The Book: E. L. Doctorow, RAGTIME. Bantam Books paperback reprint, 1976 (originally published 1975). Fair condition; spine is badly creased, book is slightly cocked, front and back cover show pocking that may actually be tooth marks (but I don’t want to speculate). An appointment date (“2/17, 11:15”) is written in pen on the first page.
First read: 1981
Owned since: 1983 (best guess)
Ragtime's a musical genre that's hard to define, although you'll recognize it when you hear it: its distinctive feature is a syncopated melody, set against a regular rhythm of bass notes. Rags can be cheerful or melancholy, but they make listeners want to dance or swing to the music -- hence the synonym "swing." Ragtime is the first genuinely American genre of music.
The brass quartet closed out McGill's convocation yesterday with a ragtime tune -- not "The Maple Leaf Rag," which would have been fitting, but another one that seemed just as good. Ragtime's all about taking a break to celebrate and strut, and we could not have been happier for Claire. Congratulations, and let the adventure begin.
Ragtime, the book, is about America at the turn of the last century, when the country shifted whether it wanted to or not. Harry Houdini, Henry Ford, JP Morgan and Emma Goldman have cameo roles here, but the main stories are about two families -- one black, one white -- that are eventually ripped apart by their respective efforts to do what they think is right. It's a gorgeous, dreamlike book, and I also like the movie and musical versions.
Next week's blog will try something new and exciting: a series of visits from guest bloggers, most of whom are author friends of mine with new books out or forthcoming. Please check back daily as the following give their own takes on books that made a difference to them. Here's the schedule:
Monday -- author-editor Laura Benedict, whose first novel, Isabella Moon came out in late September
Tuesday -- author Kevin Wignall, whose latest novel, Who is Conrad Hirst? will be published on that very day
Wednesday -- editor-author Jennifer Jordan, whose anthology Expletive Deleted comes out from Bleak House Books on November 20
Thursday -- author-journalist Tom Ehrenfeld, whose book The Startup Garden is still an essential tool for new entrepreneurs
Friday -- author-journalist Karen Olson, whose latest Annie Seymour mystery, Dead of the Day, was published this week by NAL
I'm excited to read these guest commentaries, and if things go well, I'll probably run another week of guest blog postings in February. If you're interested in participating in a future Guest Blog week, get in touch.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Friday, November 09, 2007
GONE WITH THE WIND by Margaret Mitchell
The Book: Margaret Mitchell, GONE WITH THE WIND. Avon paperback reprint, date unknown; cover has been repaired and reinforced with tape, book is missing title page. Last page of book is torn and a replacement page from another copy is folded inside the back cover. Previous owner’s name (“Bridget Stencil”) written inside front cover.
First read: 1977
Owned since: 1984 (this copy, approximately)
I didn't buy this book; I swiped it off my younger sisters' bookcase sometime during college when I wanted to reread it, and I never gave it back. Susan even asked me if I had it at one point, and I told a bare-faced lie. Sorry about that...
Anyway, it's time for me to buy a new copy, so you can have this back if you want it, Sue.
What can I say about this book that hasn't been said a hundred times? I read it in seventh grade, on the recommendation of my teacher, Mrs. Bortz. My mother said that I should know that the real hero of the book was Melanie, not Scarlett. I have no objectivity on this book, so I can't discuss its literary merit or its political/racial point of view. It's not only a product of its time, it recorded and continues to shape the way the South sees itself. It's a book about resilience and courage and feminine power, and I have no reservations about recommending it to a bright 12-year-old.
In Montreal today, with better things to do than blog. The reading list is short, and I'm not going to apologize; life's crowded these days, and that's a good thing.
Tune in tomorrow, though, for a special announcement about next week's programming.
What I Read This Week
John Kelly, The GREAT MORTALITY: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time. My sister Peggy passed this book along; she knows my weakness. It's exactly what the title says. Kelly traces the progress of Y. pestis from central Asia to Italy, and from there to France, England, Spain and central Europe. Between 1347 and 1351, a third of the population of Europe died -- in some places, the percentage was higher than that. Kelly explores the reasons the plague struck as hard as it did (overpopulation, terrible hygiene, communities weakened by years of famine) and makes the case that, horrible as it was, the labor shortages and relative abundance that followed made the Renaissance possible. It occurred to me, as I read this book, that almost every person of European heritage on the planet is descended from survivors of this plague. So I got that going for me.
First read: 1977
Owned since: 1984 (this copy, approximately)
I didn't buy this book; I swiped it off my younger sisters' bookcase sometime during college when I wanted to reread it, and I never gave it back. Susan even asked me if I had it at one point, and I told a bare-faced lie. Sorry about that...
Anyway, it's time for me to buy a new copy, so you can have this back if you want it, Sue.
What can I say about this book that hasn't been said a hundred times? I read it in seventh grade, on the recommendation of my teacher, Mrs. Bortz. My mother said that I should know that the real hero of the book was Melanie, not Scarlett. I have no objectivity on this book, so I can't discuss its literary merit or its political/racial point of view. It's not only a product of its time, it recorded and continues to shape the way the South sees itself. It's a book about resilience and courage and feminine power, and I have no reservations about recommending it to a bright 12-year-old.
In Montreal today, with better things to do than blog. The reading list is short, and I'm not going to apologize; life's crowded these days, and that's a good thing.
Tune in tomorrow, though, for a special announcement about next week's programming.
What I Read This Week
John Kelly, The GREAT MORTALITY: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time. My sister Peggy passed this book along; she knows my weakness. It's exactly what the title says. Kelly traces the progress of Y. pestis from central Asia to Italy, and from there to France, England, Spain and central Europe. Between 1347 and 1351, a third of the population of Europe died -- in some places, the percentage was higher than that. Kelly explores the reasons the plague struck as hard as it did (overpopulation, terrible hygiene, communities weakened by years of famine) and makes the case that, horrible as it was, the labor shortages and relative abundance that followed made the Renaissance possible. It occurred to me, as I read this book, that almost every person of European heritage on the planet is descended from survivors of this plague. So I got that going for me.
Thursday, November 08, 2007
THE FOXES OF HARROW by Frank Yerby
The Book: Frank Yerby, THE FOXES OF HARROW. The Dial Press, 1946 (first book club edition). Very good book in fair dust jacket; dust jacket is chipped, torn and shows signs of water damage, but colors are bright. Resale price (25 cents) written in pencil on front flyleaf
First read: 1981 (approximately)
Owned since: 1981 (best guess)
Frank Yerby's not even a JEOPARDY! question any more, but he was the first bestselling African-American novelist, and The Foxes of Harrow was the first bestselling novel written by an African-American author. Before he died in 1991, he wrote 33 historical novels, almost all of them bestsellers. Not one of them is in print today.
I didn't know any of this when I picked up this book. I just thought it sounded interesting, and I'd read another book of his (Goat Song, a novel about Sparta) that was exciting and quite racy, by my sheltered teenage standards. I have no memory of buying the book, but I've had it for a very long time.
If you didn't know the author of The Foxes of Harrow was African-American, nothing in the text would reveal it. It is a sweeping epic of the antebellum South, about an Irish gambler who builds a great Louisiana plantation, a family, and a fortune, and sacrifices them all on the altar of the Civil War. It's a pageturner, with murder and adultery and sibling rivalry and lots of great detail about Creole society and the class systems of pre-war Louisiana. It became an Oscar-nominated movie starring Rex Harrison and Maureen O'Hara.
And have you ever heard of it? I bet not, unless you are at least ten years older than I am.
This is the phenomenon I mentioned yesterday. Frank Yerby sold hundreds of thousands of books. He wrote a book a year for decades, and his life's work would take up multiple shelves in a library. But if you want to read one of his books now -- even The Dahomean, the book considered his masterpiece -- you have to go to the library or a used bookstore, or search online for a used copy. Search for "Frank Yerby" on Amazon and the one book that's readily available is a biographical novel about him, published by a vanity press.
Yerby himself is a fascinating character who deserves a real biography. The son of a black father and a white mother in 1920s Georgia, he worked toward a Ph.D. in English and taught at traditionally black colleges before moving to Detroit during the Second World War -- and taking a job in the Dearborn plant of the Ford Motor Company. He left the United States in 1955 to protest racial discrimination -- but wound up in Franco's Spain, a regime most people would consider even more oppressive. His interests were vast, ranging from ancient Sparta to contemporary Central America.
What am I trying to say here? I'm not sure. Should we hang on to The Foxes of Harrow, rather than read this summer's blockbuster? No, not necessarily. I'm just fascinated by this question of what lasts and what doesn't. Today's book has already sunk into obscurity, even though it's similar in quality and subject matter to tomorrow's selection -- a book you've almost certainly read, and a book your children will probably read. What makes the difference?
Off to Montreal today for the weekend -- Claire is graduating, hurray! -- so I'll be scarce for a few days, but posting should continue as normal.
First read: 1981 (approximately)
Owned since: 1981 (best guess)
Frank Yerby's not even a JEOPARDY! question any more, but he was the first bestselling African-American novelist, and The Foxes of Harrow was the first bestselling novel written by an African-American author. Before he died in 1991, he wrote 33 historical novels, almost all of them bestsellers. Not one of them is in print today.
I didn't know any of this when I picked up this book. I just thought it sounded interesting, and I'd read another book of his (Goat Song, a novel about Sparta) that was exciting and quite racy, by my sheltered teenage standards. I have no memory of buying the book, but I've had it for a very long time.
