hobbit

The Hobbit: Or There and Back Again was originally published in 1937--seventy-six years ago--yet the story can still delight. Originally written for children; specifically, J.R.R. Tolkien reportedly wrote it for his own children; writing in a style that he felt his children would enjoy. Given the time period, it is not especially surprising that portions of the story where violence comes in, are not watered down as you might see in a more modern 'children's story.'

Image: A ripped off image of the full book jacket artwork. No, I'm not reading a first edition, mine is a reprint from Houghton Mifflin. I'm not sure, but I think its the fourth edition; fifty-ninth printing. hello nerds.

Its clear from the narrative however, that this story is written for children, and there are many nods and side notes given to the reader directly from the narrator. [Speaking directly to the reader is by no means done only in children's stories.] Alexandre Dumas, I'm looking at you.

And just like Dumas, Tolkien tells his readers things like; "Now if you wish, like the dwarves, to hear news of Smaug, you must go back again to the evening when he smashed the door and flew off in a rage, two days before." So begins chapter 14, in case you were wondering what that nasty worm had gotten up to. This type of dialog with the reader, doesn't show up in The Lord of the Rings, unless perhaps in the prologue. I guess I'll have to read it again.

So... Our hobbit, Bilbo Baggins, goes on a journey--accompanied by a baker's dozen of dwarves and a pro tem wizard--only to find that he will end up going further than ever the Lonely Mountain, or a pile of dragon gold, could ever take him. His adventures not only reform his demeanor, confidence and bravado, but will eventually reform Middle Earth itself. Bilbo grows from burden, to companion, to asset, to confidant, and eventually to leader, conscience and friend to the dwarves.

This is a wonderful story to read to younger children, or give to older children to read on their own. Tolkien very consciously avoids talking down to children, dumbing down the story, or flowering up the 'truth' of the story, as he sees it.

You may have heard that Peter Jackson and Co. has made a little film adaptation of this book, and will be rolling it out in three rather than the originally discussed, two episodes. I won't get into the movie here, but you can clickedy on over here to see it lamb basted by Noah Berlatsky for The Atlantic.

Get yourself a copy of The Hobbit and read it. If you have the chance, read it to child. sing the songs! I would look for the hardcover version: the maps are printed on the end papers, and the illustrations are by Tolkien himself. Tolkien has a great hand for stylized landscapes.

Not convinced? Okay, here's my Hobbit story. The Hobbit was assigned reading in my 8th grade English class. In the 8th grade, I was not a reader. The teacher sometimes read aloud in class, we had quizzes, which I tried to complete, but failed; but I found that as I read the questions on the quizzes, and eventually the final test, I still didn't know the answers. But I wanted to. I 'borrowed' my copy of the book at the end of the year, and read it over the summer! The Hobbit helped make me a reader.

Yeah, Read this book. smoke a pipe, drink some ale!

heart of the sea

In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex is Nathaniel Philbrick's re-telling of an infamous Nantucket whaling story, which formed the basis, or at least the germ, of Herman Melville's Moby Dick.

Philbrick is a native Nantucketer, and has made an effort to bring together the various stories of the Essex that have been told and published over the years--some by the very survivors of the tragedy--analyze, cross reference and fact check them, and then research the story and its setting, to compile a more complete and accurate narrative of the event, its making and its aftermath.

One of Philbrick's early indicators that not everything was being told, was the obvious contradictions between two eyewitness accounts of the tragedy, and the aftermath. After a little study, it became clear that the authors, in each case, simply left out some of the details that they felt may have placed them in a negative light. History is written by the victors*, and all that, right?

So Philbrick has woven the various stories together, and infilled some of the blanks in the narrative with research. The result is a very compelling story of survival and commentary on the accidents that can sometimes occur in nature, and what man does in the face of them.

Philbrick also gives a succinct, yet complete description of the techniques and tools used in whaling, the attitudes of the men involved--from the ship owners and townspeople, to the captains and mates, right down to the seaman, who were often taken advantage of in the whole venture. Philbrick asks hard questions, such as, why is it that the first men to die were black?

