Field Notes on Science and Nature

Field Notes on Science and Nature would quite possibly be my ultimate coffee table book. And regular reading, too, but look at those pictures.

A Game of Spoilers

Also from the New York Magazine blog!

Game of Thrones Recap: A Newbie and a Superfan Debate That Huge Thing That Happened.

Game of Thrones (which sounds better than the official title of the series, The Song of Ice and Fire) has been adapted to an HBO show. It's doing rather well, with most of it being pretty spot-on, summarizing what needs summarizing and adding things in order to cut out vast swaths of pages. And if it's confusing, that's okay: the books are confusing, too, and I swear you're getting a simplified version with the show.

The part where Game of Thrones gets good is A Huge Thing That Happens that turns the genre standard on its ear and lets you know you don't know how this particular story goes. It's Huge. Absolutely HUGE, and until last Saturday everyone who'd already read the books were squirming in their seats, waiting for the newbies to the series to finally see that Huge Thing which makes most followers of the books such devoted fans. And it's been awesome to sit back and watch people toss out their theories while knowing what's going to happen.

The best comparison I can come up with is the big reveal at the end of The Empire Strikes Back when Darth Vader revealed he was Luke's father. I didn't see the trilogy until I was about fourteen or fifteen - Lucas had just rereleased VHS tapes with the original movie. My brother had gotten them for Christmas, so that afternoon we were holed up in the basement, spellbound. He'd seen the movies way back in the day. I knew what was going to happen, but I still loved every second.

In the age of the internet, you can get spoiled for just about anything. There's simply too much to keep under wraps: casting calls, scripts, reviews, reports. Writers sometimes put out fake copies of scripts for big finales just to throw people off the trail. It's always out there, being tempting. Sometimes you get tempted and go looking, and other times a random comment on someone's blog or journal just surprises you and you find out who killed Lilly Kane before you can see the damn episode not that I'm bitter or anything. While it would've been better not to know, I think, it was still interesting to watch the last few episodes.

And that's why I reread books, really. Because the second time around you can catch lots of little details you didn't the first time, and if you're the type of person to get emotionally invested in a story, you still get hit hard. (I required Kleenex at the end of episode nine of Game of Thrones. I admit it.) Getting spoiled isn't super awesome, but it's not the end of the world. It makes me sad when people refuse to watch The Usual Suspects just because they know the twist. It's the journey to get there, people!

(Awesome shirt designed by Olly Moss from the Threadless site. I have this t-shirt and I love it.)

Ode to a Four-Letter Word

From the New York Magazine site: Ode to a Four-Letter Word. Starts with F, rhymes with duck.

That word—which appears, like a crude jack-in-the-box, in the last line of every stanza—is why the book works, both creatively and commercially. Yet this popularity was not a foregone conclusion. Like sex, alcohol, nudity, and drugs, swearing sets off the great American seesaw of schoolmarmish horror and schoolyardish glee, and it can be hard to predict whether a writer who curses will wind up exalted or excoriated.

That just seemed like such an apt description. Anyway, food for thought regarding the use of language and the appropriateness of a good cuss word now and again. Words are meant to express concepts, yes?

Throwing Books Out

There's a pile of books in my bedroom. They are mostly books my mother has already read: we both like thrillers and mysteries. She reads a lot faster than I do (mostly because I got hooked on computers and the internet at age fourteen and now only take time to read actual books before I go to bed, but I swear I used to go through them really fast), so this pile of books is ever-growing. It is a backlog. There are many. They are legion.

On my bookshelf, meticulously custom-built by a very handy neighbour to be so shallow as to only hold paperbacks, there are books I have read more than once. I cleaned out a big batch the last time I rearranged my bedroom to only contain multiple read books, but now there are clingers. There are books adding up, getting wedged onto the shelves. I'm really not sure I'll read The Magicians again, but it's on the shelf, stacked on top of two volumes of the Harry Potter series (have read multiple times, will probably read again). Next to that, Library of the Dead is sandwiched between On Stranger Tides* (will definitely read again) and the short story collection Fragile Things (should read again, don't recall what's in it). I don't think I'll bother reading Library of the Dead again, but it's there, cluttering up the works. I do not want to get rid of it. I do not want to get rid of any of the books. I do not want to donate them. I want to horde them forever.

Not all books, mind you. I finished one called Sizzle that I disliked so much I've been stalling on adding it to the 'books read' sidebar over to the right there. I could drop that sucker into a recycling bin, no problem. But MOST books... they linger.

I am reminded I must weed by a post by someone named Tom O'Hare in Brutish & Short, found while I rummaged about the interwebs for something to post about.