If you didn't know the author of The Foxes of Harrow was African-American, nothing in the text would reveal it. It is a sweeping epic of the antebellum South, about an Irish gambler who builds a great Louisiana plantation, a family, and a fortune, and sacrifices them all on the altar of the Civil War. It's a pageturner, with murder and adultery and sibling rivalry and lots of great detail about Creole society and the class systems of pre-war Louisiana. It became an Oscar-nominated movie starring Rex Harrison and Maureen O'Hara.
And have you ever heard of it? I bet not, unless you are at least ten years older than I am.
This is the phenomenon I mentioned yesterday. Frank Yerby sold hundreds of thousands of books. He wrote a book a year for decades, and his life's work would take up multiple shelves in a library. But if you want to read one of his books now -- even The Dahomean, the book considered his masterpiece -- you have to go to the library or a used bookstore, or search online for a used copy. Search for "Frank Yerby" on Amazon and the one book that's readily available is a biographical novel about him, published by a vanity press.
Yerby himself is a fascinating character who deserves a real biography. The son of a black father and a white mother in 1920s Georgia, he worked toward a Ph.D. in English and taught at traditionally black colleges before moving to Detroit during the Second World War -- and taking a job in the Dearborn plant of the Ford Motor Company. He left the United States in 1955 to protest racial discrimination -- but wound up in Franco's Spain, a regime most people would consider even more oppressive. His interests were vast, ranging from ancient Sparta to contemporary Central America.
What am I trying to say here? I'm not sure. Should we hang on to The Foxes of Harrow, rather than read this summer's blockbuster? No, not necessarily. I'm just fascinated by this question of what lasts and what doesn't. Today's book has already sunk into obscurity, even though it's similar in quality and subject matter to tomorrow's selection -- a book you've almost certainly read, and a book your children will probably read. What makes the difference?
Off to Montreal today for the weekend -- Claire is graduating, hurray! -- so I'll be scarce for a few days, but posting should continue as normal.
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
CELIA GARTH by Gwen Bristow
The Book: Gwen Bristow, CELIA GARTH. Thomas Y. Crowell, 1959 (first edition). Book is missing dust jacket, otherwise in good condition; slight cocking and rubbing to spine, small stain of something that appears to be coffee along the edge of the first few pages. Book appears to have been deaccessioned from a school library, with the acquisition date (6-2-59) written in pencil on the front flyleaf, along with the resale price (15 cents).
First read: 1978 (approximately)
Owned since: 1980 (approximately)
Last week worked so well that I thought I might start structuring the blog around weekly themes. If you haven't already figured it out, this week's theme is historical fiction of early America.
Tomorrow we'll move into the 19th century, but I'll spend one more day on the Revolutionary War. Celia Garth is a 16-year-old dressmaker in Charleston, SC, who loses a fiance to the Redcoats, becomes a rebel spy, and along the way finds maturity and true love.
I probably read this book first in eighth grade, along with everything else by Gwen Bristow on my school library's shelf (Jubilee Trail and Calico Palace are the two other titles I remember). Celia Garth was my favorite, and I snapped up a copy when I found one at a school book sale sometime later.
The Charleston setting was a big part of my enchantment with this book; I missed the city a lot after my step-grandmother's death ended my visits there. I loved the social history, the etiquette of caste and the detail of how people lived without electricity or engines or telephone wires. And I loved Celia herself, described without irony as "sassy." She was brave. She was resilient. Most important, she was useful, and she was loved for it.
Gwen Bristow is a kind of object lesson in the ephemeral nature of bestsellerdom. I bought this book and kept it for sentimental reasons, but all of her books are now out of print -- with the exception of Jubilee Trail, a monster bestseller in 1950, reprinted last year by the Chicago Review Press. Jubilee Trail had been out of print for decades, and while I'm glad it's available again, it seems to be presented as an artifact of early feminism, not as the epic entertainment I remember it being.
Tomorrow's book is an even more powerful example of this phenomenon, which I hope I can explain better then. What I always want to say to my author clients is that bestsellers don't last, for the most part. I'm sure it's nice to have the money and the fame, but wouldn't you really rather write a book that lasts? (And yes, I know their agents have to be able to sell something. But that's a discussion for a future post ... tomorrow, maybe.)
Five Random Songs
"Bizarre Love Triangle," New Order. How much do I love this song? A lot. I know all the words by heart. Want me to sing it for you? I'll sing it for you ... wait, where are you going?
"The Acid Queen," The Who. One of the things I dislike most about the movie version of Tommy is what Ken Russell did to both this song and Tina Turner, by matching them up.
"From Me to You," The Beatles. I sing this song too, to Dizzy, with some regularity. Dizzy thinks I have a lovely singing voice.
"The Beast and Dragon, Adored," Spoon. Scott first turned me onto Spoon through his blog -- thanks, Scott -- and maybe I should mention here that my brother Ed has launched his own music-based blog. Check it out.
"Things Behind the Sun," Nick Drake. Can't go wrong with Nick Drake. This is from Pink Moon.
First read: 1978 (approximately)
Owned since: 1980 (approximately)
Last week worked so well that I thought I might start structuring the blog around weekly themes. If you haven't already figured it out, this week's theme is historical fiction of early America.
Tomorrow we'll move into the 19th century, but I'll spend one more day on the Revolutionary War. Celia Garth is a 16-year-old dressmaker in Charleston, SC, who loses a fiance to the Redcoats, becomes a rebel spy, and along the way finds maturity and true love.
I probably read this book first in eighth grade, along with everything else by Gwen Bristow on my school library's shelf (Jubilee Trail and Calico Palace are the two other titles I remember). Celia Garth was my favorite, and I snapped up a copy when I found one at a school book sale sometime later.
The Charleston setting was a big part of my enchantment with this book; I missed the city a lot after my step-grandmother's death ended my visits there. I loved the social history, the etiquette of caste and the detail of how people lived without electricity or engines or telephone wires. And I loved Celia herself, described without irony as "sassy." She was brave. She was resilient. Most important, she was useful, and she was loved for it.
Gwen Bristow is a kind of object lesson in the ephemeral nature of bestsellerdom. I bought this book and kept it for sentimental reasons, but all of her books are now out of print -- with the exception of Jubilee Trail, a monster bestseller in 1950, reprinted last year by the Chicago Review Press. Jubilee Trail had been out of print for decades, and while I'm glad it's available again, it seems to be presented as an artifact of early feminism, not as the epic entertainment I remember it being.
Tomorrow's book is an even more powerful example of this phenomenon, which I hope I can explain better then. What I always want to say to my author clients is that bestsellers don't last, for the most part. I'm sure it's nice to have the money and the fame, but wouldn't you really rather write a book that lasts? (And yes, I know their agents have to be able to sell something. But that's a discussion for a future post ... tomorrow, maybe.)
Five Random Songs
"Bizarre Love Triangle," New Order. How much do I love this song? A lot. I know all the words by heart. Want me to sing it for you? I'll sing it for you ... wait, where are you going?
"The Acid Queen," The Who. One of the things I dislike most about the movie version of Tommy is what Ken Russell did to both this song and Tina Turner, by matching them up.
"From Me to You," The Beatles. I sing this song too, to Dizzy, with some regularity. Dizzy thinks I have a lovely singing voice.
"The Beast and Dragon, Adored," Spoon. Scott first turned me onto Spoon through his blog -- thanks, Scott -- and maybe I should mention here that my brother Ed has launched his own music-based blog. Check it out.
"Things Behind the Sun," Nick Drake. Can't go wrong with Nick Drake. This is from Pink Moon.
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
JOHNNY TREMAIN by Esther Forbes
The Book: Esther Forbes, JOHNNY TREMAIN. Dell paperback reprint (tenth Laurel-Leaf printing), 1974; originally published in 1943. Previous owner's name ("Amy Moss") written in permanent marker on front cover and in ink inside the front cover; current owner's initials ("ECL 1980") written on title page. Fair condition; book is cocked, spine is badly creased, pages are brown and cover's starting to chip. But the book is intact and readable.
First read: 1975
Owned since: 1980 (thanks to my 14-year-old self for making it easy!)
It's Election Day. Even if nothing on the ballot is important to you this year, you should exercise the right that the fictional characters of JOHNNY TREMAIN fought -- and yes, died -- for.
If you haven't read JOHNNY TREMAIN, are we friends? Maybe you didn't grow up in this country. If you missed it somehow, log off, read the book, come back later and we'll just go on as if nothing had happened.
I read it for the first time the summer I was nine. The copy belonged to Evelyn, the middle sister of the family who lived next door; Evelyn was a high school student who sometimes babysat us. She was smart and talented and she lent me books, which I appreciated. I held on to her copy of JOHNNY TREMAIN until she had to ask me to give it back. I bought this copy at Norfolk Academy's Field Day book sale when I was 14; Amy Moss, the book's previous owner, was a grade behind me, and had already decided she'd outgrown it. Her loss.
It's the story of Boston apprentice silversmith Johnny Tremain (duh), who loses his position after burning his hand terribly in a work-related accident. He finds a job as a printer's assistant on a newspaper published by the Sons of Liberty, and becomes caught up in the events that lead to the first shots fired at Lexington in April 1775.
It's a book for adolescents about adolescents, and was the first book I read that showed young people caught up in adult emotions -- not only love and hate, but also economic anxiety, class warfare, ambition, pride, patriotism and grief. It may have been the first serious book I ever read with an unhappy ending, and yet the ending is hopeful, too.
