Why would I know?
At the end of the day, what is wrong with this book? What isn’t wrong with this book? Why is this book permitted to even exist? Does the lack of breadth and length make it inconspicuous? Do literary critics sit in their semi-lit studies with a good glass of something and pretend they know what Powell was thinking as he wrote it? Do they wonder, like I do, why the hell he chose to write this book? Do they find some sort of strange satisfaction in pretending they know the book so much better than the rest of us? Isn’t that just like them?
Has reading this review annoyed you? Has it prepared you for reading The Interrogative Mood? Do you feel better able to grasp the meaning of a question? Do you think you’ve gained anything by this experience? Would you prefer to actually go on, and read the Powell book, and form your own opinion of it, unfettered by my vitriolic snarking? Or will you just nod and glance at the book nervously when you glimpse its cover in a bookstore? Will you then wonder why I’ve tried so hard to tear it to pieces? Would you think I’m jealous of Powell’s success? Would you regard me as a small-time curmudgeon, condemned to rail against things for no reason other than getting my jollies? Would you still think I was right?
Should I have read this book? Should you read it? Should you recommend it? Should you even think about it, as you are probably doing right now?
At 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, January 23, 2010, The Detroit Public Library will host a reading and discussion of Lev Raphael’s My Germany – A Jewish Writer Returns to the World His Parents Escaped as part of their Celebrate Authors Series. Quoted on the DPL site as a “masterfully written memoir”, the event will be hosted at the Main Library – Old Fine Arts location.
Lev Raphael is no stranger to the state of Michigan. He holds a Ph.D. in American Studies from Michigan State University where he taught Creative Writing. Not just a classroom presence, Mr. Raphael was also a review columnist for the Detroit Free Press and a voice for Michigan Radio.
A pioneer in American-Jewish literature, the prolific Raphael is widely known for his writings about children of Holocaust survivors (both of his parents are survivors). Mr. Raphael has published books, essays, articles, reviews and various literary works which have been translated and published in multiple languages. His writings not only garner high praise but have also amassed numerous prizes and awards. In addition, his literary Papers were purchased by MSU and now rest in the Michigan State University Libraries.
*As always, support your local bookstores and universities. It matters!
-Post by Megan Shaffer
Related Links:
Elizabeth Bachner’s lengthy reflections on Bookslut
The book locomotion is about a boy named Lonnie Collins Motion. He is a fifth grader in New York.
His teacher tells him to write a book about his self in poetry form. Some of the stuff he writes about is his sister Lili and how they were separated. They were separated because their parents died in house fire. Now Locomotion lives with a lady named Ms. Edna. She is very nice person to Locomotion. TO FIND OUT MORE READ TO FIND OUT!!!!!! What’s next????
Review by Rozlynn
**The above reviews was written by Rozlynn as part of the Teen Fine Alternative Program. If you’re interested in working off fines owed on CLP materials and are between the ages of 12-18, please contact your local CLP location.**
Parallel Play: Growing Up with Undiagnosed Asperger’s (2009)
by Tim Page
Doubleday
208 pages
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This book should be called Tim Page’s Pretty Great Life.
There’s an assumption with memoirs or biographies, especially ones that refer to a difficult condition in the subtitle, that there will be a significant dosage of mess-ups, misery and misfortune. It was therefore in an odd way depressing to finish reading this autobiography and realize that the author has been quite fortunate, and carved out a decent life for himself.
Page was passionate about classical and opera music at an early age.
Page grew up in a family which was supportive financially, emotionally, and socially. He was immersed in excellent music, literature, and other rich cultural products at an early age, and was already successful enough as a child to be covered by Time magazine (though he ended up being edited out of the published feature). As a young man he encountered mentors that aided in his development, and he quickly found a niche in which he could make a living (and eventually earn a Pulitzer prize for his writing on classical music). Not only has not everyone been so fortunate, but I think it can be easily said that Page’s life has been made much easier by privileges not extended to the majority of humanity.
Of course there are some darker moments here too. Use and abuse of drugs in his teen years. Appearing to be a genius to most people, yet being so disinterested in High School that he flunked many courses and eventually dropped out. A passenger in the crash of an overloaded pickup truck of teenagers on a weekend binge that resulted in several deaths. And the endless social awkwardness and difficulty in connecting with other people that comes as a part of Asperger’s syndrome, which he was diagnosed with in his forties.
If the above sounds like a slam, this is actually one of the best books that I’ve read in quite a while, and I have a hard time imagining that there will be many other books published that can compete with this one in evoking the essential spirit of growing up in the second half of the twentieth century. Though I’m much younger than the author, I think he captured something essential about trying to survive and find yourself in a world both so permissive and so difficult and hostile. I like how he appreciated both classical and rock music in a similar way, on its own merits.
Some people might protest that there’s not enough personal material here, such as information on interactions with his siblings, or the women in his life, or his children, but somehow I don’t think that being exhaustive is a necessary element for an autobiography. Bob Dylan’s autobiography similarly left unmentioned much of his personal life, but sometimes those things just aren’t what the author wants to talk about. This book doesn’t scale incredible artistic highs, or take a steely look at things from every angle, but if you take it for what it is–in the same way it’s best to take people–it’s a great and inspiring read.
A few months ago, it seemed like everyone around me – both in the real world and online – was talking about Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief. There was an incredible, raving buzz about the book that I just couldn’t ignore. When my sister was here in November, she found the book marked way, way down at the half-price bookstore and picked it up. Yay, I thought! She can knock it out and then I can read it. She started it that very day – and gave up on it before the week was out.
Maybe I should have been discouraged, but I wasn’t. My sister and I, we are like a pretty, pretty Venn diagram. We are distinctly unique (and have I mentioned pretty?) circles with a small portion of our tastes overlapping. Depending on the subject – men, books, music, friends, jokes, movies – our common area grows or shrinks. I figured The Book Thief was one of those finds that just didn’t fit into the bookshelf in our common area. I meh-ed to myself and went on my way.
Until just before the holidays when I picked up the book and started reading. Then I thought that we had found the rare book that neither one of us liked. Book Thief starts off as such a slow, unlikable read. The characters are unfamiliar and vaguely like shards of glass – I was afraid to pick them up and try to fit them together because they seemed so pointed and unfriendly. In fact, I was about 100 pages in – at the soccer match between Liesel and Rudy – when I emailed Mrs. E. in a fit of exasperation. Does it get any better? I asked her. You see, I was pretty sure that Mrs. E was one of the people I had heard talking about the book. Only, it turned out that she wasn’t. She hadn’t read it. Oops.