His follow up on the survivors, even late into their lives made for an interesting ending to the story, woven in with the end of whaling as a major industry after oil was discovered in Pennsylvania.

On the whole, a more enjoyable, informative and exciting book than Moby Dick. But then, it may just be my modern shortened attention spans talking there.

* Attributed to Winston Churchill, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Alex Haley by various sources. I love you internet.

jefferson key

Cotton Malone is back in action. Malone returns in The Jefferson Key;  the seventh installment of this retired agent from the super-secret Magellan Billet, within the Justice Department, from author, Steve Berry.

Malone got out of the spy business, after it ruined his personal life and nearly killed him on various occasions. Now he is officially retired, though only fifty or so, and he lives in a quiet, northern European city, where he owns a bookstore.

Even though he retired from an American agency, in the past, Malone's adventures have been mainly outside the US, often times assisted by a few close European ties, with an occasional help from his friend, the President of the United States. But in The Jefferson Key, the action takes place mainly in America, and in close association with the president and white house staff. The adversary, in this case, is a secretive privateering organization, which has been plying the waters--and more recently, the world financial network--based on a Letter of Marque granted to their ancestors by George Washington.

Berry flexes his history muscles in this one, as he has in the past, and Cotton Malone and friends are soon tied up in a historical Gordian Knot, which they need to unravel in order to prevent catastrophe. The historical puzzle has a familiar characteristics: it involves the secret plans of some of the founding fathers, lost or hidden documents, secret codes and puzzles, and clues which may lie right under our noses, in plain sight! yeah, where have we seen that before

It was a fun romp nonetheless. I think I missed a few of Berry's books since the last one I read, The Charlemagne Pursuit, which I didn't like very much so I'll have to look for them at the library.

once and future king

The Once and Future King is T.H. White’s famous retelling of the King Arthur story; a story which grows up with Arthur along the way. The books is actually four stories (or books) in one; each about a different time period in the legendary king's life. The first story: The Sword in the Stone is about how Arthur grew up and was educated by Merlyn in the countryside of England, and is much more fanciful and magical than the later stories. In fact, White makes a point of discussing how the magic that existed in Arthur's youth wanes as he gets older. There just aren't as many dragons and unicorns around any more.

The Sword in the Stone was first published in 1938. Disney made an animated version of this story in 1963. yeah, 50 years ago I remember seeing this movie in the theater with my dad. It must have been a birthday or something, and the movie must have been re-released because this would have been in the early to mid-seventies.

The Queen of Air and Darkness was published the following year, 1964, and was also published separately, and in a slightly different form, according to Wikipedia, as The Witch in the Wood. This is not a long story, and tells mainly of the three sisters Mogan le Fay, Morgause, and Elaine, daughters of the Earl of Cornwall, Gorlois and his wife Igraine. White tells us that Uther Pendragon wanted Igraine for himself and besieged and eventually killed the Earl and then married his widow. Uther's step-daughters were not happy about this and the feud continues on into Arthur's reign.


The Ill-Made Knight,  is the longest book and focuses mainly on Sir Lancelot, and his relationship with Arthur and Arthur's queen, Guenivere. I enjoyed this story very much, especially the complex love triangle these three form, that eventually lasts their entire lives. White's treatment of these characters is very modern, and the story of their mutual love is both complex and subtle. White turns these three legendary characters into real people. Guenivere, for example, is called, alternatively, Gwen and sometimes simply Jenny, by the men who love her.

The Candle in the Wind was first published in the composite edition in 1958. Its a kind of swan song, lets-wrap-things-up kind-of story. I can imagine this short story/novella being written to satisfy an audience who may have felt that things hadn't been completely wrapped up. I guess this story sort of fits the bill, but then White came back in the end and added one more story, published separately entitled: The Book of Merlyn. Many regard this as part of The Once and Future King series.

All through the stories White refers to Mallory as the go to source for much of his own information, and tells readers they can consult with Mallory themselves, if they would like additional information, which White may have left our of the story; considering said information to be be perhaps, too dull for his more modern readers. White is clearly a fan however, and even gives Mallory a final nod within the text of The Candle in the Wind.