The Disney movie, shown on TV the following year in honor of the bicentennial, was my first experience with the bitter disappointment of lousy screen adaptations. I haven't seen it since I was a child, but I remember it as being 1) unfaithful to the book and 2) embarrassingly bad. I've since learned that screen adaptations do sometimes need to leave or change the source material, but to do so for the sake of a lousy movie is unforgivable.
First read: 1975
Owned since: 1980 (thanks to my 14-year-old self for making it easy!)
Hundreds would die, but not the thing they had died for.
A man can stand up ...
It's Election Day. Even if nothing on the ballot is important to you this year, you should exercise the right that the fictional characters of JOHNNY TREMAIN fought -- and yes, died -- for.
If you haven't read JOHNNY TREMAIN, are we friends? Maybe you didn't grow up in this country. If you missed it somehow, log off, read the book, come back later and we'll just go on as if nothing had happened.
I read it for the first time the summer I was nine. The copy belonged to Evelyn, the middle sister of the family who lived next door; Evelyn was a high school student who sometimes babysat us. She was smart and talented and she lent me books, which I appreciated. I held on to her copy of JOHNNY TREMAIN until she had to ask me to give it back. I bought this copy at Norfolk Academy's Field Day book sale when I was 14; Amy Moss, the book's previous owner, was a grade behind me, and had already decided she'd outgrown it. Her loss.
It's the story of Boston apprentice silversmith Johnny Tremain (duh), who loses his position after burning his hand terribly in a work-related accident. He finds a job as a printer's assistant on a newspaper published by the Sons of Liberty, and becomes caught up in the events that lead to the first shots fired at Lexington in April 1775.
It's a book for adolescents about adolescents, and was the first book I read that showed young people caught up in adult emotions -- not only love and hate, but also economic anxiety, class warfare, ambition, pride, patriotism and grief. It may have been the first serious book I ever read with an unhappy ending, and yet the ending is hopeful, too.
The Disney movie, shown on TV the following year in honor of the bicentennial, was my first experience with the bitter disappointment of lousy screen adaptations. I haven't seen it since I was a child, but I remember it as being 1) unfaithful to the book and 2) embarrassingly bad. I've since learned that screen adaptations do sometimes need to leave or change the source material, but to do so for the sake of a lousy movie is unforgivable.
Monday, November 05, 2007
THE WITCH OF BLACKBIRD POND by Elizabeth George Speare
The Book: Elizabeth George Speare, THE WITCH OF BLACKBIRD POND. Yearling Newbery paperback reprint, 10th reprint, June 1996 (originally published 1958). Good condition; spine is creased, book is slightly cocked, pages already show considerable age-related darkening.
First read: 1973
Owned since: 1996 (this copy)
It might be time for me to buy another copy of this book. This one's already showing signs of age, probably because the cover advertises it at a SPECIAL LOW PRICE of $2.49, so the thing is probably made of newsprint with some corrosive acid-based ink. This is at least the fourth copy of the book I've owned. It might be the fifth. I'm not sure what happened to the earlier ones, but at least two of them were read to tatters, and one was officially a gift to my younger sisters so I had to leave it behind when I went to college.
My family moved from Fairfax, VA to Virginia Beach in late summer 1973. It was our fifth move in seven years. Dad was a young Naval officer, he went where they sent him and Mom took us kids wherever we needed to be.
I found this book on the shelves of the Bayside branch of the Virginia Beach public library, but don't remember whether someone recommended it to me, or whether I found it for myself. I suspect that I picked it up myself because I thought it would be about witches. I very much wanted a spell that would take me back to our old house and my old school, where I was Class Representative and teacher's pet and didn't need to worry about my clothes because we all wore uniforms.
That isn't what this book is about. It turned out to be even better, because it's about a young girl, Kit Tyler, who moves to a strange place (colonial Wethersfield, CT) where she doesn't fit in and nobody likes her. Her only friend is a Quaker widow, Hannah Tupper, who teaches Kit what she needs to know about her new life, but is then driven from her home by ignorant townsmen who think she's a witch. When Kit too is accused of witchcraft, she discovers that her new family loves and supports her after all.
I checked this book out from the library at least once a month for more than a year, and bought my own copy with birthday or Christmas money as soon as I could. At one point, I knew long stretches of it by heart, so could recite it to myself after Mom made me stop reading. (I never had a flashlight; I lay at the foot of my bed, where just enough light spilled in from the hallway to read by.) My first efforts at fiction writing were attempts to write my own sequel to the adventures of Kit and Nat, the young sailor who rescues her (now they call it fan fiction). Even now, I pull out the book like a security blanket on dark days.
It's funny; I didn't correlate Kit's situation to mine until just now, as I was writing. But it's obvious that this is the perfect book to give any young girl after a move to a strange new place. It was the right book at the right time for me, and I will always have a copy on my shelves.
First read: 1973
Owned since: 1996 (this copy)
It might be time for me to buy another copy of this book. This one's already showing signs of age, probably because the cover advertises it at a SPECIAL LOW PRICE of $2.49, so the thing is probably made of newsprint with some corrosive acid-based ink. This is at least the fourth copy of the book I've owned. It might be the fifth. I'm not sure what happened to the earlier ones, but at least two of them were read to tatters, and one was officially a gift to my younger sisters so I had to leave it behind when I went to college.
My family moved from Fairfax, VA to Virginia Beach in late summer 1973. It was our fifth move in seven years. Dad was a young Naval officer, he went where they sent him and Mom took us kids wherever we needed to be.
I found this book on the shelves of the Bayside branch of the Virginia Beach public library, but don't remember whether someone recommended it to me, or whether I found it for myself. I suspect that I picked it up myself because I thought it would be about witches. I very much wanted a spell that would take me back to our old house and my old school, where I was Class Representative and teacher's pet and didn't need to worry about my clothes because we all wore uniforms.
That isn't what this book is about. It turned out to be even better, because it's about a young girl, Kit Tyler, who moves to a strange place (colonial Wethersfield, CT) where she doesn't fit in and nobody likes her. Her only friend is a Quaker widow, Hannah Tupper, who teaches Kit what she needs to know about her new life, but is then driven from her home by ignorant townsmen who think she's a witch. When Kit too is accused of witchcraft, she discovers that her new family loves and supports her after all.
I checked this book out from the library at least once a month for more than a year, and bought my own copy with birthday or Christmas money as soon as I could. At one point, I knew long stretches of it by heart, so could recite it to myself after Mom made me stop reading. (I never had a flashlight; I lay at the foot of my bed, where just enough light spilled in from the hallway to read by.) My first efforts at fiction writing were attempts to write my own sequel to the adventures of Kit and Nat, the young sailor who rescues her (now they call it fan fiction). Even now, I pull out the book like a security blanket on dark days.
It's funny; I didn't correlate Kit's situation to mine until just now, as I was writing. But it's obvious that this is the perfect book to give any young girl after a move to a strange new place. It was the right book at the right time for me, and I will always have a copy on my shelves.
Saturday, November 03, 2007
A DIRTY JOB by Christopher Moore
The Book: Christopher Moore, A DIRTY JOB. William Morrow, 2006 (first edition). Inscribed by the author: "To Clair: Missing you already!!! Christopher" (that is, I think it's "Christopher" -- the c, h, t and r are legible)
First read: 2006
Owned since: 2006
Disclaimer: I don't know Chris Moore well, only as bookseller/fan to author. He is kind enough to remember my name (and my ever-changing hair color, which he often comments on) whenever we meet. The inscription has to do with the fact that he signed the book at The Mystery Bookstore, during his first visit to the store after I'd moved to Maine.
A DIRTY JOB is not quite a horror novel, although it does feature demons, harpies, hellhounds and Death itself, and an important subplot is directly ripped off from -- er, brilliantly inspired by -- The Island of Dr. Moreau.
Charlie Asher is a "beta male" who's found a comfortable place for himself in the world when his beloved wife, Rachel, dies in childbirth. At the time of Rachel's death, Charlie sees a stranger in her hospital room -- a tall black man in mint-green golfwear -- who turns out to be Minty Fresh (introduced in Moore's earlier novel COYOTE BLUE), who is now working as a Merchant of Death. Minty Fresh recruits Charlie to the service of Death -- distributing souls that get transferred from their bodies to material objects, which find their way into the hands of the new people who are supposed to have them. But Charlie doesn't read the manual, and makes a few early mistakes that unleash apocalyptic havoc from the underworld.
A DIRTY JOB is a comedy about death that is also a deeply compassionate study of grief, and I read it soon after Mom died (Moore wrote it in the wake of the deaths of his own mother and his wife-like girlfriend's mother). It helped me laugh at my own grief while not feeling ridiculous about it, and I will give copies to people in similar situations for many years to come.
First read: 2006
Owned since: 2006
Disclaimer: I don't know Chris Moore well, only as bookseller/fan to author. He is kind enough to remember my name (and my ever-changing hair color, which he often comments on) whenever we meet. The inscription has to do with the fact that he signed the book at The Mystery Bookstore, during his first visit to the store after I'd moved to Maine.
A DIRTY JOB is not quite a horror novel, although it does feature demons, harpies, hellhounds and Death itself, and an important subplot is directly ripped off from -- er, brilliantly inspired by -- The Island of Dr. Moreau.