Thankfully I hadn’t given anything away. Even better, the book picked up. The pace got better, the characters…well, okay, the characters will still acting like stubborn, obstinate creatures who refused to be loved. Vignette by vignette, Liesel became sorta likable at times. And that kid Rudy she chummed with – he was okay. Her Papa becomes more endearing as you watch his relationship with Liesel grow. Funnily enough, as human connections were made between the shards of glass, flashes of brilliance started peeking through. And I found that as the story progressed, as the inevitable became even more so, I realized I cared about the story and the people populating it. It was never a charming or an easily likable story. I don’t know that I’ll read it again. But I ached at the ending even when Death (our narrator) warned me in advance what was going to happen. Maybe I ached even more because I knew.
I never thought that I would recommend this book to anyone. I never thought I would care about the characters. Once I figured out the ending, I didn’t think I’d even finish the last sixty or so pages. But the last quarter of the book blew me away. I contemplated adding Rudy or Papa to my list of most intriguing male characters. I read some of the most tender passages of literature I’ve ever read. Seeing human life analyzed through Death’s eyes – something that happened more often and more poignantly towards the end of the story – was so moving that I found it hard to stop thinking about The Book Thief. It is such a haunting, beautiful story nominally about the people who live in a small German town during the World War II, but really about loss and how the human spirit adapts. You have to really want to like this book, but if you can tough it out – if you can have faith in little Liesel until she makes that connection with Rudy – it’s worth it.
There is this hellish cycle: a chicken lays an egg to generate chicken; and the cycle continues. Human brain is not satisfied with this obvious mechanism: our brain wants to know the origin of the process; what comes first, the chicken or the egg? Then what? Would this cycle cease to exist if we “resolve” the origin problem? Would any interpretation or conjecture make a difference?
Now suppose we take a different perspective and instead of the source we tackle the problem as a medium issue? Let us declare: the egg uses the chicken as a mean to generate another egg. Would that satisfy human curiosity and drop the origin “idée-fix”? It makes plenty of sense: an egg is an egg and uses many different mediums (name with me the varieties of fowls that lay eggs; hell, snakes lay eggs!) Sure, the “essence” or nature of the egg is different when hatched but the process is fundamentally the same. Eggs can be hatched without fowls: industrial processes do it all the time. An egg can be altered genetically and generate a diversity of fowls. Can we claim that it is the process that counts?
Still, human mind would counter: “who created the egg?” or the first kind of egg in the first place? Now we are back to “origins” and creators. What if it is not the egg that count during the process or mechanism that generated an egg? Would the purpose of sciences be based on the study, analysis, and invention of processes that optimize the production of particular products that human need? Maybe not to survive as mankind but indeed to live in luxury and opulence while living?
By analogy to chicken and egg cycle let us consider the cycle of laws and facts (data). Let us bypass the previous lengthy reasoning and tackle the problematic head on. Let me state: “facts use laws to produce facts.” There are varieties of natural and social laws that generate facts for the brain to perceive. Actually, the brain is the machine that set the foundations for generating laws in order to perceive facts. The brain is the eminent scientist: no law can be discovered that the brain had not the potential to recognize or manufacture. The Erica syndrome is common among scientists: a law was hiding to taunt the hard working and focused scientist to discover it by using many viewing perspectives and possibilities.
The brain has the scientific mechanism in place to discovering whatever laws or “truths” we are willing to uncover. We use reasoning methods such as deductive, inductive, and abductive methods (you may read my post “Abduction field”); we use all kinds of plausible logic systems to structure our processes; we have various senses to extend our perception into “seeing” the facts. Actually vision and hearing go through many filters (processes) in order to be perceived by the brain; they are more complex and richer impressions (distorted perceptions) than smell, taste or touch. All we have to do is to take seriously the “rhetorical” mechanisms (analogy, association…) that the brain is excellent at processing in order to offer us the means to discoveries.
It is time that scientists boldly proclaim that their Ericas were pretty much within the common realm of capabilities of every normal man if he had the passion and endurance to go the extra mile in whatever interested his “nature”.
The “truth” is this: the universe is the facts and the brain the laws. Our brain is just the medium to perceive models of the real universe. If we manage to preserve an adult human brain from deterioration then the brain will “sees” universes and it will create new facts to amuse and exercise his “curiosity”. Preserve a new born brain and it will “see” the same incoherent universe (whatever this thing might be): the brain needs outside impressions to form and become an efficient processors of impressions to perceive coherent worlds.
Note: I tend to agree with Umberto Eco that books generate books. Authors are medium in that process. An author does not have to have read plenty of books to emulate a notion, an idea, a concept, or a process that was already published. The human brain is assimilating world data and world knowledge and many “coincidences” are very much “reasonably” plausible. (You may read my post “how the mind acquires knowledge”)
Copyright John Duncan 2008 courtesy John Duncan and Photoworks/Belfast Exposed Photography/ Steidl
In John Duncan’s latest book, Bonfires, we see that he is continuing to investigate the urban environment being built around his native region of Belfast in Northern Ireland. It is a region that is in flux, with acute memories of adversity, turmoil and unrest.
In this book, John Duncan’s documentary style photographs of the transitional structures erected for the Eleventh of July bonfires in Northern Ireland provide a variety of readings. For those living in the greater Belfast region of Northern Ireland, there are the underlying passions of politics, economics, prejudice, history, animosity, and pride, tied up in a seemingly complex religious bundle. A European context is that these bonfires are tangentially related to the Battle of Boyne in 1609, a battle in Northern Ireland which was “not a religiously motivated one, but part of a complicated political, dynastic and strategic conflict. From my perspective in the United States, not knowing the history or the reason for these structures, these are photographs of an interesting series of non-artesian built sculptures.
The books introduction by Karen Downey and David Chandler ask the open ended question;
And, then years after the Belfast Peace Agreement – with the cessation of violence and the feverish reconstruction of the city – (Duncan’s) Bonfires contributes to the increasing important question of how Northern Ireland’s contested past and conflicting identities will be inter-graded into its planned future.
Nevertheless, the photographs themselves are cool recordings of man-made structures, edifices that appear to be in the progress of being erected. Photographed on overcast days, the color is not deeply saturated with a lack of deep shadows or bright highlights. The flat lighting provides a clinical, dispassionate and a matter-of-fact distant viewpoint. It could be argued that photographing these structures that appear only at this time of year, the overcast lighting is the normative for this region, thus the flat light lighting is perhaps not a stylistic intent, but an environmental and cultural factor.