I realize that I use this weekly space to talk about my personal life too much, and I frankly don’t care. Because today, before I disclose the most wonderful things you missed on the blog this week, I would like to discuss books. And I would particularly like to discuss the newfound joy I feel when I throw books the fuck away.

I can't help it, I enjoy a foul-mouthed discussion. It's funny, read it over, think about the books on your shelf (or piled next to your dresser) and remember:

...Books are just words written on paper. They’re not fundamentally different from blogs or newspapers, except for the fact that both of those media lend themselves quite a bit more easily to the process of a) consumption and b) immediate disregard. In other words, you buy a book and you’re expected to keep it. Even after it’s gotten all of the use it’s ever going to get, you’re expected to keep it. Display it. Put it on your bookshelves and watch the gawkers gawk. Even if 90+% of those books will never be touched again, we feel a compulsion to hold onto them. To forefront them. To amass them, even though nobody will ever read them again.

* On Stranger Tides has nothing to do with the Pirates of the Caribbean movie that recently came out. Or, I suppose, very little to do with said movie. They bought the license essentially because the book and the movie shared two plot points: Blackbeard and the fountain of youth, and I guess they were trying to cover their asses or something. But anyway, read On Stranger Tides, because it is a wonderful book and I quite like Tim Powers.

The Girl With the Bad Cover of The Immigrant Song

I have a problem with Hollywood's remake of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo movie:




WHY DID YOU MESS WITH THE IMMIGRANT SONG? Karen O, I expected better from you. Insert commentary on Hollywood remaking movies it doesn't need to remake subtitles book adaptations blah blah blah here. Don't mess with Zeppelin.

Diane Duane on Darkness in Teen Literature

From the sounds of it, this whole Wall Street Journal 'teen literature is too dark' thing is really getting talked about, at least in some circles. To the point where people are getting sick of it!

Anyway, Diane Duane (a YA author) has this to say on the subject:

What I found while doing one-to-one therapy with adolescent patients is that to successfully start working through their problems, what they initially needed more than anything else was confirmation and acknowledgement from those around them that the problems existed in the first place – that they weren’t unique or alone in their situation, that other people knew about it and that it was real. Books dealing with the problem in question were and are often a useful tool to help that acknowledgement get started, and even (in some cases) in getting a patient past their own denial that they had any such difficulty at all.

When I was practicing, such books were often painfully dry and didactic, and I wish there’d been more young adult fiction available on such subjects… for fiction (especially when done well) tends to lecture less than nonfiction and is more likely to be successfully internalized because you’re hearing, not a dry recitation of fact, but someone’s voice. Young adult novels that deal honestly with such issues unquestionably have value for teens groping their way toward understanding of how to tackle their problems. They invite them into the dialogue: they make the troubled teen part of the solution. And at the very least, they let their readers know that they’re not alone. There are times when that knowledge is enough to mean the difference between life and death. Here, without any doubt whatever, YA really does save.

What a gigantic quote. She has a lot more to say, too, if you care to follow the link. Again (I feel like I say this every time the subject comes up), the sense of feeling alone is a big problem for kids, or even for grown-ups, and having a book that makes someone feel less alone is often helpful.

Wall Street Journal Young Adult Literature Faceoff

Meghan Cox Gurdon wrote an article about how dark young adult (YA) fiction is for the Wall Street Journal. It has some pretty loaded language about censorship/banning:

In the book trade, this is known as "banning." In the parenting trade, however, we call this "judgment" or "taste."

I was chatting with a friend who works as a librarian at a high school.

Me: "While I understand censorship is not fundamentally bad, man, what an asshole way to phrase it."

My friend: "See, there's no objection by anybody to a parent making decisions about what their individual kids read. It's when they try to say what ALL kids should read that the asshole comes out."

The comments section of the article is a pretty interesting read, too, including this bit that just makes me wince:

"Young Adult" fiction is hack-work, ground out to a publisher's guidelines. Read, and give, real literature. It doesn't come in categories. For a 13 year old: Dickens's "A Tale of Two Cities", with character development, good and evil, moral complexity, sentiment and love... There is lot's more, a library-full. Supernatural? The Turn of the Screw. Horror? Poe. She is the right age for Anne Frank's Diary (not some pathetic Judy Blume imitation).

A good rule of thumb: Nothing less than 100 years old (I broke that rule with Anne Frank). Classics are classics because they have passed the test of time. There are more recent works of merit, but you have to separate them from mounds of trash.