Charlie Asher is a "beta male" who's found a comfortable place for himself in the world when his beloved wife, Rachel, dies in childbirth. At the time of Rachel's death, Charlie sees a stranger in her hospital room -- a tall black man in mint-green golfwear -- who turns out to be Minty Fresh (introduced in Moore's earlier novel COYOTE BLUE), who is now working as a Merchant of Death. Minty Fresh recruits Charlie to the service of Death -- distributing souls that get transferred from their bodies to material objects, which find their way into the hands of the new people who are supposed to have them. But Charlie doesn't read the manual, and makes a few early mistakes that unleash apocalyptic havoc from the underworld.
A DIRTY JOB is a comedy about death that is also a deeply compassionate study of grief, and I read it soon after Mom died (Moore wrote it in the wake of the deaths of his own mother and his wife-like girlfriend's mother). It helped me laugh at my own grief while not feeling ridiculous about it, and I will give copies to people in similar situations for many years to come.
Friday, November 02, 2007
HORROR: 100 BEST BOOKS edited by Stephen Jones & Kim Newman
The Book: Stephen Jones & Kim Newman, editors; HORROR: 100 Best Books. Xanadu, 1988 (first edition). Signed by Stephen Jones and 11 of the book's contributors: Ramsey Campbell, Clive Barker, Dennis Etchison, F. Paul Wilson, John Skipp, Brian Lumley, John Farris, David J. Schow, Peter Straub, David Morrell, Ed Bryant
First read: 2005
Owned since: 2005
This book is in my top ten list of Best Christmas Presents Ever, a gift from an author friend that I didn't pick up from the post office until January 2005 (so I suppose, technically, I've owned it since December 2004, but the book was not in my possession until the calendar changed).
I am not the easiest person to buy for, and it's especially difficult to give me books. This book hit the jackpot. It's British, so I was unfamiliar with it; it's all about a genre I feel a little guilty about loving; it recommends dozens of books I've never read, and several I'd never even heard of; and it's one big LIST, and we all know how much I love lists.
Its format is brilliant: 100 short essays about the 100 greatest horror novels of all time, written by the biggest names in the genre. Not all of the essays were written for this collection; the book includes Edgar Allan Poe's review of Nathaniel Hawthorne's Twice-Told Tales (he liked it) and M. R. James on LeFanu's Uncle Silas.
Essays are arranged chronologically by publication of the recommended book, beginning with Marlowe's Doctor Faustus (discussed by Clive Barker) and ending with Dark Feasts by Ramsey Campbell, reviewed by Jack Sullivan. Along the way are a few surprises, books one might not think of as horror: Kafka's The Trial; Golding's Lord of the Flies; Kosinski's The Painted Bird; John Gardner's Grendel.
I was humbled by what a relatively small percentage of these books I'd read (I think it was 20 when I got the book; it's 25 now), but it's wonderful to have this list on days when I think that I've already read everything I ever wanted to.
What I Read This Week
Philip Zimbardo, THE LUCIFER EFFECT: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. It's horror, but it's not fiction. Dr. Zimbardo, a social psychologist, created the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment, which showed just how quickly "normal" people could become sadists, given an environment that encouraged or just enabled that behavior. This book gives a minute-by-minute report of that experiment, and goes on to discuss other instances of unthinkable, apparently inexplicable brutality, from the Rwandan genocide to Abu Ghraib. Zimbardo's thesis -- which, based on the evidence here, is inarguable -- is that we are all capable of this behavior, and not one of us has any right to feel safe or smug or self-righteous. Thank God, he also talks about the heroes that emerge in these situations, and what it takes to set oneself against mass movements of evil. It's a hard, hard read, in more ways than one -- the prison experiment narrative, in particular, was originally written as an academic paper, and still reads that way -- but everybody needs to read this book. Everybody.
Linda Fairstein, BAD BLOOD. Linda Fairstein is one of my heroes -- someone who has set herself against evil throughout her career -- but I wish she had a better editor. Assistant D.A. Alexandra Cooper's prosecution of a murder-for-hire case is interrupted by an explosion in one of New York's water tunnels, and one of the explosion's victims turns out to be the brother of Cooper's defendant. Cooper and her colleagues track down the connection to a decades-old unsolved murder, and Fairstein gives us a fascinating look at the sandhog culture along the way. A subplot about Cooper's personal life is a distraction that goes nowhere, and the two main plot lines don't tie up as well as they should.
First read: 2005
Owned since: 2005
This book is in my top ten list of Best Christmas Presents Ever, a gift from an author friend that I didn't pick up from the post office until January 2005 (so I suppose, technically, I've owned it since December 2004, but the book was not in my possession until the calendar changed).
I am not the easiest person to buy for, and it's especially difficult to give me books. This book hit the jackpot. It's British, so I was unfamiliar with it; it's all about a genre I feel a little guilty about loving; it recommends dozens of books I've never read, and several I'd never even heard of; and it's one big LIST, and we all know how much I love lists.
Its format is brilliant: 100 short essays about the 100 greatest horror novels of all time, written by the biggest names in the genre. Not all of the essays were written for this collection; the book includes Edgar Allan Poe's review of Nathaniel Hawthorne's Twice-Told Tales (he liked it) and M. R. James on LeFanu's Uncle Silas.
Essays are arranged chronologically by publication of the recommended book, beginning with Marlowe's Doctor Faustus (discussed by Clive Barker) and ending with Dark Feasts by Ramsey Campbell, reviewed by Jack Sullivan. Along the way are a few surprises, books one might not think of as horror: Kafka's The Trial; Golding's Lord of the Flies; Kosinski's The Painted Bird; John Gardner's Grendel.
I was humbled by what a relatively small percentage of these books I'd read (I think it was 20 when I got the book; it's 25 now), but it's wonderful to have this list on days when I think that I've already read everything I ever wanted to.
What I Read This Week
Philip Zimbardo, THE LUCIFER EFFECT: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. It's horror, but it's not fiction. Dr. Zimbardo, a social psychologist, created the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment, which showed just how quickly "normal" people could become sadists, given an environment that encouraged or just enabled that behavior. This book gives a minute-by-minute report of that experiment, and goes on to discuss other instances of unthinkable, apparently inexplicable brutality, from the Rwandan genocide to Abu Ghraib. Zimbardo's thesis -- which, based on the evidence here, is inarguable -- is that we are all capable of this behavior, and not one of us has any right to feel safe or smug or self-righteous. Thank God, he also talks about the heroes that emerge in these situations, and what it takes to set oneself against mass movements of evil. It's a hard, hard read, in more ways than one -- the prison experiment narrative, in particular, was originally written as an academic paper, and still reads that way -- but everybody needs to read this book. Everybody.
Linda Fairstein, BAD BLOOD. Linda Fairstein is one of my heroes -- someone who has set herself against evil throughout her career -- but I wish she had a better editor. Assistant D.A. Alexandra Cooper's prosecution of a murder-for-hire case is interrupted by an explosion in one of New York's water tunnels, and one of the explosion's victims turns out to be the brother of Cooper's defendant. Cooper and her colleagues track down the connection to a decades-old unsolved murder, and Fairstein gives us a fascinating look at the sandhog culture along the way. A subplot about Cooper's personal life is a distraction that goes nowhere, and the two main plot lines don't tie up as well as they should.
Thursday, November 01, 2007
DIA DE LOS MUERTOS by Kent Harrington
The Book: Kent Harrington, DIA DE LOS MUERTOS. Dennis McMillan Publications, 1997 (first edition). Signed by the author. Fine condition. Also Capra Press trade paperback, limited slip-cased edition, 2003.
First read: 2000 (approximately)
Owned since: 2003
The Mexican Day of the Dead is a two-day festival that celebrates the lives of our ancestors. It's tied to, but is not quite the same as, All Saints' Day (November 1) and All Souls' Day (November 2). Like Halloween and Samhain, it's a festival about borders -- between life and death, and, in Kent Harrington's novel, between the U.S. and Mexico, between love and hate, and between crime and law enforcement.
DEA Agent Vincent Calhoun makes a good side income as a coyote, running illegal immigrants across the border. On the Day of the Dead, his luck starts to run out: his supervisors are onto him, he's dying of dengue fever, and he's just agreed to transport a 400-pound drug kingpin from Tijuana to Beverly Hills. And then the woman he loved -- the woman who ruined his life -- gets off a prisoners' bus in a town square.
You want noir? This is noir: a man breaking out of the system to try to seize a romantic dream that must ultimately betray him. It's not giving anything away to say that; doesn't it always work that way?
I own two copies of this book because Kent Harrington is a client and a friend. Although I did not work on the original manuscript of Dia, I helped prepare and promote the trade paperback edition, and edited a later book which I'm sure I'll discuss in a future post.
This time of year is all about borders. The sky was dim by 5:00 yesterday, and I realized that this time next week -- because of the time change -- it'll be twilight at 4:00. We've had three heavy frosts this week, and winter is coming. It's a time of year for shivers.
First read: 2000 (approximately)
Owned since: 2003
The Mexican Day of the Dead is a two-day festival that celebrates the lives of our ancestors. It's tied to, but is not quite the same as, All Saints' Day (November 1) and All Souls' Day (November 2). Like Halloween and Samhain, it's a festival about borders -- between life and death, and, in Kent Harrington's novel, between the U.S. and Mexico, between love and hate, and between crime and law enforcement.
DEA Agent Vincent Calhoun makes a good side income as a coyote, running illegal immigrants across the border. On the Day of the Dead, his luck starts to run out: his supervisors are onto him, he's dying of dengue fever, and he's just agreed to transport a 400-pound drug kingpin from Tijuana to Beverly Hills. And then the woman he loved -- the woman who ruined his life -- gets off a prisoners' bus in a town square.