There are not any people seen within the photographs, which in tern links them to the topographical traditions of Brend & Hilla Becher, Candida Hoefer, Ed Rusca, Robert Adams, Walker Evans and Eugene Atget. Like the urban photographs of these photographers, the people may not be seen, but their presence is made palpable by the disarray of the man-made materials, looming structures in progress and the urban locations.
The man-made sculptures fashioned out of locally found materials have an Andy Goldsworthy sculptural aspect to them, each reflecting the sensibility of the builder in-charge. Duncan has photographed them in their various construction states, centering the primary structure within in the middle ground of the pictorial frame. The serial details of the structures can be compared and contrasted, as well as being evaluated within the urban environmental context.
The photographs are also mysterious and threatening with structures that appear to rising up from this troubled urban land. We can not be absolutely sure about the reason for their existence and what will happen to them. We see signage, text, flags and other elements festooning these structures, but may not understand the intended message. These photographs may instill a sense of celebration or a feeling of rage, or a range of feelings somewhere in between. We do not know what will become of them, thought we suspect that they will soon be consumed and become part of history, folklore, and memory.
The photographs are indications of a cultural story and temporal situation in which there exits a certain order that has been framed and preserved by Duncan. Similar to the New Topological photographers, Duncan does not appear to push an agenda, “without glorifying or condemning these structures (built environment), assembling a survey without a unifying narrative.”
The essays by Colin Graham & Mary Warner Marien provide a wider external context to the photographs and discuss the political, economic and cultural backgrounds for the existence of these structures.
So about a month ago, my best friend, Doug, and I decided we wanted to ready a book together. Well, not actually together, he lives in St. Louis and I live 2 – 3 hrs away, so I guess we wanted to ready the same book at the same time and then kind of talk about it. We wanted to ready something about faith. There’s actually a deeper more detailed sorry behind it, but I’m not sure if this is the right place to talk about it.
So anyway: We’re going to start reading Donald Miller’s newest book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. I ready his most popular book, Blue Like Jazz, a couple years ago and really enjoyed it.
I’m not sure how we’re going to go through the book together, or how we plan on discussing it together. We might do it on here on my blog, which I rarely ever use. I want to use it more, but that’s a different topic.
I went skiing yesterday and I have to say, it might not have been my most brilliant decision ever because I got home yesterday and I was in absolute pain. My body hurt to the touch. My joints were killing me. I was tired and I had a sore throat. I ended up eating and passing out at around7:30 or 8:00 – pretty much as soon as my head hit the pillow. I feel better this morning as far as the soreness and pain but I do have a sore throat. I’m lucky that the office is closed today because I plan to just relax, pump liquids and maybe do some yoga later on to stretch out my muscles and joints.
I have managed to write a couple of reviews though:
We have much pleasure in announcing the launch of our BRAND NEW website, blog and forum. All created for the virtual writer. In the WEBSITE you will find links to literary magazines, writing competitions, workshops, book reviews as well as general articles on the art of writing.
The BLOG is the inworld wing of Virtual Writers, Inc. called Virtual Writers’ World. Here we learn to experiment with the Second Life® platform to the fullest with the aim of finding new ways of creative expression. You’ll find information on our virtual events, hosts, writers and inworld book tours. You’ll find special features on well-known writers in Second Life® as well as articles from popular columnists such as Flawnt Alchemi, Harpy Convair, Jaen Wirefly, Rosemary Serenity, Dresden Darkwatch, Optrix Xaris and Weyland Sands.
The FORUM is the place to go if you want to share your work and receive a critique. Here you can make announcements of new publications, forthcoming book readings, reviews, news etc. You’ll also find threads on markets and resources pertaining to freelancers.
The Virtual Writers’ Library is a place for you to promote your published work. This can include poems, articles, essays, short stories, greetings cards etc. as well as books.
We have several genre specific forums such as SCI-FI/FANTASY, ROMANCE, EROTICA, HORROR, HUMOUR, HISTORICAL WRITING, ROLE PLAY, MEMOIRS, CRIME/MYSTERY and LITERARY FICTION. As well as general forums such as NON-FICTION, NOVEL WRITING, POETRY, WRITING FOR KIDS and SHORT FICTION. BLOGGING lets you hone your blogging skills as well as spread the word on any good sites you have found.
We hope you find something of interest as we’ve worked hard to bring you a useful online resource. If you have any suggestions we’d love to hear them. Feedback will be gratefully received.
Please note that this will be the last article posted on this blog, all new posts will be found at the following addresses.
The “Pendulum of Foucault” by Umberto Eco; part two
The book is about three authors specializing in the occult or diabolic manuscripts that were written and published in Europe in the last 600 years after the persecution of the Templar Knights. The authors tried to put together the many pieces of the puzzle that were gleamed from ancient manuscripts in order to construct a rational and logical story of Europe history events. The Templar Knights were persecuted around 1344 by the French monarch Philip Le Bel and the pope of Rome: Templar Knights over extended their power base in acquiring vast lands and lending money to monarchs and princes and had become the most influential secret organization in Europe. The “initiates” or members were willing to die rather than divulge secrets.
The story starts from a cryptic message that it was attributed to the Templar Knights and found in the town of Provins in south-west France near the Cathar sect region. The various interpretations led to the belief that the fleeing Knights took refuge in the town of Tomar in Portugal and devised a plan to be executed for a period of 600 years. Every 120 years, the headquarters of the “Invisible 36 Superiors” would be relocated to six different places so that each headquarters would relinquish the secret to the next headquarters.
Apparently, there are two secrets. The initial secret was of religious nature and it became a cover up to the second secret for dominating the world. The initial cult was based on the premises that either Jesus was not crucified and was whisked to Marseille in France and his descended initiated the Merovingian French monarchic dynasty or that Jesus died but Marie Magdalena was impregnated by Jesus and was whisked away to start a new dynasty.
The other more enduring secret says that earth underground is traversed by currents that can be controlled to spread havoc on earth crust if only the center or “Umbilicus” of the current could be determined; the center could be discovered if the entire pieces of a particular world cartographic chart can be put together and the sun ray hitting the right location on June 23 or Saint John Day at the beginning of earth summer solstice.
A quick summary of part one might be needed. The plan would move from Tomar in 1344 to Scotland in 1464, then to Paris in 1584 at Saint Martin des Champs, then to Germany in 1704 at Marienburg near Dantzig, then to Bulgaria in 1824, and finally to Jerusalem (The Rock) in 1944. The headquarters was transferred to Scotland but the next transfer to Paris didn’t take place and problems started. Every sub-cult wanted to put the pieces together all by itself since serious discontinuity of the pieces of the plan to rule the world was ruined.