Why would teenagers want to read about people their own age experiencing lives they can relate to? CRAZY TALK. It's like forcing everyone to wear hiking boots. Yes, they're very practical and sturdy, but you're not always hiking and sometimes you want a shoe you can dance in. You may not need the shoes, but you enjoy them.

I can't believe I just used shoes as an example. SHOES. I feel like I need to go do kung fu and weld now to make up for it*. Ugh. But first, a response to the Wall Street Journal article: Positive Messages in YA. Also worth reading, Should Young Adult Books Explore Difficult Issues? from Christopher Farley at Speakeasy:

...Books such as “The Catcher in the Rye” which seemed radical in some ways for their times now just seem honest and traditional. Books that some critics once considered pathological or antisocial or worse are now commonly considered classics, such as “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” “The Chocolate War,” “Flowers for Algernon,” “1984,” and “The Lorax.”

Contemporary books such as Walter Dean Myers’ “Monster” (which deals with murder and imprisonment), Marjane Satrapi’s “Persepolis” (religion and revolution), Laurie Halse Anderson’s “Speak” (rape and depression), and the works of M.T. Anderson (racism, consumerism, and too many other things to list) may reap similar acclaim from future readers.

The worst pathological books will fade away with childhood. The best will live on and become permanent parts of the landscape of adolescence. I’m now going to let my son watch all the news he wants (within reason) and to read YA fiction to his heart’s content (as long as my wife agrees too). I’ll just be there to talk it over with him.

* I'm crossing my fingers that I can sub in my welding courses for my general elective. I'd rather have the free time to work on other things, and if the purpose of GenEd courses is to be well rounded, how do you get more well-rounded than a welding librarian? I don't know, if I was in a post-apocalyptic situation I'd want the person who could weld in my bunker, not the one that took the wine-tasting course. But that's just me, I like to justify things by how useful they would be in an apocalypse or zombie outbreak. Best incentive for exercising I've ever found.

That is Exactly How Books Work

As seen on Closed Stacks:

Though it's sort of weird that the file name categorizes it as a demotivational poster, when it's anything but.

Buttersafe: How Not to Use a Thesaurus

Oh, Buttersafe. You so crazy.

Smelling Books, Part 47

From the folks over at Green Apple Books, another note about my old semi-nemesis, "old book smell":

"Lignin, the stuff that prevents all trees from adopting the weeping habit, is a polymer made up of units that are closely related to vanillin. When made into paper and stored for years, it breaks down and smells good. Which is how divine providence has arranged for secondhand bookstores to smell like good quality vanilla absolute, subliminally stoking a hunger for knowledge in all of us."

- From Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez's Perfumes: the guide.

Go check out the rest of the blog, too. It is a source of good things. Alex, you might enjoy Dog Ear. I really want to get my hands on Press Here, a kid's book that sounds pretty ingenious.

My First Dictionary

Today's loosely library related link is My First Dictionary, which makes me laugh because I am just that kind of person. It looks a lot like the simple dictionary I had as a kid which had illustrations demonstrating the meaning of words. The format is similar, but the content is not.

As you can see, the font on the images is pretty large, so maybe don't look at the site with someone looking over your shoulder who might be offended by terms like 'dead hookers'.

Anyone in New York Wanna Do Me a Favour?

The New York Public Library's 100th anniversary is coming up, so they're giving out a free book with pieces from '100 icons' from New York and around the world's favourite part of the NYPL's collection. It's just such a wonderful building, and while I don't care what Johnathan Franzen thinks (nor do I think he is an icon), I am curious as to what the Trinity Killer* has to say. You can read more about it on the library's website. Free is very affordable.


* John Lithgow is no longer the silly alien from 3rd Rock from the Sun. He is now the Trinity Killer in my mind.

If anyone looks at you funny for having this on your screen, just tell them the Trinity Killer kills... jam. Yes, jam.

Happy Foot, Sad Foot

From From Salon: How a podiatrist sign became a literary icon.

F. Scott Fitzgerald's generation had its green light at the end of the dock in "The Great Gatsby," that symbol of unattainable dreams, and today's young literati have -- a podiatrist's sign?

The sign for the Sunset Foot Clinic on West Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles is known to some locals as a kind of fortuneteller. On one side is depicted a foot with a woeful face, a bandaged big toe and crutches, while the other side shows an ecstatic foot in gloves and sneakers giving the thumbs-up sign. (Yes, these feet have both arms and legs.) When the sign is working, it rotates, and several residents of the nearby Silver Lake and Echo Park neighborhoods believe that whichever side they see first indicates what sort of day awaits them. Others use the sign as a guide: If they see the Happy Foot, they get to do something fun, while the Sad Foot condemns them to an afternoon of chores.