You want noir? This is noir: a man breaking out of the system to try to seize a romantic dream that must ultimately betray him. It's not giving anything away to say that; doesn't it always work that way?
I own two copies of this book because Kent Harrington is a client and a friend. Although I did not work on the original manuscript of Dia, I helped prepare and promote the trade paperback edition, and edited a later book which I'm sure I'll discuss in a future post.
This time of year is all about borders. The sky was dim by 5:00 yesterday, and I realized that this time next week -- because of the time change -- it'll be twilight at 4:00. We've had three heavy frosts this week, and winter is coming. It's a time of year for shivers.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
NOCTURNES by John Connolly
The Book: John Connolly, NOCTURNES. Hodder & Stoughton, 2004 (first U.K. edition), signed by the author. Fine condition.
First read: 2004
Owned since: 2004
If you want a ghost story for Halloween, here's your book. I am particularly fond of this book, as it was a gift from the author, sent while I was driving from Los Angeles to Maine. When I arrived in Maine, it was waiting at the top of a pile of much less pleasant mail, and it felt like a welcome-home present.
NOCTURNES is a collection of short fiction, bookended by two novellas set in the present day. "The Cancer Cowboy Rides" is a supernatural Western, with a truly horrifying villain; "The Reflecting Eye" features Connolly's series character, Charlie Parker, and could be an extended prologue to his most recent novel, The Unquiet. In between are a series of ghost stories that could be set, for the most part, at any time; several are inspired by the Edwardian tales of M.R. James, and feel rooted in a more secretive, decorous time.
It takes a lot to scare me on paper, but "Deep Dark Green" did it; it is less a story than a painting with words, about the intoxication and terror of teenage sexuality. "The Inkpot Monkey" is a wicked cautionary tale about the price of success as a writer, and "Miss Froom, Vampire" might have made me think twice about moving to a small town as a single woman, if I'd read it ahead of time. "Some Children Wander by Mistake" is not a good bedtime story for anyone who has issues with clowns (and really, what sane person doesn't?).
NOCTURNES is the book I'd recommend to anyone new to Connolly's work. On its face, it's not much like any of his other books, except for THE BOOK OF LOST THINGS -- but it's a sort of tasting menu of all the things that interest him as an author, and already seems to hold the germ for whatever follows.
Five Random Songs
"Love Will Tear Us Apart," Wonderlick. I love this song so much I have three different versions of it in my iTunes: Joy Division's original, Nouvelle Vague's bossa nova cover, and this acoustic version by the guys who used to be Too Much Joy. This one might be my favorite.
"It'll Come to You," John Hiatt. From Slow Turning, Hiatt's meditation on midlife.
"Dog," El Perro del Mar. My current favorite musical trend is the resurgence of 1970s-style pop. Listen to this CD and you'll understand why.
"I'll Be Home," Howard Tate. Old school R&B for the 21st century, arranged and produced by my old friend Steve Weisberg.
"Damned Old Dog," The Roches. Dizzy's been messing with the Shuffle again... time for the morning walk?
First read: 2004
Owned since: 2004
If you want a ghost story for Halloween, here's your book. I am particularly fond of this book, as it was a gift from the author, sent while I was driving from Los Angeles to Maine. When I arrived in Maine, it was waiting at the top of a pile of much less pleasant mail, and it felt like a welcome-home present.
NOCTURNES is a collection of short fiction, bookended by two novellas set in the present day. "The Cancer Cowboy Rides" is a supernatural Western, with a truly horrifying villain; "The Reflecting Eye" features Connolly's series character, Charlie Parker, and could be an extended prologue to his most recent novel, The Unquiet. In between are a series of ghost stories that could be set, for the most part, at any time; several are inspired by the Edwardian tales of M.R. James, and feel rooted in a more secretive, decorous time.
It takes a lot to scare me on paper, but "Deep Dark Green" did it; it is less a story than a painting with words, about the intoxication and terror of teenage sexuality. "The Inkpot Monkey" is a wicked cautionary tale about the price of success as a writer, and "Miss Froom, Vampire" might have made me think twice about moving to a small town as a single woman, if I'd read it ahead of time. "Some Children Wander by Mistake" is not a good bedtime story for anyone who has issues with clowns (and really, what sane person doesn't?).
NOCTURNES is the book I'd recommend to anyone new to Connolly's work. On its face, it's not much like any of his other books, except for THE BOOK OF LOST THINGS -- but it's a sort of tasting menu of all the things that interest him as an author, and already seems to hold the germ for whatever follows.
Five Random Songs
"Love Will Tear Us Apart," Wonderlick. I love this song so much I have three different versions of it in my iTunes: Joy Division's original, Nouvelle Vague's bossa nova cover, and this acoustic version by the guys who used to be Too Much Joy. This one might be my favorite.
"It'll Come to You," John Hiatt. From Slow Turning, Hiatt's meditation on midlife.
"Dog," El Perro del Mar. My current favorite musical trend is the resurgence of 1970s-style pop. Listen to this CD and you'll understand why.
"I'll Be Home," Howard Tate. Old school R&B for the 21st century, arranged and produced by my old friend Steve Weisberg.
"Damned Old Dog," The Roches. Dizzy's been messing with the Shuffle again... time for the morning walk?
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
THE PENGUIN BOOK OF VAMPIRE STORIES edited by Alan Ryan
The Book: Alan Ryan, ed. THE PENGUIN BOOK OF VAMPIRE STORIES. Penguin Books trade paperback, 1988, third printing. Book is in very good condition, with some age-related browning to pages. Owner's signature ("Ellen Lamb") on front flyleaf.
First read: 1989
Owned since: 1989
I know this book was a gift from my then-boss; I think it was for Christmas, but it might have been for my birthday. I was 24, and liked vampire stories. It's something I've mostly outgrown, which might have some deep and complicated and horrifying psychological reasons, but is probably mostly because I read a ridiculous amount of vampire literature in my mid-20s, and now everything seems like a bad imitation (except for Charlie Huston's vampire books, which I started reading last year. Those are cool).
What fascinates people about vampire stories? It's sex, of course, but I'd argue that it's also intimacy. What does Dracula say to Mina Harker? "Blood of my blood, flesh of my flesh ..." You can't get much closer to someone than sharing a bloodstream.
Anyway, if you're currently obsessed with the Anne Rice or Laurell K. Hamilton vampire novels, you need to go back and see where it all began. The Penguin Book of Vampire Stories starts with a fragment written by George Gordon, Lord Byron, in 1816, after the same conversation that led to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; their friend Dr. Polidori's "The Vampyre" is here, too.
The collection goes on through such classic stories as LeFanu's "Carmilla" (a direct ancestor of Peter Straub's Ghost Story) and M.R. James's "An Episode of Cathedral History" (a heavy influence on a book I'll discuss later in the week), up to the more modern vampire writers: Richard Matheson, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Tanith Lee. Fritz Leiber's "The Girl with the Hungry Eyes" is a brilliant conflation of vampirism and celebrity, and I'd be surprised if Anne Rice didn't read that story before imagining The Vampire Lestat.
The danger of this blog is that it has me picking up books I haven't pulled off my shelf in years. I need to reread that Leiber story. Dammit, I'm on deadline...
First read: 1989
Owned since: 1989
I know this book was a gift from my then-boss; I think it was for Christmas, but it might have been for my birthday. I was 24, and liked vampire stories. It's something I've mostly outgrown, which might have some deep and complicated and horrifying psychological reasons, but is probably mostly because I read a ridiculous amount of vampire literature in my mid-20s, and now everything seems like a bad imitation (except for Charlie Huston's vampire books, which I started reading last year. Those are cool).
What fascinates people about vampire stories? It's sex, of course, but I'd argue that it's also intimacy. What does Dracula say to Mina Harker? "Blood of my blood, flesh of my flesh ..." You can't get much closer to someone than sharing a bloodstream.
Anyway, if you're currently obsessed with the Anne Rice or Laurell K. Hamilton vampire novels, you need to go back and see where it all began. The Penguin Book of Vampire Stories starts with a fragment written by George Gordon, Lord Byron, in 1816, after the same conversation that led to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein; their friend Dr. Polidori's "The Vampyre" is here, too.
The collection goes on through such classic stories as LeFanu's "Carmilla" (a direct ancestor of Peter Straub's Ghost Story) and M.R. James's "An Episode of Cathedral History" (a heavy influence on a book I'll discuss later in the week), up to the more modern vampire writers: Richard Matheson, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Tanith Lee. Fritz Leiber's "The Girl with the Hungry Eyes" is a brilliant conflation of vampirism and celebrity, and I'd be surprised if Anne Rice didn't read that story before imagining The Vampire Lestat.
The danger of this blog is that it has me picking up books I haven't pulled off my shelf in years. I need to reread that Leiber story. Dammit, I'm on deadline...
Monday, October 29, 2007
EDGAR ALLAN POE REVISITED by Scott Peeples
The Book: Scott Peeples, EDGAR ALLAN POE REVISITED. Twayne's United States Authors Series. Twayne Publishers, 1998. First edition, inscribed: "Ellen, Thanks for helping me get this into shape -- Scott." Fine condition.
First read: 1997
Owned since: 1998
Two firsts for the blog today: the first book written by a friend (as opposed to someone I just met at a booksigning), and the first book I had anything to do with (I proofread the galleys, which were very clean).