One rumor is that the Jewish Diaspora got wind that the Christians have an important secret and got into their own investigative whirlwind and the Kabala cult was expanded. The ghettos were targeted for information because the abbot Pic de la Mirandolla referred in one of his speeches that Hebrew is the language to learn in order to decipher the cryptic messages using the Talmud. The trend became to learn Hebrew and applying all kinds of combinational cryptology on the Talmud.
In fact, the Templar Knights had no connections with the Jewish religion; they had no Jewish sources or learned Hebrew. The Free Masons inherited their cult from the Templar and added this myth related to Hiram and the Temple of Jerusalem.
Another rumor was that the Jesuits organization of Ignacio de Loyola was attuned to these secrets and working to put together the puzzle; the Jesuits were behind switching from the Julian to the Georgian calendar? Anyway, France’s Grand Master Guillaume Postel died in 1581 and a Jesuit abbot confessed him. Francis Bacon traveled to Prussia to connect with the Grand Master in Marienburg and he instituted many Templar Knights cults around Europe to gather information.
Most of the scholars in Europe were initiates in one or more of these cults such as Leonardo da Vinci, Newton, Voltaire, Condorcet, Diderot, d’Alembert, Lavoisier, Goethe, Mirabeau, Jules Verne, Francis Bacon, and on. Alexander Dumas wrote “Joseph Balsamo”, representing a Grand Master of Templar Knights; most of the heroes of Jules Verne are permutations on Cultists names such as “John Garral” in reference to the Graal or Robur le Conquerent and many of his novels are located underground and in the bowel of earth. The frenzied endeavors to constructing vast underground tunnels, sewer systems, and metro lines in most European Capitals were decided and initiated by cultist sects; Salomon de Caus, one of the initiates, started the sewer system in Paris around 1665 at the demand of Colbert; Paris ended up with 23 kilometers of underground system.
Napoleon summoned the Jews in Europe to a conclave in 1806; the name of the convention was “Grand Sanhedrin”. Apparently, Napoleon needed three pieces of the puzzle; since Napoleon failed to invade England then he wanted the last piece of the puzzle that he judged would be in the hands of the Jewish cults, the hierosolymitaine supposed to be waiting in Jerusalem (don’t ask me what is this sect). The piece of puzzle, before the last, was supposed in the hands of the Paulician sect settled in Russia.
Who are the Paulicians? The sect is one of the hundreds of “heretic” Christian sects according to the Orthodox Byzantium Church. The Paulician refuses the Ancient Testament, the sacraments, despises the cross, and does not honor the Virgin Mary: she was just a fast conduit to Christ already made in heaven. The sect became widespread and engaged in many wars along side the Byzantium Empire; it reached the Euphrates River in Syria and established communities in the Arabic Peninsula. Emperor Basil of Byzantium ended up persecuting the Paulician sect that fled to Slavic lands.
Now, the Orthodox Synod in Moscow lambasted Napoleon as trying to establish the antichrist reign and rule the world. Napoleon would in 1812 invade Russia to connect with the Paulician branch of the Templar Knights and fail in his endeavor.
Baron von Brunswick convened all the European Templar branches to reaching a consensus: the cultists met and the meeting failed.
The secret service of Tsar Nicholas II, the Okhrana, disseminated protocols in ancient manuscripts and labeled it “Protocols of the Wises of Sion” and the Jews were persecuted in order to get a piece of the puzzle.
Hitler also wanted a piece of the pie. He tried to invade England and Russia for the same reasons. Hitler was very meticulous in killing as many Jews as possible, in a well oiled process, in order to discover the secret of the hierosolymitaine branch.
At this stage, the authors of the occults realized that the story was advancing in the wrong direction. Since the Templar Knights had no connections with Jewish sources then the last branch is not in Jerusalem but the fort of Alamut in the south-east region of the Caspian Sea. The “Old of the Mountain” was Hassan Ibn Al Sabbah who instituted what the European called the “Assassins sect” based on the word “hashasheen” or those that consumed hashish.
The initiates of Al Sabbah had terrorized all Moslem monarchs and princes and frightened the Crusaders when they attempted to kill a few of their leaders. The Templar Knights were owed by this sect and valued those fearless initiates and connect with Al Sabbah sect and learned their underground current secret, their organization, and the techniques for training suicidal members.
Al Sabbah would kidnap select young men, drug them, and then move them to the fort. The young man would wake up and be feasted for many weeks with best food, women, hashish, and everything that might give the man the impression of transplanted in heaven. Then, when time is ripe, the young man would be drugged again and relocated outside the fort Alamut with instructions. The move would be to kill an enemy at very close range and then commit suicide (feddayins) if not killed on the spot. Sultan Salah El Din came very close to be assassinated twice and he decided to desist persecuting this sect.
The sect of Al Sabbah is a variant of the Shiaa Islamic schism: they believe that Ali, the son-in-law of Prophet Mohammad, is also a prophet as are all his descendents; the last prophet is to unveil his existence at the end of time. This sect is one of the Ismailia sects that the Fatimid dynasty in Egypt disseminated. The Druze sect in Lebanon is a variant of Ismailia. Actually, one of the misinterpretations in transcribing manuscripts was confounding Ismaili with Israeli.
In the end, the authors interpreted the cryptic message the right way: the message was based on a commission list of a merchant at Provins; this list was not hidden in a case encrusted with diamonds but a rotting one. Actually, the commission list mentions streets, churches, and forts that are located in the town of Provins. The town was famous for clothing and growing red flowers imported from Syria during the crusading campaigns. The merchant jotted down in short hand the locations to deliver six bouquets of roses, 6 roses in each bouquet for 20 sous, for a total of 120 sous. The cultist mentality wrecked havoc in Europe for 600 years based on rumors and the need for secrets to assemble people in organizations and associations. Cultists are “Big” kids in need of secrets to perpetuate into adulthood.
Red werewolf Bela flees her adoptive pack of gray werewolves when the alpha male Volan tries forcibly to claim her as his mate. Her real love, beta male Devlyn, is willing to fight Volan to the death to claim her. That problem pales, however, as a pack of red werewolves takes to killing human females in a crazed quest to claim Bella for their own. Bella and Devlyn must defeat the rogue wolves before Devlyn’s final confrontation with Volan.
