Posts about books

Apr32011

“The Book I’m Not Reading is Riveting” – Patty Larkin

As I prepare for another move, it’s time once again to sort, pack, and hopefully reduce the library. It’s that last bit that’s hard. I own a lot of books. Two liberal arts degrees and a lifetime of reading adds up. I have antique reference books, highlighted textbooks, first edition Margaret Atwoods, tacky paperbacks, graphic novels, loose comics, and everything in between.

I have a whole shelf of loaners that need to get read and go home; and another of blank journals that I may never fill (having long ago succumbed to typing everything in). While it has been suggested that much of this content could be transferred to the Kindle, and my inner minimalist does like that idea, I struggle with disposing of books, particularly those I may never read.

Is there anything sadder than an unread book? Probably not for its author. Just writing two practice books I could not publish was a little heartbreaking. Publishing and having your book flop must be doubly so. This touches on why we write, or at least why I write: which is to share and connect. You do a very private body of work when writing, then share it with people in the hope they’ll read, enjoy, and respond by wanting more.

Even a textbook contributor wants her book read. Every review, negative or positive, must sting or lift, especially until you’re sure you have an audience. That makes every unread book on my shelf something of a promise: a commitment on my part to connect with that author. Dead or alive, they put something out there for me to read; and at some point I had a reason to read it. Maybe someone gifted it to me. Perhaps a professor was trying to instill some knowledge, or on a whim I thought the cover was well designed. So I’m packing up the unread books and bringing them along where they will rest on their shelf as I whittle down their numbers and they get replenished.

Apr72009

The Question of Veterans – David’s Review of The Steel Remains

There is a question that societies and empires must deal with when wars end: what to do with the displaced veterans. Often they return home as heroes, but that can fade. Just as often, they are left on society’s borders, dejected, with lethal combat skills. How do heroes protect a society that despises them? Do they even know why? How do they live peacefully when killing is all they’re good at? Richard K. Morgan’s the Steel Remains asks these questions brutally, with a challenging approach to adult material. Let me start by saying that is one is most definitely not young adult. It’s full on adult. Rated R adult. In some places it might be NC-17, but that’s a whole other debate that I’m not here for.

Let me also say that I’m not here to discuss “writing the other.” More influential bloggers and accomplished writers have discussed this in depth, to strong effect. There’s a lot of discussion swirling around this book’s main protagonist and since we find out he’s homosexual in the first few pages, I won’t consider telling you this a spoiler. He’s certainly a type we don’t see much in fantasy where homosexual men are portrayed as effeminate bards or predatory pederasts. A lot of the content surrounding the main protagonists is a challenging read, which seems to be Morgan’s main point: the book has been lauded for challenging fantasy conventions, but I found its plot to be comfortably familiar. There’s even a bit of deus ex machina at work as gods move their chess pieces about. It uses a lot of the regular trappings of fantasy: dual knife wielding dark “elves,” mysterious, miraculous blades with great names, religious zealots, other worlds or states of being reached through magic, and accomplished heroes. These elements get woven into a more embittered world, where good and evil don’t exist. Everything, and everyone, has a shade of gray to them. Slavery, drug use, hedonistic sexuality, and language I would not use on a regular basis are all on full display. The world is still reeling from a war, and in this the protagonists stumble. The world itself is a good one, well worth a side trip, but I’m not sure I’m ready to spend a full series there.

The ultimate question is of course, is the Steel Remains a good book? The story had me gripped at points, but the clear, open-ended threads left dangling signaled a trilogy or series. After Robert Jordan, I’m a little nervous about loose threads. A lot of build up was done without a payoff. Some important events were told and not shown. There are a few good twists, so the plot carried me, but I had a hard time accepting the characters’ motivations. I like what Morgan is trying to do, which is stretch the genre, but I think that aside from a few adult trappings, the book fails to do anything new.

Sep122007

It Broke My Heart: David’s Response to Everything is Illuminated

It’s my goal in the next twelve months to catch up on all of the great books I’ve missed in the last few years while I was focusing solely on reading for my education. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve learned a lot by reading classics and books on writing. I’ve even managed to slip in the occasional young adult novel or fantasy epic in order to keep current with the trends, but the extraordinary amount of time it takes to really read what’s good and bad out there just hasn’t been available.

I took time out this week to read Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything is Illuminated. It’s another wonderful book I wish I’d read years ago. Aside from being the most playful with language and style that I’ve seen in a long while, it’s also the most beautifully written. It’s brief and easily digested in small chapters and I quickly found myself pulling it out of my bag whenever I had ten minutes at the bus stop or five minutes in line at the bank.

What worked for me was the development of character. I really don’t want to ruin anything for you but the characters take their time to reveal their secrets and while you’re waiting on them to give up the goods, you get taken for a ride in the whirlpool history of the fictional village around which everything is centered.

The style is extremely original and you find yourself having to backtrack often as one character edits the writings of another. It’s a bit like As I Lay Dying, which I hate, but without the incredible misery of Faulkner’s classic. Everything made me cry, certainly, but it made me laugh quite a bit too and it’s been a while since a book did that for me.

My critical piece on it will be up on my main site shortly if you’d like a deeper analysis with a bit more fancy vocabulary.

What didn’t work for me: Well, absolutely nothing.

I love this book. It is one of my favorites: instantly and completely. I hope to write a book half this good by the time I die.