Scott, a dear friend of mine since college, teaches English composition and literature at the College of Charleston and is one of the world's leading experts on Edgar Allan Poe. He serves as president of the Poe Studies Association, and earlier this year published The Afterlife of Edgar Allan Poe, a look at Poe's standing in American literature over the 158 years since his mysterious death.
Edgar Allan Poe Revisited is the perfect survey of Poe's life and work for anyone who wants to take a closer look at them. We remember his horror stories and a handful of poems, but Poe was also the creator of the modern detective story ("The Murders in the Rue Morgue"), and a pioneer in the creation of magazines. Scott discusses how Poe emerged as an original voice -- one of the very first original American voices -- out of the influences of European romanticism and Jacksonian democracy.
The centerpiece of the book, to my mind, is a chapter-long discussion of Poe's Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. Scott, typically low-key, writes, "Pym stands as one of the most elusive major texts of American literature." Some of its passages are brilliant, vivid, horrifying; the story as a whole is incomprehensible. Scott not only explains the novel as well as anyone could, but also explains why Poe wrote it and why he wrote it the way he did.
It was almost enough to make me try to read the book again, but I might wait a few more years, or see about procuring my own bottle of absinthe first.
First read: 1997
Owned since: 1998
Two firsts for the blog today: the first book written by a friend (as opposed to someone I just met at a booksigning), and the first book I had anything to do with (I proofread the galleys, which were very clean).
Scott, a dear friend of mine since college, teaches English composition and literature at the College of Charleston and is one of the world's leading experts on Edgar Allan Poe. He serves as president of the Poe Studies Association, and earlier this year published The Afterlife of Edgar Allan Poe, a look at Poe's standing in American literature over the 158 years since his mysterious death.
Edgar Allan Poe Revisited is the perfect survey of Poe's life and work for anyone who wants to take a closer look at them. We remember his horror stories and a handful of poems, but Poe was also the creator of the modern detective story ("The Murders in the Rue Morgue"), and a pioneer in the creation of magazines. Scott discusses how Poe emerged as an original voice -- one of the very first original American voices -- out of the influences of European romanticism and Jacksonian democracy.
The centerpiece of the book, to my mind, is a chapter-long discussion of Poe's Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. Scott, typically low-key, writes, "Pym stands as one of the most elusive major texts of American literature." Some of its passages are brilliant, vivid, horrifying; the story as a whole is incomprehensible. Scott not only explains the novel as well as anyone could, but also explains why Poe wrote it and why he wrote it the way he did.
It was almost enough to make me try to read the book again, but I might wait a few more years, or see about procuring my own bottle of absinthe first.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Saturday, October 27, 2007
FRANKENSTEIN by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
The Book: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, FRANKENSTEIN: Or, The Modern Prometheus. Courage Classics reprint, 1990 (second printing thus). Very good condition; dust jacket shows some age-related browning.
First read: 1980 (approximately)
Owned since: 1992
It's that time of year, so the whole next week will be horror or horror-related books.
Frankenstein is, in a real sense, the first modern horror novel. Its subtitle, The Modern Prometheus, advertises its topic: the danger of aspiring to the powers of gods.
As everyone should know by now, Frankenstein is not the name of the monster but the name of the scientist who created him -- and, having created him, did not understand his obligations to his creation. Dr. Victor Frankenstein discovers how to reanimate dead tissue, then constructs a whole man in order to demonstrate his powers; but the man didn't ask to be created, and his loneliness and rage are too powerful for Dr. Frankenstein to control.
It's a tragedy and, not incidentally, a powerful allegory of childbirth and parenthood. Mary Shelley, only 19, was pregnant when she wrote the book; her own mother had died in childbirth, and Mary was not yet legally married to Percy Bysshe Shelley, whose first wife was still alive. It's hard to imagine that kind of low-grade terror, but Frankenstein seethes with it.
The power of the story has led to countless plays, movies, and songs, including the forthcoming Broadway musical version of "Young Frankenstein" and the classic Too Much Joy song "Pride of Frankenstein":
Freeport Community Players will give a short reading from Frankenstein tonight, along with a reading of Orson Welles's radio play of Dracula. See you there...
First read: 1980 (approximately)
Owned since: 1992
It's that time of year, so the whole next week will be horror or horror-related books.
Frankenstein is, in a real sense, the first modern horror novel. Its subtitle, The Modern Prometheus, advertises its topic: the danger of aspiring to the powers of gods.
As everyone should know by now, Frankenstein is not the name of the monster but the name of the scientist who created him -- and, having created him, did not understand his obligations to his creation. Dr. Victor Frankenstein discovers how to reanimate dead tissue, then constructs a whole man in order to demonstrate his powers; but the man didn't ask to be created, and his loneliness and rage are too powerful for Dr. Frankenstein to control.
It's a tragedy and, not incidentally, a powerful allegory of childbirth and parenthood. Mary Shelley, only 19, was pregnant when she wrote the book; her own mother had died in childbirth, and Mary was not yet legally married to Percy Bysshe Shelley, whose first wife was still alive. It's hard to imagine that kind of low-grade terror, but Frankenstein seethes with it.
The power of the story has led to countless plays, movies, and songs, including the forthcoming Broadway musical version of "Young Frankenstein" and the classic Too Much Joy song "Pride of Frankenstein":
Baby it's sad,
But baby it's a fact
People have torches
For people like that...
Freeport Community Players will give a short reading from Frankenstein tonight, along with a reading of Orson Welles's radio play of Dracula. See you there...
Friday, October 26, 2007
MAUS by Art Spiegelman
The Book: Art Spiegelman, MAUS: A Survivor's Tale. Pantheon Books softcover, 1986. Very good condition, except for some cat-related damage (ironic!) at the top of the spine.
First read: 1986
Owned since: 1986
More and more mystery authors are writing graphic novels these days, and this week I read the book that many say launched the new generation of the medium. MAUS came first, though, and I'd still argue that it was the breakout book of the genre.
How do you tell a story too terrible to imagine, which is also a story we all think we know? By putting it into pictures instead of into words, and making the main characters animal instead of human. MAUS is the story of how cartoonist Art Spiegelman's parents survived the Nazi Holocaust. Spiegelman's father tells the story in the present day, and the cartoonist writes it down. The Jews are mice, Nazis are cats, and the collaborating Poles are pigs. It is austere and elegant, sometimes funny, often shocking, heartbreaking and hopeful. "This is a new kind of literature," reads the blurb on the back, and it's true.
I am suffering from more than my usual distraction this week, juggling one too many projects and staying up too late to watch the Red Sox. I wish the games started a little earlier.
What I Read This Week
Steve Almond, NOT THAT YOU ASKED: Rants, Exploits and Obsessions. Steve Almond gave a reading last week at Books Etc. in Portland, and I met up with a friend to see him. The reading and the book were funny, insightful and a little self-absorbed, which I think Almond himself would admit. About a third of this book is a tribute to Kurt Vonnegut, which made me want to go back to his work.
Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, WATCHMEN. Originally published as a series of 12 comic books in 1986-87, this is the book that defines the new generation of graphic novels. Chris was shocked that I hadn't read it; my brother Ed gave me his copy when I was in Richmond earlier this month. It's an extraordinary work, and almost as timely now as it would have been in Ronald Reagan's America. It imagines a parallel universe in which masked superheroes were once so powerful they challenged traditional law enforcement, and one hero in particular -- the nuclear marvel Dr. Manhattan -- is so powerful that his presence alone is enough to keep an uneasy peace between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. It mixes traditional comic book storytelling with "excerpts" from fictional memoirs, academic papers and news reports, works on many levels, and raises many questions.
First read: 1986
Owned since: 1986
More and more mystery authors are writing graphic novels these days, and this week I read the book that many say launched the new generation of the medium. MAUS came first, though, and I'd still argue that it was the breakout book of the genre.
How do you tell a story too terrible to imagine, which is also a story we all think we know? By putting it into pictures instead of into words, and making the main characters animal instead of human. MAUS is the story of how cartoonist Art Spiegelman's parents survived the Nazi Holocaust. Spiegelman's father tells the story in the present day, and the cartoonist writes it down. The Jews are mice, Nazis are cats, and the collaborating Poles are pigs. It is austere and elegant, sometimes funny, often shocking, heartbreaking and hopeful. "This is a new kind of literature," reads the blurb on the back, and it's true.
I am suffering from more than my usual distraction this week, juggling one too many projects and staying up too late to watch the Red Sox. I wish the games started a little earlier.
What I Read This Week
Steve Almond, NOT THAT YOU ASKED: Rants, Exploits and Obsessions. Steve Almond gave a reading last week at Books Etc. in Portland, and I met up with a friend to see him. The reading and the book were funny, insightful and a little self-absorbed, which I think Almond himself would admit. About a third of this book is a tribute to Kurt Vonnegut, which made me want to go back to his work.
Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, WATCHMEN. Originally published as a series of 12 comic books in 1986-87, this is the book that defines the new generation of graphic novels. Chris was shocked that I hadn't read it; my brother Ed gave me his copy when I was in Richmond earlier this month. It's an extraordinary work, and almost as timely now as it would have been in Ronald Reagan's America. It imagines a parallel universe in which masked superheroes were once so powerful they challenged traditional law enforcement, and one hero in particular -- the nuclear marvel Dr. Manhattan -- is so powerful that his presence alone is enough to keep an uneasy peace between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. It mixes traditional comic book storytelling with "excerpts" from fictional memoirs, academic papers and news reports, works on many levels, and raises many questions.