Bella is a rare red werewolf, who ran from her adoptive family of gray wolves back in the 1850s, because their alpha male wanted to claim her, the alpha female, as his mate. Preferring the pack beta male instead, but unwilling to cause them to fight for her and risk her favorite fella being killed, she takes off instead.
Fast forward to modern day, and Bella’s been found. First, she’s tranq’d and hauled off to the zoo as she was hunting in her wolf form. Then she’s stalked by the local pack of red wolves (who apparently she didn’t even know existed, despite having lived there for over a hundred years) and then she’s on the news and recognized by her old family, the grays. Who, naturally, haven’t forgotten about her and have been looking for her all along.
Bella escapes the zoo pen just in time to be snatched up by her favorite beta wolf, Devlyn, who is under orders to bring her home. To his alpha, Volan. And he’s determined to do it, despite the fact that he’s always wanted her for himself and never done anything about it. Top that off with a need for the duo to solve a mystery surrounding mysterious deaths in the area (because they are, of course, the best people for the job of covering up the info and stopping the predator in order to keep their wolf-world hidden), and this is a busy story.
First off, I was intrigued by hero being a beta. There are so very many romances that are all about the alpha, that it’s really refreshing to read about a different kind of man. Of course Devlyn has the makings to be alpha, he just hasn’t made his move to take on Volan in the past couple of hundred years.
There are quite a few plot weak spots, that kept this from being a total blast. Bella easily manages to go undetected for 150 years, but –wham! –suddenly everyone finds her, knows exactly what she is, and she doesn’t manage even a decent attempt to get away. She never really seems to trust Devlyn to be strong and take charge, and poor Devlyn just lets her keep running over him, despite getting angry and pouting. We’re told he can be an alpha, but he never really seems to shed that beta role, so it’s not credible. And, finally, the resolution with Volan just left me sad, that once again Bella couldn’t rust Devlyn to handle things.
I did, however, really enjoy some of the behavioral attributes the author built into her characters, that really seemed to demonstrate a lupine tendency. The heroine intimidates Old Red, the ancient wolf she’s penned in with at the zoo, she enjoys physical rough housing and isn’t shy about stomping around naked, which she’d do all the time as a wolf. I thought the author did a very good job in breathing life into these characters and showing us their personalities through a crazy quilt of human and wolf attributes.
Assessment: Recommended, an easy read. I did not purchase any additional titles from this author.
Notice: To comply FTC Guidelines, please be aware that this book was a publisher giveaway to participants of the RWA 2009 National Conference. In appreciation, I have decided to write a book review for each and indicate whether or not the book has prompted me to purchase backlist titles from the author.
The moral of the story is: don’t buy a book you can’t look inside before you pay.
I was on a literary shopping spree in Taiwan’s 24-hour book store, Eslite (I’m going to blog this place soon), picking up all the English book specials I could find. Just as I was about to head to the counter, I see this neatly wrapped book (in clear plastic) called A Life at Work by Thomas Moore.
‘The joy of discovering what you were born to do’, the cover says. Oh my goodness, I exclaim silently. As as person torn between leaving a financially stable job he can’t stand and starting over in a risky field he loves, I took it as a sign.
This Thomas Moore guy is the author of the #1 New York Times Bestseller Care of the Soul, the cover says, so there’s credibility there. Then without hesitation, I threw the book onto the pile and headed to the registers. At 183 pages, it was the thinnest book of the lot, but also the most expensive.
To put it bluntly, the book was a major letdown. I should have known better.
Turns out, Thomas Moore is a ’spiritual writer’. If you know what that means, then you’ll know that A Life at Work is a book full of fluff.
The premise was sound. Moore wants to help you find your ‘life work’. This is not limited to just your dream job, but also things outside of it that will make you live a well-rounded, happy life.
However, while there was indeed the odd line here or there that had me nodding ever so slightly, the book is so full of sentimental ’spirituality’ and flowery language that it felt like I was reading a cross between a horoscope and a hypnotherapist’s handbook.
Alarm bells rang immediately when the Preface was titled “Alchemy: The Opus of the Soul”. And so began an irritating string of references comparing your ‘life work’ to alchemy throughout the entire book. Moore is a good writer, but he loves to talk about your spirit, the meaning of dreams, taking care of the soul, your ‘daimon’ (WTF?) and even your freaking ‘duende’ (double WTF?) – and he does it with an abundance of allegories, metaphors, parables, fairy tales and even Greek mythology stories. Of course, there are also many subtle references to religion.
You probably figured it out by now that Moore is a pretty spiritual dude. If I had known that he left home at 13 to join a Catholic monastery and didn’t leave the ‘religious life’ until 26, I would have never touched A Life at Work.
Here is an excerpt from the book to illustrate my point:
The alchemist peers into his retort. The mass of material has been stewing there for days, weeks, or even months. The heat has been constant, sometimes red-hot, sometimes just simmering. He imagines he sees a white bird, this time flying down into the material, time after time. This is the bird of spirit, an inseminating figure that represents vision, values, ethics, philosophy, compassion, and spiritual understanding. It brings the primal stuff to life, refines it, matures it, and ultimately completes the project.
Yep, the whole book was pretty much like that.
I don’t want to discourage ’spiritual’ people from reading this book (I’m sure they’ll love it), but if you want real, pragmatic, useful answers to finding a job you can feel passionate about, a job that makes you willing to take a pay cut to do, a job that makes you excited to get up for every the morning – then this book is not for you.
ACFW launches new free online resource to search for titles
PALM BAY, Fla. — With over 500,000 books published each year, it is harder than ever to find a new book that’s just right. A simple Amazon search in the Christian literature and fiction category yields more than 17,000 results. Consumers wading through the exhaustive, seemingly endless list of choices now have a more manageable resource to help them purchase their next book.
American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW), the nation’s leading Christian fiction writers’ organization, is launching FictionFinder.com, a new free resource for retailers, readers, media and other Christian fiction fans to search for authors and books. The search engine allows users to sort by author, title, genre, topic, publication date, and target audience.
Cynthia Ruchti, president of American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW), believes this trusted, easy-to-use resource is a significant development in the search for Christian fiction authors and new titles.
”The idea rose from a roundtable discussion between the ACFW leadership team and Christian booksellers looking for a better way to connect their customers with great Christian fiction,” says Ruchti. “ACFW responded by rolling up our sleeves and creating a comprehensive database to serve readers, booksellers, publishers, authors, book club coordinators, librarians and others on the hunt for information and inspiration.”