Just kind of funny. Though thinking of The Great Gatsby and signs, I make an mental link to the blue and gigantic eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleberg and their yard-high retinas and of some mistake involving use of the word 'retinas' I read about when I was studying the book in high school, which was over a decade ago. I imagine I can be excused for my memory lapse. Fun fact.

A Publisher's Postbag in Pictures

From guardian.co.uk:

During his 30-year career as a children's book publisher, Klaus Flugge received almost 100 beautifully illustrated envelopes by artists including Posy Simmonds, Tony Ross and Axel Scheffler. Here he introduces some of his favourites.

Reading the Cereal Box

Puffin has had a brilliant idea: publishing excerpts from Roald Dahl books on cereal boxes. Just good bits to draw them into the story! Maybe that'll get kids to want to read. And maybe it'll sell more books for Puffin, but let's concentrate on that 'kids reading' aspect, shall we?

Page 99 Test

Via The High Definite, the Page 99 Test. Based on the Ford Madox Ford quote, "Open the book to page ninety-nine and read, and the quality of the whole will be revealed to you," this website provides the 99th pages of various published and unpublished authors.

Until today I had never heard of neither the 99th page rule nor Ford Madox Ford, who has an awesome name.

The Hobbit vs. Where the Wild Things Are

Once upon a time, back when the 30th anniversary edition of The Hobbit was planned, Maurice Sendak of Where the Wild Things Are fame was asked to illustrate Tolkien's work. It did not work out due to a couple of bits of bad luck.

I wish it had happened; the illustration shown in the article looks wonderful.

HarperCollins, Big Tent Librarianship, Annoyed Librarian and Agnostic, Maybe

Now that you're familiar with the term 'big tent librarianship', here is an article by Andy from Agnostic Maybe entitled HarperCollins and Big-Tent Librarianship in which he discusses an Annoyed Librarian post about Public Library Privilege. Compare and contrast!

More on Amanda Hocking

More news concerning Amanda Hocking, discussed in the blog post Ebook Millionaire: she has signed with St. Martin's Press.

“I’ve done as much with self-publishing as any person can do,” Ms. Hocking said in an interview on Thursday. “People have bad things to say about publishers, but I think they still have services, and I want to see what they are. And if they end up not being any good, I don’t have to keep using them. But I do think they have something to offer.”

Are Book Genres Being Replaced by Tags?

From io9: Are book genres being replaced by tags? Eric Rosenfield debates whether or not standard genres like 'fantasy' and 'sci fi' (and, one assumes, 'romance') can still be used to classify books when books have been splintered into tiny little niches that potentially cross over into multiple designations. Have an excerpt:

The thing is though, the handful of categories that fiction is still sold under-as classified on Barnes and Noble.com, "Fiction & Literature", "Mystery & Crime", "Science Fiction & Fantasy", "Teens", "Romance", "Horror", "Thrillers", "Westerns" (and lumped in is Poetry which is not fiction, and Graphic Novels which are another medium altogether)-are accidents of history and technology, and even these clear demarkations are of recent vintage; bookstores did not even have separate science fiction, mystery or romance sections until the 1980s or so, and books specifically marketed to niche groups were relegated primarily to book clubs, mail order, specialty stores, and if one was lucky, newsstands, all except the latter being where the modern genre categories really emerged after the implosion of the pulp magazine markets in the 1940s and of the bulk of the science fiction magazines in the 50s. And yet we now take these categories for granted and talk about "transcending" them as if they had such impenetrable physical form that they can only be passed over metaphysically.

The world that gave rise to these categories is fading rapidly into nonexistence. The new bookstores are not circumscribed by retail space, they're the limitless possibilities of a search box. We live in a world in which most any book you can think of can be downloaded to your home, and where anyone with an Internet connection can fill a blog with reviews, interviews, news items, and free-form ramblings about whatever she thinks is important. That is a paradigm shift on a level we don't fully understand yet.

I no longer believe we should stop using terms like science fiction and fantasy and so on; those terms can be useful in describing certain things, certain ways of reading. But their status as hard-and-fast slots into which we plug in all of our books is already starting to fade, as the once nebulous megacategory of science fiction and fantasy splinters into steampunk, urban fantasy, paranormal romance and so on, subcategories that once upon a time might have been merely commented on but which because of the 'Net have blossomed into subcultures all their own, distinct and often non-communicating with the groups reading the space opera or sword and sorcery that since Star Wars and the Lord of the Rings have dominated science fiction and fantasy respectively.

It is a big excerpt.