Thursday, October 25, 2007
THREE by Flannery O'Connor
The Book: THREE by Flannery O'Connor: Wise Blood, A Good Man is Hard to Find, and The Violent Bear It Away. Signet paperback reprint, 1964. Good condition; age-related browning, spine is heavily creased, front and back covers have small chips missing. Previous owner's signature, "Ginny," on front flyleaf, along with the current owner's ("Ellen Lamb" and a handwritten quotation: "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1."
First read: 1982
Owned since: 1982 (approximately)
Years ago, when I was a very young woman on my own in Washington, DC, a much older man leaned across a restaurant table and asked me: "You think you been redeemed?"
It was an uncomfortable moment, but would have been even more so if I hadn't recognized the question as a quotation from Wise Blood. The Bible verse above is the central theme of Wise Blood -- of all of Flannery O'Connor's work, really, but of Wise Blood in particular.
Hazel Motes, an angry and undereducated Army veteran, makes his way to the city determined to convince everyone that belief in Jesus Christ is a lie. He thinks that if one denies the existence of a soul, one can't sin. He meets up with a sad young man named Enoch Emery, and with a fraudulent preacher, Asa Hawks, and the preacher's daughter, Sabbath Lily. Asa Hawks pretends to be blind; Hazel Motes sets himself against Hawks by trying to found his own Church without Christ, but his idea is soon taken out of his hands. What Hazel is willing to do to defend his own belief -- or anti-belief -- is the basis for the complicated series of events that follows.
Flannery O'Connor was a Christian existentialist before anyone invented the term. What she says -- in Wise Blood, in the stories of A Good Man is Hard to Find, and in The Violent Bear it Away, another novel about a reluctant prophet -- is that in this world, where God is silent and we are mortal, the only choice we get to make is what we believe, and what that belief requires of us.
We make that choice whether we want to or not, in large actions or small, every day. "A Good Man is Hard to Find" ends with The Misfit commenting, after a deadly encounter, "She would of been a good woman if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life."
O'Connor's point is that we don't know that there isn't, and her answer to that question -- the one that man asked me -- is that no, I don't. But I live in hope.
First read: 1982
Owned since: 1982 (approximately)
Years ago, when I was a very young woman on my own in Washington, DC, a much older man leaned across a restaurant table and asked me: "You think you been redeemed?"
It was an uncomfortable moment, but would have been even more so if I hadn't recognized the question as a quotation from Wise Blood. The Bible verse above is the central theme of Wise Blood -- of all of Flannery O'Connor's work, really, but of Wise Blood in particular.
Hazel Motes, an angry and undereducated Army veteran, makes his way to the city determined to convince everyone that belief in Jesus Christ is a lie. He thinks that if one denies the existence of a soul, one can't sin. He meets up with a sad young man named Enoch Emery, and with a fraudulent preacher, Asa Hawks, and the preacher's daughter, Sabbath Lily. Asa Hawks pretends to be blind; Hazel Motes sets himself against Hawks by trying to found his own Church without Christ, but his idea is soon taken out of his hands. What Hazel is willing to do to defend his own belief -- or anti-belief -- is the basis for the complicated series of events that follows.
Flannery O'Connor was a Christian existentialist before anyone invented the term. What she says -- in Wise Blood, in the stories of A Good Man is Hard to Find, and in The Violent Bear it Away, another novel about a reluctant prophet -- is that in this world, where God is silent and we are mortal, the only choice we get to make is what we believe, and what that belief requires of us.
We make that choice whether we want to or not, in large actions or small, every day. "A Good Man is Hard to Find" ends with The Misfit commenting, after a deadly encounter, "She would of been a good woman if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life."
O'Connor's point is that we don't know that there isn't, and her answer to that question -- the one that man asked me -- is that no, I don't. But I live in hope.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES by Joseph Campbell
The Book: Joseph Campbell, THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES. Bollingen Series/Princeton trade paperback, third printing, 1973. Good condition; book's spine is badly creased, book itself is heavily marked with pencil underlining and highlighting. Previous owner's name and address stamp ("Virginia Grace Baskett") inside front cover, subsequent owner's signature ("Ellen Clair Lamb") on front flyleaf.
First read: 1982
Owned since: 1981
As the description suggests, this was a textbook, for Mrs. Masterson's sixth-form (senior year) English class, which was more of an introduction to sociology and psychology. Bill Moyers made Joseph Campbell famous with a series of television interviews that became the bestselling coffee-table book The Power of Myth. The Hero with a Thousand Faces stands as his essential work, although it is much less accessible to the casual reader.
The Hero with a Thousand Faces is a survey of world spiritual beliefs, philosophies, literature and psychological theories that demonstrates the universality of the stories -- Story, really, one story -- humans tell ourselves. "Whether the hero be ridiculous or sublime, Greek or barbarian, gentile or Jew, his journey varies little in essential plan," Campbell writes, and beyond that, "The cosmogonic cycle is presented with astonishing consistency in the sacred writing of all the continents ... the hero is symbolical of that divine creative and redemptive image which is hidden within us all, only waiting to be known and rendered into life."
Heavy stuff to be giving high school seniors. It baffled us at first, not only in its arguments but also in its place in the curriculum -- what did this have to do with literature? Other books we read in that class included introductory texts on Freud and Jung, Robert Ardrey's African Genesis, Konrad Lorenz's On Aggression, Alvin Toffler's The Third Wave, and Existentialism 101: A Primer.
Mrs. Masterson passed away several years ago. I'm sorry that I never got a chance to know her as an adult, or to thank her for this odd and life-changing class. What she was trying to tell us was that all of literature concerns itself, or should, with these basic questions: What are we? What do we want? Where are we going? What should we do? The hero's journey is a universal story that offers infinite variations, and the backbone for every meaningful tale we tell each other.
And it's a great and necessary thing to say to high school seniors, or college students, or anyone: Who is the hero? You are the hero. I am the hero. We are all heroes.
Five Random Songs
"Lil' King Kong," Simple Kid. No idea where this track came from; might have been a download from my brother-in-law, Scott, or it might have been an MPFree from the New York Post. It's bouncy, straight-ahead rock with a little bluegrass thrown in, and I like it.
"No Substitute," Jeff Trott. A cut off the excellent indie compilation Trampoline Records Greatest Hits Vol. 1, which was a gift from my sister Susan.
"I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)," The Proclaimers. This song's been stuck in my head for the last week or so. Maybe listening to it will shut it off. Probably not.
"Requiem for Evita/Oh What a Circus," Mandy Patinkin, Patti Lupone and the cast of Evita. "Don't cry for me, Argentina/For I am ordinary, unimportant/And not deserving of such attention/Unless we all are/I think we all are."
"Twisting the Night Away," Sam Cooke. My friend Gary gave me Sam Cooke's 30 Greatest Hits to cheer me up in the middle of last winter, and I recommend it to anyone who needs reminding of what's good in this world. Watusi!
First read: 1982
Owned since: 1981
As the description suggests, this was a textbook, for Mrs. Masterson's sixth-form (senior year) English class, which was more of an introduction to sociology and psychology. Bill Moyers made Joseph Campbell famous with a series of television interviews that became the bestselling coffee-table book The Power of Myth. The Hero with a Thousand Faces stands as his essential work, although it is much less accessible to the casual reader.
The Hero with a Thousand Faces is a survey of world spiritual beliefs, philosophies, literature and psychological theories that demonstrates the universality of the stories -- Story, really, one story -- humans tell ourselves. "Whether the hero be ridiculous or sublime, Greek or barbarian, gentile or Jew, his journey varies little in essential plan," Campbell writes, and beyond that, "The cosmogonic cycle is presented with astonishing consistency in the sacred writing of all the continents ... the hero is symbolical of that divine creative and redemptive image which is hidden within us all, only waiting to be known and rendered into life."
Heavy stuff to be giving high school seniors. It baffled us at first, not only in its arguments but also in its place in the curriculum -- what did this have to do with literature? Other books we read in that class included introductory texts on Freud and Jung, Robert Ardrey's African Genesis, Konrad Lorenz's On Aggression, Alvin Toffler's The Third Wave, and Existentialism 101: A Primer.
Mrs. Masterson passed away several years ago. I'm sorry that I never got a chance to know her as an adult, or to thank her for this odd and life-changing class. What she was trying to tell us was that all of literature concerns itself, or should, with these basic questions: What are we? What do we want? Where are we going? What should we do? The hero's journey is a universal story that offers infinite variations, and the backbone for every meaningful tale we tell each other.
And it's a great and necessary thing to say to high school seniors, or college students, or anyone: Who is the hero? You are the hero. I am the hero. We are all heroes.
Five Random Songs
"Lil' King Kong," Simple Kid. No idea where this track came from; might have been a download from my brother-in-law, Scott, or it might have been an MPFree from the New York Post. It's bouncy, straight-ahead rock with a little bluegrass thrown in, and I like it.
"No Substitute," Jeff Trott. A cut off the excellent indie compilation Trampoline Records Greatest Hits Vol. 1, which was a gift from my sister Susan.
"I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)," The Proclaimers. This song's been stuck in my head for the last week or so. Maybe listening to it will shut it off. Probably not.
"Requiem for Evita/Oh What a Circus," Mandy Patinkin, Patti Lupone and the cast of Evita. "Don't cry for me, Argentina/For I am ordinary, unimportant/And not deserving of such attention/Unless we all are/I think we all are."