The site also allows readers to learn about the nature of the content of each book. Each title is rated for action, conflict, humor, mystery, romance, spirituality and suspense, in addition to more sensitive issues like language, sensuality and violence. Users can also post reviews to the site and learn more about soon-to-be-released titles.
The database is the first of its kind and is not limited to books written by ACFW members. The organization is also working with publishers to ensure Christian novels by other authors are incorporated as well.
ACFW’s presence as the voice of Christian fiction and its industry prowess has long been recognized, and its authors are a mainstay on bestseller lists. FictionFinder.com is the organization’s latest effort to make finding the best in Christian fiction as easy as possible for fans around the world.
Quick facts about fictionfinder.com:
* Book information pages include facts about the publisher, main themes, setting and the author’s other titles.
* A special “similar books” section offers other titles the user may be interested in reading.
* Users can create an account with their preferences, making it easier to find new favorites.
With nearly 2,000 members and 19 chapters in 14 states nationwide, ACFW seeks to promote Christian Fiction through developing the skills of its authors, educating them in the market, and serving as an advocate in the industry. Founded in 2000 under the banner of American Christian Romance writers, in 2004 the organization was renamed American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW) to reflect its dedication to Christian fiction writers of all genres.
ACFW is headquartered in Palm Bay, Florida. Their advisory and operating boards work to give writers the tools they need to develop their craft, grow ACFW’s extensive publishing knowledge and secure relationships with industry professionals. To learn more about ACFW and their authors, please visit www.acfw.com.
Related Posts:
ACFW Conference Update
Tips for Getting Started With Book Promotion
From My Audio Library – Exposure by Brandilyn Collins
I was excited when I saw that Sara Evans had written a book “The Sweet By and By” ISBN 978-1595544896. We lived in Columbia, MO for years which is with minutes from her home town of New Franklin. Just gotta root for the hometown girl…even though we have both since relocated to Nashville. Go figure. I was expecting a biography, but to my surprise it was fiction. I love a good fiction read. In “The Sweet By and By” you’ll find compelling characters that you can relate to. You’ll find Jade – the independent first born who is controlled by images of her dysfunctional past. You’ll find Willow – the youngest and constant thrill seeker. You’ll find Aiden – the middle child pleaser and the one who is grounded in the truth. And, first and foremost you’ll find Beryl – the mother who trys to raise her children the best she can, even when her best is tearing the family apart. The story contains just enough twists and turns to keep you interested. Just when you think you know the next move…something new comes up. My only critique – of which is mostly a personal preference – is that the story is written where one chapter is in the present…then the next chapter flips to the past…and then back again. Just not my personal preference. I like a story where I’m given the background and then the rest of the novel takes me on the journey. Not a big fan of the flip flop. Unless they are in the form of footwear.
Thank heavens I have finished it and I can move on to something a bit more enjoyable (hopefully). Be prepared for this review, because really, this book was an ordeal.
Now I haven’t seen much of the TV programme this book accompanies – I think I have seen the bit with the South Africans – and having read the book, I’m not going to follow it up by buying the DVD or watching re-runs on one of the documentary channels. The reasons for my reluctance I’ll go into later in this piece.
In researching a bit more about Mr Reeve, I was overwhelmed by disappointment at how this book turned out. That is because Mr Reeve had written a thoroughly excellent book before on Ramzi Yousef, the first World Trade Center bomber. That he went from a brilliant piece of investigative journalism, superbly told to this 380 pages of weary, tedious wailing is a tragedy. This book is the ruptured aorta of bleeding heart tomes.
Reeve is travelling (roughly) along the Tropic of Capricorn. He is doing it by land only (a couple of short boat trips notwithstanding) and has also broken the trip into three parts. Part 1 is Africa (Namibia, Botswana, South Africa, Mozambique and Madagascar); Part 2 is Australia; and Part 3 is South America (Chile, Argentina, Paraguay and Brazil). His timetable would take him to the Brazilian coast on the day of their summer solstice for a bit of “event tourism” we’d all like to do. On the way, though, he sets out to cheer us up no end.
His researchers and fixers must seriously despise life. Reeve seems to go out of his way to find the biggest collection of miseries and pessimists this side of Block 31 at the New Leslie Grantham. Let me sum up some of the experiences:
Namibia – poverty of the black Namibians, apartheid sort of still in place, hidden genocides
Botswana – diamond mining exploiting the countryside, minority tribe treated like dirt, HIV crisis, colonial guilt.
South Africa – Easy pickings. The Boers, Zimbabwean refugees, game reserves altering the course of nature. He couldn’t wait to get out. No surprise there.
Mozambique – Poverty, rich man tourism out of place, displaced people for tourist reasons;
Madagascar – Deforestation, poverty, destruction of ecosystem, extinction of species;
Australia – Vulnerability of whales to industry, asbestosis, aboriginal woes (really goes to town on this), difficulty of farming in the outback, climate change, bleached coral, global warming, indifference of Australians to it, needs of China and India for big business expansion. He didn’t seem to like Australia;
Chile – Moaned about altitude sickness on altiplano, more poverty, how do people live in such difficult conditions, copper mining, big business wanting to drain lakes;
Argentina – More indigenous people woes, deforestation, climate change, big business, corruption;
Paraguay – Soy production leading to deforestation, a visit to a torture camp, a visit to Ciudad del Este (which all travel guides tell you is horrendous), Hezbollah does fund schools you know (I wonder what that curriculum is like);
Brazil – More deforestation, visit to shanty town in Sao Paolo, more climate change, especially in relation to the huge dam built near the Iguacu Falls;
Get my drift. If there is a sob story, Reeve finds it. The whole of the book seemed to be a chance to wail and moan about the world we live in, bemoaning our environmental impact on the world. I know I can come across as a heartless so-and-so but really, did he have to pack the book with such relentless proselytising throughout. We get your drift – you believe in climate change and the horrors of big business and powerful corporations – all the while flying around the world, driving throughout countries while making a documentary series for the BBC. Does self-awareness ever come through in this? Reeve has already made a series on the Equator and now will make one on the Tropic of Cancer (oh my God, this takes him to Western Sahara, Bangladesh, Burma, Saudi Arabia and China – think of the possibilities there!). I suppose it is all right to enjoy a lavish western life style if you are out to inform and educate.