Seems like the go to book for King Arthur, but there are lots to choose from! It was pretty good.

amber ii

The Great Book of Amber is a FAT book, boy. 10 books; 1258 pages. As I speculated in my earlier review of the first five books in this tome, the second five books were also episodic in nature and focused around a different character than the first five.

I found this map online. Looks French but I couldn't trace its origins.

Roger Zelazny did a good job on the second group of books as well, weaving another complex and character driven epic about good vs. evil, with an original take that both leaned on the first five stories and departed from them as well. Zelazny has produced two, compelling and exciting stories from the same Amber universe, without any warming-over of the storylines. Nicely done.

Some of the larger mysteries from the first five-book tale, were explained in the second, but not all of the explanations were great. Some mysteries are better left as a mystery, in my opinion. I'm not saying that Zelazny's explanations of some of the larger forces in Amber are quite as bad as the Midi-chlorians, but the fact that it reminds me of George Lucas's less-than-excellent explanation of the Force, should give you an idea how I felt when reading the last five books of Amber at certain points.

Zelazny took a break between the first and last five books of about 7 years; the last five were written between 1985 and 1991. In between, he wrote the Changeling Saga, which consisted of two books. Zelazny won a bunch of awards for his writing,--Hugos, Nebulas, etc.--and he wrote a lot of science fiction and fantasy stuff, so there is a lot out there to read, from 7 short stories based in the Amber universe, to posthumous publications of some of his earlier, unpublished works. According to Wikipedia, Zelazny died in 1995.

The Chronicles of Amber currently ranks 28th on the BestFantasyBooks.com list. But don't listen to them, listen to me.

Read this book.

feile na marbh

The fire of autumn,
Raging against lapis skies,
Drains to brown under ashen mist
-- And dies.

The trees slough their reptile skins,
Leaving only tatters and bits.
Clinging; twisting in desperate throes
-- Then fly.

Only the bones remain,
Stripped bare to rub and crack.
Consecrated offerings for Samhain,
Scoured by gray winds.

Quiet now but for the rustle
Of dead skin and broken bone.
Frost and Decay worry and wrestle,
Devour the remains and spit the seeds.

The pines stand in vigil silence
Aside their sleeping brothers,
Brandishing green standards of defiance;
Sentinels in forlorn fields of bone.

ebook library?

Lovers of traditional bound books go on about the look, feel, even the aroma of books. The very physicality of them is both pleasing and comforting to traditionalists. But the difference between books and eBooks goes beyond their look, feel and reader interface.

Image: Ed Stein, Rocky Mountain News. Used without permission.

Once a text is unbound, its clearly easier to search, modify, transport, quote, reference, and store; which all seems great for consumer side buy-in. And the buy-in has been tremendous. In early March this year, a Harris Poll found that nearly three in ten Americans (28%) uses an eReader such as the iPad, Kindle or Nook. Up from about 15% the summer before. Yeah, roughly double in about 6 months.

In her recent article for Library Journal, Andromeda Yelton brought up some interesting points about the differences between ebooks and analog, or paper books. you see, right off the bat, I avoided saying 'real' books At issue are the electronic strings attached to these digital texts--strings that lead back to the seller, the publisher, the library... and beyond that, who knows, maybe even the government. She states: "In fact, under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986, the government does not even need a warrant to seize data in the cloud." I just type it, I didn't independently check to see if its true

One of the article's Yelton cites is Alexandra Alter's Wall Street Journal piece; "Your E-Book Is Reading You" That just sounds creepy, but try this on for size. In the first paragraph, Alter drops this one on us, just to get our attention:

"Nearly 18,000 Kindle readers have highlighted the same line from the second [Hunger Games Trilogy] book in the series: "Because sometimes things happen to people and they're not equipped to deal with them."

How does Amazon or Barnes and Noble know these things?