"Twisting the Night Away," Sam Cooke. My friend Gary gave me Sam Cooke's 30 Greatest Hits to cheer me up in the middle of last winter, and I recommend it to anyone who needs reminding of what's good in this world. Watusi!
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
ELLEN FOSTER by Kaye Gibbons
The Book: Kaye Gibbons, ELLEN FOSTER. Jonathan Cape, 1988 (first U.S. edition). Very good book in very good DJ; pages of book show slight age-related browning. Inscribed: "For Ellen -- All Best Wishes. Kaye Gibbons, Sept. 13, 1995."
First read: 1988
Owned since: 1993 (best guess)
I found this British first edition in a used bookstore, but I don't remember where. I snapped it up because it's one of my favorite books, and I've given away more than one paperback copy. Ms. Gibbons signed this book for me at an event at Olsson's bookstore in downtown Washington, when she was touring for Sights Unseen.
At 146 pages, Ellen Foster is as small and perfect as a teardrop. It's a first novel and is still my favorite of Gibbons's books, although most of her later work is quite good. Gibbons wrote a sequel to Ellen Foster last year, The Life All Around Me by Ellen Foster, and I picked it up and wished I hadn't. The urge to revisit beloved characters is strong, but I preferred my own imaginings about what Ellen had gone on to do.
Ellen Foster is the story of her survival of childhood. It begins, "When I was little I would think of ways to kill my daddy." Ellen's daddy is a wife abuser, and Ellen's mother is a fragile creature who dies when Ellen is only ten. Ellen gets bounced to and from her evil aunt's house until she finds sanctuary with a local woman who takes in foster children. The foster family, people call them, so Ellen rechristens herself Foster.
It sounds sentimental, but like all great literature, it isn't; it's simple, terrible and true. Ellen, who narrates the story, isn't telling us the story for sympathy; she's just talking to us, the way any 11-year-old would. It's absolutely sincere -- a gamble so few authors are willing to take -- and it pays off.
First read: 1988
Owned since: 1993 (best guess)
I found this British first edition in a used bookstore, but I don't remember where. I snapped it up because it's one of my favorite books, and I've given away more than one paperback copy. Ms. Gibbons signed this book for me at an event at Olsson's bookstore in downtown Washington, when she was touring for Sights Unseen.
At 146 pages, Ellen Foster is as small and perfect as a teardrop. It's a first novel and is still my favorite of Gibbons's books, although most of her later work is quite good. Gibbons wrote a sequel to Ellen Foster last year, The Life All Around Me by Ellen Foster, and I picked it up and wished I hadn't. The urge to revisit beloved characters is strong, but I preferred my own imaginings about what Ellen had gone on to do.
Ellen Foster is the story of her survival of childhood. It begins, "When I was little I would think of ways to kill my daddy." Ellen's daddy is a wife abuser, and Ellen's mother is a fragile creature who dies when Ellen is only ten. Ellen gets bounced to and from her evil aunt's house until she finds sanctuary with a local woman who takes in foster children. The foster family, people call them, so Ellen rechristens herself Foster.
It sounds sentimental, but like all great literature, it isn't; it's simple, terrible and true. Ellen, who narrates the story, isn't telling us the story for sympathy; she's just talking to us, the way any 11-year-old would. It's absolutely sincere -- a gamble so few authors are willing to take -- and it pays off.
Monday, October 22, 2007
THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY by Ambrose Bierce
The Book: Ambrose Bierce, THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY. Castle Books facsimile reprint, 1967. Book is missing dust jacket, otherwise in very good condition; pages are slightly brown with age. Resale price of $2.75 marked in pencil on front flyleaf.
First read: 1982 (approximately)
Owned since: 1987 (best guess)
It's funny how you can create a memory. I think I remember reading this in the guest room of the house I lived in the year after I got out of college, but it's entirely possible that I made that memory up. I know I bought it used, and I might have bought it in San Francisco -- but if that's true, it didn't happen until 1990.
Anyway, it's another one of those books that should be on every voting American's shelf. Ambrose Bierce (1842-c.1914) was a Civil War veteran and columnist for William Randolph Hearst's San Francisco Examiner. His columns often included a satirical definition of some term he had used, and these definitions were collected into The Cynic's Word Book in 1906.
Subsequent editions of the book were renamed The Devil's Dictionary, and it might not be overstating things to say that The Devil's Dictionary is the direct ancestor of all of our modern political humorists, from Stephen Colbert to Bill Maher.
It's a book to keep around and dip into at intervals, not to read at one sitting. Bierce, like many comics, was an angry man, and some of the entries in The Devil's Dictionary are bitter, even mean.
But a lot of it is just as accurate today as it was 100 years ago.
First read: 1982 (approximately)
Owned since: 1987 (best guess)
It's funny how you can create a memory. I think I remember reading this in the guest room of the house I lived in the year after I got out of college, but it's entirely possible that I made that memory up. I know I bought it used, and I might have bought it in San Francisco -- but if that's true, it didn't happen until 1990.
Anyway, it's another one of those books that should be on every voting American's shelf. Ambrose Bierce (1842-c.1914) was a Civil War veteran and columnist for William Randolph Hearst's San Francisco Examiner. His columns often included a satirical definition of some term he had used, and these definitions were collected into The Cynic's Word Book in 1906.
Subsequent editions of the book were renamed The Devil's Dictionary, and it might not be overstating things to say that The Devil's Dictionary is the direct ancestor of all of our modern political humorists, from Stephen Colbert to Bill Maher.
It's a book to keep around and dip into at intervals, not to read at one sitting. Bierce, like many comics, was an angry man, and some of the entries in The Devil's Dictionary are bitter, even mean.
But a lot of it is just as accurate today as it was 100 years ago.
LIFE, n. A spiritual pickle preserving the body from decay. We live in daily apprehension of its loss; yet when lost it is not missed. The question, "Is life worth living?" has been much discussed; particularly by those who think it is not, many of whom have written at great length in support of their view and by careful observance of the laws of health enjoyed for long terms of years the honors of successful controversy.
Saturday, October 20, 2007
SCORE ONE FOR THE SLOTHS by Helen Lester
The Book: Helen Lester, SCORE ONE FOR THE SLOTHS. Illustrated by Lynn Munsinger. Houghton Mifflin, 2001. Inscribed: "11-01. Fodder for your fascination! Love, Peggy & Scott."
First read: 2001
Owned since: 2001
I love sloths. It's hard to imagine an animal that has adapted better to its environment, the rain forests of Central and South America. Leaves are what they have to eat, so they eat leaves, though they'll eat other things too. Leaves don't provide much in the way of energy, so sloths conserve energy. Their metabolic rate is about half that expected for a mammal of comparable size, and their body temperatures range from 89-93F, well below the average mammal's. Every so often they get too cold, and have to warm themselves up by sunning.
An accident of physiognomy makes sloths look like they're smiling, but three-toed sloths are solitary, and will slash with their big claws if provoked. They can swim, but they don't; they mostly hang from trees, letting the rain sluice off them. They come down every eight days to defecate, which makes me wonder who's watching to time this (and why eight? Why not seven? Why not nine?).
Someone I know who has seen sloths in the wild says that they smell bad and are notorious carriers of all kinds of bugs. Nevertheless, if I lived anywhere near a rain forest, I would want one for a pet.
This book was a 36th birthday present from my sister Peggy and her husband, Scott, who know my fondness for these creatures. It's a clever story about the Sleepy Valley Sloth School, where the students don't go home until dusk because no one wants to open the door when the bell rings at 3:00 p.m. An energetic new sloth named Sparky arrives, tries to get things moving, and makes herself very unpopular -- but when the local school supervisor (from the Society for Organizing Sameness) arrives for an inspection, Sparky manages to make the sloths' lack of activity look productive.
One might quibble about a children's book that celebrates creative methods of disguising idleness, but it's a lesson that's bound to come in handy. Especially on a cloudy Saturday morning...
First read: 2001
Owned since: 2001
I love sloths. It's hard to imagine an animal that has adapted better to its environment, the rain forests of Central and South America. Leaves are what they have to eat, so they eat leaves, though they'll eat other things too. Leaves don't provide much in the way of energy, so sloths conserve energy. Their metabolic rate is about half that expected for a mammal of comparable size, and their body temperatures range from 89-93F, well below the average mammal's. Every so often they get too cold, and have to warm themselves up by sunning.
An accident of physiognomy makes sloths look like they're smiling, but three-toed sloths are solitary, and will slash with their big claws if provoked. They can swim, but they don't; they mostly hang from trees, letting the rain sluice off them. They come down every eight days to defecate, which makes me wonder who's watching to time this (and why eight? Why not seven? Why not nine?).
Someone I know who has seen sloths in the wild says that they smell bad and are notorious carriers of all kinds of bugs. Nevertheless, if I lived anywhere near a rain forest, I would want one for a pet.
This book was a 36th birthday present from my sister Peggy and her husband, Scott, who know my fondness for these creatures. It's a clever story about the Sleepy Valley Sloth School, where the students don't go home until dusk because no one wants to open the door when the bell rings at 3:00 p.m. An energetic new sloth named Sparky arrives, tries to get things moving, and makes herself very unpopular -- but when the local school supervisor (from the Society for Organizing Sameness) arrives for an inspection, Sparky manages to make the sloths' lack of activity look productive.
One might quibble about a children's book that celebrates creative methods of disguising idleness, but it's a lesson that's bound to come in handy. Especially on a cloudy Saturday morning...
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