Reeve is a good writer, so the book isn’t hopeless. It just annoys me. Maybe that’s my fault as someone who is just a bit too cynical to believe agenda-driven politicians. Yet Reeve gets some convincing evidence from people who keep saying “things are going to get worse” – but it is the repetitious nature that tires. He keeps mentioning China as the root of all future problems as their thirst for resources grows, yet rises up against poverty in all its forms throughout. It is OK moaning about all this, but the only solution is to retrench and good luck with that. You can cry with the indigenous people all you want, but their desire to be left alone by government is pretty much echoed by those of us who don’t want to be constantly nannied as well. You can’t always get what you want. On the issue of the soy fields near the end of the book; well you reap what you sow – and no it isn’t the fault of US governments in hock to big business, it is the absurdity of life. After all, you say the only solution is to cut energy usage, but when you are jetting off around the world making films, why should people listen to the preaching?
Is this a case of not wanting to believe what I read? Possibly. I know all travelogues aren’t going to be Palin’s flitterings from expensive hotel to tame tourist locations, nor Bill Bryson’s folksiness, or Colin Thubron’s laboured ambles. Reeve has got his people to set up “stories” to be told to a world that needs to know, and it is unremitting. It lacks optimism. It lacks hope, and at the end, you seriously wonder what he wanted to achieve. 380 pages of “why on earth is this happening” is tiresome.
Of course there are some good bits – I liked the tale of the islands of Mozambique and the very convenient detour to Okavango Delta, but even then, there were downbeat observations. The wild honey hunting, the persistent waking up by cockerels, the encounters with wildlife – all excellent. It was good that near the end he had the uplifting stories of the Sao Paolo favelas, and that was optimistic. It took long enough.
There were a couple of bits that annoyed me in particular – even more than the global warming stuff – and on page 127 of the paperback, this writer laps into laziness that I know is riled by wife being the nationality it is, but is so bone-achingly tedious that I had to comment. The section goes - “…many American tourists arrive at Johannesburg airport expecting to see lions shooed away from the runway.”
I really hate this sort of pap. I tell you now, Mr Reeve, you may think it is a source of great shame to the US that they are insular and ill-informed (in your view), but you should get on my local bus, or read some of the web pages I do, and you’ll find that our education system isn’t exactly up to the mark that we can laugh at the Yanks. The fact is, I doubt most of the people on my bus home would know where Johannesburg is if you asked them to point it out on a map. At least those “ill-informed” US tourists got out to investigate. Those in glass houses should definitely not throw stones.
If you want a book to lecture and preach, albeit very politely, then go for it. Not for me. Someone going on an all expenses paid around the world trip and then bleating about climate change isn’t floating my boat. Sorry and all that.
A Freshtalkingkids reader did an interview with author Jackson Pearce recently, and she offered to post it here on the blog! Thanks so much Groovy Gal for sharing this with everyone!
As You Wish
By Elizabeth Waid 9/09
Have you ever asked your librarian for a book with a specific plot or characters, and then been disappointed to find out that such a book doesn’t exist? Well, that’s what started the newly published author Jackson Pearce on her writing adventure.
At the young age of 9, Jackson Pearce asked her school’s librarian for a book about an orphan, baby animals, and magic. Upon finding out that no book matched her description, she wrote her own. Her book was about an orphan girl that little baby animals were strangely attracted to.
15 years later, she is now an “official” author. Her book, As You Wish, is about a teenage girl named Viola who accidentally summons a young genie from his world to hers, where he will remain until she makes 3 wishes. Now I bet you’re thinking, Just wish for more wishes! Well, Viola can’t. Like everything else in life, there are rules as to what she can (and can’t) wish for.
Rule #1- You can’t wish for more wishes.
Rule #2- You can’t bring people back from the dead (one lady does bring back a dog, though).
Rule #3- You can’t change what a person is, so you couldn’t turn into a mermaid, or make your mortal enemy suddenly nice.
If more wishes was your first thought for a wish, then I bet world peace was your second thought. Viola thought of that too, but her genie cautioned her against it, because it wouldn’t last. If you’re thinking I’d wish for happiness, then sorry! He told her that she should wish for something that would make her happy, and not just happiness, because it wouldn’t last, just like the world peace.
Anyone would leap at the chance to have 3 wishes granted, but really think about it: whatever your heart desires within your grasp. Would you immediately wish without hesitation? Or would you ponder it for weeks or even months? Viola not only contemplates her wishes, but actually tries to delay them, because once she wishes, her genie will go back to the world from which he came, leaving her forever.
This exciting story is written in 1st person present tense, with the chapters switching between Viola’s point of view and her genie’s. Jackson prefers 1st person to 3rd person, because she thinks that 1st person is more “in the moment” and that it sort of gives you an inside look on everything.
Jackson Pearce is one persevering tough chick. Her first book she tried to get published was called The Keybearer…it got rejected 76 times. In her frustration, she started writing As You Wish to take her mind off it. The two stories do not resemble each other at all, because she wanted to completely start over. “The key is to keep writing, even when you think you’re not going anywhere,” she told me. “I’ve always been writing, as long as I can remember.”
I asked Jackson if any of her characters resemble anyone she knows. She said that “there’s never just one person” who completely makes up a character, but little details here and there reminding her of friends. “Whether you intend to or not, people you know start climbing their way” into the story.
When you’re writing, does reading help you, or does it cause you to self-consciously copy other authors? “Anytime you read, it helps your own writing. If I’m stuck, if I read another book it’ll get my mind moving forward again.”
And now, here are 10 fun things about Jackson Pearce.
She’s part of a writer’s group called the 2009 Debutantes . It’s made up of about 50 authors that debuted in 2009.
She lives in Atlanta.
Her Web Site is www.asyouwishthebook.com and her blog is www.jacksonpearce.com .
Her YouTube videos are hilarious!
She has a cross-eyed cat, “but he counts as 7.”
She teaches High School color guard.
She dances and twirls batons.
When she was in High School, she tried out for the circus.
About 3 years ago, she auditioned to be the princess at Medieval Times and even made it to the top 5.
I happened to like Eat, Pray, Love (well, a third of it), but whether you loved or hated it, Elizabeth Gilbert’s confessional managed to sell 7 million copies and the movie adaptation starring Julia Roberts is in the works. Gilbert’s latest release, Committed, hit the stores January 5th as a psuedo follow-up to Eat, Pray, Love. Click the following link for NPR’s positive take on Gilbert’s new title Committed,or for a more in-depth (and less optimistic) piece, try Ariel Levy’s piece Hitched in the January 11th edition of The New Yorker.
For those of you who suffer from bibliokleptomania, check out this interesting article, Literary Larceny: A Book Thief Meets His Match. It pertains to the characters in The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession by Allison Hoover Bartlett.