Because your Kindle or Nook told them. But you've already agreed to let them.* I'm pretty sure my books aren't talking to anyone

Non-fiction gets read a little at a time, whereas fiction books are read straight through. Didn't like a book and gave up on it? They know that too, and where you stopped. And don't highlight or bookmark anything if it may embarrass you, 'cause they're keeping track of that too. what if I was doing research? are they copying marginal notes people make? ugh

Interesting, right? But maybe more important is the lack of library in the ebook equation. That's library as an idea I'm talking about now. Library as a repository of ideas, a storehouse of knowledge. I know what you're thinking, electronic data is easier to keep, maintain, access, search, add meta-data to, sure, I hear you, but that's not what's going on with ebooks right now. They just sit out there in the cloud, and libraries--public or private--just have access to them.

According to Amazon, the Kindle 3 holds about 4 gig, which translates to about 3500 books, but if you start getting close to 1000, the performance starts to suffer. Sounds like a lot, but I've owned more books than that in my life, and I'm sure my public library is holding something like 100,000 volumes; and none of them is an ebook.

Barbara Fister who writes the Library Babel Fish blog on Inside Higher Ed, explains the problem with not having your data on hand this way: "materials that were publicly available in a pre-web state tended to evade notice; web access is wonderful, but it exposes things." And exposure makes folks nervous, and nervous folks tend to block access. When libraries had all of their material sitting on the shelves, your access, as a patron of the library, was limited only to the operating hours of the library building. I know: its so... analog. And the internet is always open, right?

Wrong. In fact, Fister's titled her blog entry: "The Library Vanishes - Again."

Relying on the internet, the Cloud, or some other off-site-and-out-of-your-control server farm to store your data is not what public libraries are traditionally built on. Preservation of data is also a hallmark of public library service. And how do you preserve data that you don't physically have?

In a blog post last Monday at the newly formed Digital Public Library of America, Carly Boxer summarizes the issue this way: "what happens if our desire to access digital records outlives the financial viability of the company storing them?" In fact, her piece is driven by fears which arose in the wake of superstorm Sandy, citing this horrifying example: the Eyebeam Center for Art and Technology in New York, which stores digital artworks, was flooded during Hurricane Sandy, and much of their digital archive was damaged and is now undergoing an emergency preservation and restoration process.

Its a little clunky, and definitely old-fashioned, but the way libraries have traditionally stored and preserved hard copies helped to defend against this type of threat. But library buildings are like any other building and they can also be flooded, burned, and knocked down, but the beauty in the system is redundancy. Lots of little libraries have similar holdings, and if one library is damaged, many, if not all of the materials reside elsewhere. That, and it takes a lot longer for a book to reach a point when it can't be read any longer. Not so with digital files. Anyone still have their resume from 1995 stored on a floppy disk?

The bottom line is: we're stuck with books; at least some of them. Even if old, out-of-print materials are scanned and digitized, any book or other printed document that has any historic interest or value will still need to be preserved. Its just the way we do.

So I am just a hold out? An older guy who still remembers the look and feel of books from my younger days? A sentimentalist? Yeah, I guess so. And I understand that I (along with folks like me) am not going to stop the influx of eReaders and other digital text advances. Frankly, I don't want to. I just think the jury is out on how we're storing, distributing, and using these technologies. Libraries, thankfully, have our interests at heart, and are helping to lead the charge.

I want to get lost in a book. I love how a good story take us away from where we are, and help us to see things in new and interesting ways. And I don't think John Green is alone in saying: “A novel is a conversation between a reader and a writer.” That's certainly the way I feel about it too, and I'm not ready to have some big tech company or publisher eavesdropping on that conversation, taking notes, and using that information to sell me things.

Feels like a need a shower. that's still private, right? ...amazon?

Update: Check out this chart which provides some info on who's keeping track of your eReading habits and how, thanks to Cindy Cohn and Parker Higgins over at Electronic Frontier Foundation.

