Category Archives: Reading

2: Death of a Department Chair

Death of a Department Chair by Lynn C. Miller

If I recall correctly, this was an actual remainder table book, which I picked up because it was a mystery set at a university, and thus I thought it might be amusing. It seemed apropos to read it when I finished my comps.

Not the worst book I’ve ever read, but otherwise this review is pretty accurate. It was a slog. I did finish it, by reading one chapter at a time. It suffered from many, many beginning writer problems. The characters were introduced with police blotter descriptions that were supposed to show how different they were, when in fact, they were indistinguishable aside from names–I did a lot of “who?” *flip, flip, flip* “ohh.”

Also not a fan of the experimental pov switches. A better writer might have been able to make this work, but it did not work here. The “journal entries” were totally unrealistic. I could continue, but you get the idea.

Miller is a theater professor, which helps explain some of the book’s issues (especially the lack of characterization). The story may have worked better as a play, since actors would be able to add nuance to the characters.

For balance, here is a more positive take.

1: The Line Painter

The Line Painter by Claire Cameron

This one came from the VPL Book Sale this spring. Here’s proof:

VPL Spring Book Sale

I picked it up because I remembered Cameron’s name from Bookninja (moment of silence), where she was a contributor. Ok, weirdly, as I go to Bookninja to get the link, I see that the last thing posted before its demise was this:

Do you think that might have influenced my purchase? I think it did! Anyhow, here’s the book’s page on Cameron’s website, with description, excerpt, video interview, and links to reviews. (Yeesh, she’s making this too easy ;))

I’d describe The Line Painter as being very movie-like. It’s focused: there are just a few key characters, a few settings. Minimalist, in a good way (you’re focused on what’s happening, not keeping track of who’s who). It’s suspenseful, but not overly plotty. The main story plays out over a few days, but with flashbacks to fill in the backstory.

I read it while visiting my family in the Okanagan in July. It actually turned out to the be the perfect read. I read it over several nights of before-bed reading and finished it within the week (just in time to go back to comps reading—gah, let’s not dredge that up ;)). That The Line Painter was able to grab and hold my attention at a time when my brain was being pulled in multiple directions gets it two thumbs up (or 4 stars at Goodreads).  Definitely look forward to her next novel.

A single rich document

The codex is built for nonlinear reading – not the way a Web surfer does it, aimlessly questing from document to document, but the way a deep reader does it, navigating the network of internal connections that exists within a single rich document like a novel. Indeed, the codex isn’t just another format, it’s the one for which the novel is optimized. The contemporary novel’s dense, layered language took root and grew in the codex, and it demands the kind of navigation that only the codex provides.

—Lev Grossman

Quest for a bargain

As a result [of online bookstores], our lives, and our engagement with the world around us, slowly become more insular. We get challenged less, so believe in what we believe with more fervor. Something akin to intellectual torpor sets in as we keep returning to the same shelves in the marketplace of ideas. And we, as a society, are worse off for it, another stroke of damage from his secular religion of ours, the quest for a bargain.

—Scott Martelle

A profound connection with an imaginary world

Serious readers, [Shirley Brice] Heath tells [Jonathan Franzen], come in two flavors: either their parents modeled serious reading for them as children, or, far less commonly, they were “social isolates” who found in books a profound connection with an imaginary world that supplanted a daily environment in which they felt they had no place. The latter description, apparently, fits Franzen to a T, and he is relieved to hear Heath tell him that readers who came to books to cure their social isolation are more likely than other kinds of readers to become writers. Soon afterward, his writer’s block is cured and his stalled third novel begins to click along.

—Michael Bourne,
discussing Franzen’s 1996 essay, “Perchance to Dream“

What must happen

[Friday Night Lights]’s sole focus is on the episodes themselves, resisting what has become standard in TV marketing – online franchising in the form of tabloid features, extensive merchandising, and audience participation via wiki fan sites.  … It’s a crucial decision, if you think of FNL (and I do) as well-crafted art.  The serial narrative – in both TV and literature – when offered up to fans as participants, can become vulnerable.  …  The creators of FNL are not interested in what fans want or need to happen to the characters, but rather about what must happen to them, in the world they’ve created.

—Sonya Chung

My reading time would just feel like work time

I don’t have an electronic reader, or whatever those are called. I’m still old school and I like holding the pages. Also, I look at a computer screen and a blackberry all f-cking day. I need some separation from that, and I feel like if I were to read off one of those future readers, my reading time would just feel like work time. So I’m a relic.

—Lainey Lui

 

Exhausting

This is going to sound incredibly lazy, like someone who gets in their car to drive a few blocks rather than walk, but the physicality of the book, having to hold it open then lift and turn each page, was a lot more exhausting than I remembered. All of that holding and lifting and turning distracted me from the act of reading, took me out of the story if you will. A few pages into it I gave up, logged in to Amazon, and bought the Kindle book.

—Kim White

LOLOLOL. Sorry, yes. Sure, you can prefer screen-reading to print-reading. But claiming turning pages is exhausting? Please.

Print is Dead and the Espresso Book Machine

I recently read Jeff Gomez’s Print is Dead, one of the main arguments of which is that even though a lot of people like print books and think ebooks are fixing something that isn’t broken, they should just get with the program, because eventually the only books that are going to be available in print are Dan Brown and his ilk.

But I wonder. Sure, one day bookstores may no longer stock pbooks. Maybe there won’t even be bookstores. But with print-on-demand technology, it would be ridiculously easy for publishers to continue to make it possible for anyone to get a print copy of any book they want—even if they do transition primarily to ebooks. So just from a technological standpoint, the whole “print is dead” thing seems a bit overblown.