Born in the U.S.A. – Yes, Americans often get a bad rap, but if your self-esteem is running low, read Geoff Dyer’s charming article in the New York Times titled My American Friends. Dyer is the author of Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi.
Out of the ordinary: check out this Cool Flip Book I found on Huffington Post.
With the forecast calling for more snow and cold temperatures over the next couple of days, it looks like it should be a perfect weekend for wrapping yourself up in your Slanket or Snuggie and reading a few good books. Not sure what to read? Check out a few of these tools that librarians at CLP have put together to help you pick exactly what you’re in the mood for:
Booklists: This page on our website has booklists on a variety of topics, from fiction that features Stalin as a central character to books on bicycling or cooking. We’ve even got booklists that suggest the perfect books for the winter months. And don’t forget to take a look at our booklists for teens and kids as well!
Staff Picks: Looking for a recommendation from someone who’s already read the book? The Staff Picks section of the website highlights books that staff have recently read, and gives a short annotation of each book. It’s the next best thing to asking a librarian (which we also encourage!)
Reader Reviews: On this page, you’ll find short reviews on adult, teen, and children’s books from other library patrons. If you’ve read something you’d like to share, you can also write a review of your own.
New Fiction, New Non-Fiction, and Fiction and Non-Fiction Bestsellers: Here you can discover some of the newest books we’ve added to the collection, and find out what everyone else is reading these days.
Of course, if you’re still stuck, you can always ask a librarian. Stay warm this weekend!
“A New York Times Bestseller In 1949 four Chinese women – drawn together by the shadow of their past – begin meeting in San Francisco to play mah jong, invest in stocks, eat dim sum, and “say” stories. They call their gathering the Joy Luck Club. Nearly forty years later, one of the members has died. When her daughter comes to take her place, she learns of her mother’s lifelong wish, and the tragic way in which it has come true.”
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan produced a lot of mixed feelings while I was reading it. I felt a certain sympathy for the characters; the mothers for what they went through in China, and the Daughters for the way they struggled between their mothers’ Chinese cultural background and the persuasive American culture they grew up in. However, I did not feel entirely convinced by the relationships between the mothers and their Daughters – it just didn’t quite seem real to me. I found myself becoming confused from very early on in the novel and ended up taking notes on each of the chapters so I could remember the stories that each character tells and what happens, and I found myself constantly referring back to these notes with each new chapter. I just couldn’t tell the characters apart well enough to remember the different characters sub-plots.
However, saying all this, I did find it an interesting read, reading about traditional Chinese culture and trying to understand things from their point of view (which in the odd chapter I almost did understand). The stories that were told about the mothers and what they experienced in China before moving to America were fascinating and has made me want to learn more about the Chinese culture.
So, a mixed review really. Excellent at telling old Chinese tales, but not so good at portraying character relationships.
A review in the Weekend Australian of Don Paterson’s new collection of poems (written by Robert Gray) has drawn me back to his earlier works, in particular the afterword for his translations of the Sonnets of Orpheus by Rainer Maria Rilke, simply called Orpheus.
Probably I should be talking about the poems but it is the Afterword which in this case most grabs me. Paterson finds himself ‘dismayed to discover the Sonnet’s recent recruitment to the cause of “spiritual literature”’. He believes that the Sonnets are ‘a strongly non-religious work, and easily capable of an anti-religious interpretation.’
Casually reading the slim volume late at night in my bed I stumble upon this paragraph:
‘The two principal religious errors seem to me beautifully refuted in the Sonnets. The first is to think of truth as being in the possession of an inscrutable third party, whose knowledge and intentions can only be divined. However, we are all the thinking that matter is doing in this part of the universe. If the universe has an eye, it sees only through the eyes on this Earth and elsewhere; if a mind it thinks only in these minds …
‘The second error is to think of an afterlife or any reincarnation we are bound for as more extraordinary than finding ourselves here in the first place. This projection of ourselves into a future beyond our deaths warps our actions in, and therefore our sense of responsibility to, the here and now – as well as our negotiations with the real beings with whom we share and to whom we will bequeath a home … This, in a perfectly straightforward sense, is already life after death, as remarkably so as any “you” you might wake as in the future. Factor out the illusion of the unitary self – being a phantom centre created by an evolutionary necessity – and its back-formations of ego and soul, and being here once is the identically equivalent miracle to being here again.’
Suddenly I’m sitting up, wide awake. What Paterson articulates so concisely is something I encounter every time my mind comes awake for long enough to notice where it is I am: that this is all there is, here, in this moment. That this person I’m with, this weather we’re having, this room we’re in, or this mountain that we’re on, is, in fact, the moment, for all its unsatisfactoriness, equal in intensity and possibility to every other moment. The quality of attention which I bring to where I am is the governing factor controlling how important it is, not some external force.
It shouldn’t, I guess, surprise me to find such acuity in Paterson. He is the poet who, apart from writing his own poems, also translated the poetry of the Spaniard Antonio Machado, producing the book The Eyes.
In the Afterword to that collection, speaking of translation, he wrote:
‘These poems are versions, not translations. A reader looking for an accurate translation of Antonio Merchado’s words, then, should stop here and go out and buy another book – probably Alan Trueblood’s Antonio Machado: Selected Poems, which although it isn’t poetry, at least gives a more reliable reflection of the surface of Machado’s verse. Poems, though, are considerably more than the agglomerated meaning of their words, and in writing these versions I initially tried to be true to a poem’s argument and to its vision … This quickly became the more familiar project of trying to make a musical and argumentative unity of the material at hand, and this consideration, in overriding all others, led to mangling, shifts of emphasis, omission, deliberate mistranslantion, the conflation of different poems, the insertion of whole new lines and on a few occasions the writing of entirely new poems. In the end it became about nothing more than a commitment to a process – what Machado everywhere refers to as “the road”’.
I must off to the bookstore to buy this new collection, entitled Rain. Gray quotes several of the poems in his review. This one caught my attention, from ‘Phantom’:
We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank By Modest Mouse 
If the above sounds like a slam, this is actually one of the best books that I’ve read in quite a while, and I have a hard time imagining that there will be many other books published that can compete with this one in evoking the essential spirit of growing up in the second half of the twentieth century. Though I’m much younger than the author, I think he captured something essential about trying to survive and find yourself in a world both so permissive and so difficult and hostile. I like how he appreciated both classical and rock music in a similar way, on its own merits.
on bicycling or cooking. We’ve even got booklists that suggest the perfect books for the winter months. And don’t forget to take a look at our booklists for teens and kids as well!