* Section 4(a) of the Nook Terms of Use: "Privacy. You agree that we may use, collect and share information in accordance with our Privacy Policy. Without limitation, we will collect, use and/or disclose information regarding you and your use of your NOOK and the Service in order to: (i) provide the Service to you; (ii) permit you to engage in activities that you initiate through the Service, such as purchasing Digital Content and reviewing products; and (iii) analyze, operate, support, maintain and improve your NOOK or the Service. We reserve the right to make changes to our Privacy Policy at any time" 

amber i

The Great Book of Amber includes all ten books, in one giant volume and I've just pounded through the first five. I heard some good things about this book from my brother-in-law and his wife, and I bought a copy for one of my kids last year or the year before for Christmas, and it got no traction. SO... its up to me.

The Chronicles of Amber--as these stories are also collectively known--were written by Roger Zelazny between 1970 and 1991. The fifth book, The Courts of Chaos, which I just finished came out in 1978, so that must have been a long haul for those fans who read this series as it came out. I say that because the first five books are really a continuation of the same story, each book being an episode in the larger tale. I don't know if that will be the case for the second group of books, but it does seem as if I've begun another related story now in the sixth book: The Trumps of Doom.

My first impression was that I was getting into another Narnia-type epic, but it soon became clear that this isn't Narnia. Nor is it The Lord of the Rings, or Harry Potter, or any of a number of other fantasy stories. Its more of a combination of fantasy and science fiction, and its targeted, it seems to me, at an older audience than Harry Potter and The Chronicles of Narnia. There is drinking and smoking on a level with TLOTR but it also includes sex, at least in the abstract, so it probably isn't something you'd want to read to your toddler. It does seem free of foul language however.

So, thus far, Amber is told from the first person POV, by a character that takes a little while to introduce. Zelazny takes his time sketching this protagonist, and eventually he kind of grows on you. It takes a while however, because the main protagonist doesn't tell us everything he knows and is thinking, and when he does tell us, he is sometimes wrong in his assumptions abput what is going on in the larger story. Zelazny uses this technique very effectively to spin a yarn that soon becomes very complex and its clear that a lot of thought and preparation went into this series.

I'm looking forward to what the second half of this tome has to offer.

wakefield

Wakefield is the first I've read of Andrei Codrescu, that burbling-voiced poet of NPR fame, who can turn a phrase and help you to look at life from a new angle, 33.3-degrees away from where you are used to.  Codrescu has a thoughtful and well read (seeming) view of life, and he brings his deep thought and his poetry to Wakefield, in a way that most reminds me of Tom Robbins.

Codrescu is also the founder of "The Exquisite Corpse", and taught literature and poetry at Johns Hopkins University, University of Baltimore, and Louisiana State University where he was MacCurdy Distinguished Professor of English. I understand that he is now retired from professorizing and just does the writing and his NPR gig.

Wakefield is a study of the modern, successful, single man in America. Codrescu's Wakefield seems to float through America--he's almost awash in it, as he moves from place to place, following his job as a speaker. Wakefield seems to think about roots, about anchoring himself somehow, making human connections, but it just seems incompatible with his personality. He seems to know that he might be better for it, but just can bring himself to think about anyone as much as he thinks about himself. But in examining Wakefield, or maybe watching Wakefield examine himself, Codrescu gives us a look at what it is to be a wealthy, single and unattached man, floating about like a bit of fluff.

 Codrescu's language is fun to read; and its clear why he is such a force on the radio, from little bits like: "Zamyatin laughs his smoky laugh that sounds like marbles in a tin box." to pure poetry in prose form, as in this riff on a desert Indian casino:

"No one is alive here; he is surrounded by ghosts. Does it matter to anyone that eagles were once sacred? Or even that they once certified real value on gold dollars? Now they are plaster, money is dust, the Indians are smoke, and pain floats about touching maimed bodies, squeezing as hard as it can, without effect. People scream in pantomime, holding whiskey and pretending to drink, laying down fake money, shaking cups full of confetti; their corpses are carried out and more are brought in by tall, thin shadows."

That's pretty awesome. did you read it with a romanian accent?

Wakefield's relationship to the Devil, see him peeking at us on the cover? may be his most powerful connection, with the possible exception of his one friend, Zamyatin. The Devil seems, indeed, to be Wakefield's own, personal demon. And his deal with the Devil, a deal with himself. What else would we expect from so inwardly looking a man.

Read this book.