The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod:

Eighth Grade Bites
     and
Ninth Grade Slays

by Heather Brewer




When I first saw a copy of Eighth Grade Bites in fall of 2007, I thought the cover was awesome. The baggy black hoodie is so totally how teens dress these days, right? I put it on display by the new young adult books and was dismayed that no one checked it out. After a few weeks it went onto the regular shelves, and I forgot about it.

Fast-forward about nine months, and out of nowhere I realize that Twilight by Stephenie Meyer has hundreds of people on the waiting list and is being made into a movie, some of which is being filmed in Oregon. I remember when the book first came out in 2005, and I remember seeing it languishing on the shelf week after week after week. I also remember the sequel, and I remember wondering why we were getting the second book when the first hadn't been checked out even once.

Even once the hoopla started, I didn't want to read Twilight, because I didn't want to wait and because I'm sometimes turned off just by the fact of something being very popular. The upshot, however, is that all the requests for the Meyer books got me thinking again about the Chronicles of Vladimir Tod. I remembered that I'd kind of wanted to read it, and I figured this would be a great time to do so, because it could be a recommendation to give teens for something to read while they're waiting for or after they've finished Twilight.

These books are pretty short, even for YA. The first one especially could be read in one sitting.(Meyer's books are designed to look longer, but I've heard they're not all that long.) While the writing isn't super and there's a noticeable lack of basic editing ("how's so-and-so fairing?"), as well as some continuity failures (creeping down the hall from one room to another, which were previously described as being on different floors), plus some painfully dumb "creative" choices (vampire communities exist in cities such as Cairo, London, Mexico City, and ... the sprawling metropolis of Stokerton?) — all that notwithstanding, I just about loved these books.

The main character is a sweet, likable kid with a crush on a pretty girl and a couple of bullies who pick on him for being goth. The best thing is the new twist on ye olde vampire story that is the centerpiece of the plot: Vlad's dad was a vampire and his mom was mortal (they're both dead), so he was actually born a vampire instead of made into one by being bitten; vampire lore, meanwhile, tells of a such a vampire being born one day, rising to rule over all other vampires and enslave the entire human race. So, as you can imagine, he's got some enemies in the vampire community. And what about the mystery of his parents' death?

Looking forward to the next installment, Tenth Grade Bleeds, in July 2009!

Il Gatto Sul G.

by Tooko Miyagi

This is a two-volume (as far as I know) series from Juné Manga, which publishes some really fantastic boys-love stories, particularly of the romantic and relatively innocent variety. (Such as Only the Ring Finger Knows and Rin!) I read it more than a year ago, so my recollection is a bit hazy, but I'm pretty sure I wasn't that into it. There's this annoying thing where the character would turn (entirely or partially) into a cat as an expression of certain emotions. I don't know how common that is in manga, but I know there's a definite sub-genre, so I suppose some people don't find it irritating the way I do. (How fine is the line between cosplay and furry?) Other than that, it is a fairly typical boys-love set up: young men of slightly different ages, a bit of power imbalance, confused longings and unclear motivations. In this case, the younger character has, or may have, serious psychological problems.

Final judgement? It's worth a shot if you like yaoi manga. Heck, I just requested the second volume so I can give it another chance.

Boy2Girl

by Terence Blacker

I don't want to fall behind while catching up, so here's one that I only just finished reading.

It's kind of awful, but I also kind of loved it. The premise is preposterous, and the writing — well, it's hard to tell because the perspective skips from character to character every few paragraphs, which I found intensely irritating and unnecessary. When I read the first 10 or so pages before bed one night, I wasn't sure I'd be able to finish it, that's how bad it seemed. But the next night, I finished the entire book in one sitting, during which I laughed out loud several times and found myself grinning a lot. And I totally swear I only had one beer.

An orphaned American boy moves to live with auntie/uncle/cousin in London; ridiculously, cousin and his friends make American boy dress as a girl for the first week of school. If you can make it past that, you'll get some funny bits. The cross-dressing boy turns out to be pretty cute as a girl, with long blond(e) hair and a small frame. He fancies himself a tough guy, so the way he gets into flipping his hair, swishing his skirt, and wearing a training bra is amusing. The funniest, though, was how this brash and tom-boyish seventh-grader captures the attention of the twelfth-grade lothario. Oh, yeah, and he inherits 2 million dollars, and his long-lost jailbird dad turns up looking to cash in, but sort of turns out to be a decent guy following the impregnation of his new former-stripper wife.

Like I said, ridiculous, but somehow I enjoyed it, the way you can sometimes enjoy a really really really dumb romantic comedy film that you get on Netflix and watch by yourself because you're too embarrassed to admit to anyone that you want to watch it.

The Headmaster Ritual

by Taylor Antrim

How weird is this? In the shower this morning, I was thinking how cathartic it was to finish the zine roundup yesterday and how I was feeling optimistic and into doing this reading journal after months of indifference. Knowing I have a big backlog, I started thinking about what to do when it came time to write about a book I read a while back and didn't really remember or have strong feelings about. The example that came to mind: The Headmaster Ritual.

So, I'm not sure why I wanted to read it in the first place, I think maybe it was reviewed in the New York Times Book Review. I also tend to enjoy books with boarding school as the setting. (Spud is a good example.) And since I don't have a strong memory of the book, I have to wonder if it's worth doing any research to remind myself, or if it's worth writing anything about it at all.

I just found the NYTBR article on the interwebs (here), and it's not very illuminating. It's not that positive of a review, so what made me want to read the book?

As I work through my backlog, I suppose I'll get better or find a better way of dealing with this situation if it comes up again. And perhaps I'll catch up and never fall behind again and not have to worry about it ever again. (One can dream...)

Another zine roundup

So, it's been ages. I'm terribly behind with this reading journal. I haven't even been reading at my accustomed pace, and I've still got a backlog of dozens of books. I've also read a bunch of zines, mostly stuff that's new to the library's collection. Since I'm so far behind, I'm gonna do this quick and dirty, as they say. Sorry for not linking the titles, but gimme a break, will ya?

Prepubescent, by Ms. Zine
Not comprehensive sex ed. for boys, more anecdotal, but an interesting look at a mother-son relationship on the "pre-" side of puberty. Could be read by sons and/or parents or anyone who interacts with that age group. Favorite part: son asks mom why guys like to look at boobs; mom says, I don't know, you're a guy so you tell me why (or ask another guy; and if you really don't know yet, you'll figure it out soon enough).

Frat-bot and Cod and Thingpart Sampler #5 by Joe Sayers
Love this guy's comic strips from the weekly paper. The sampler is a collection of those strips, while the other is a group of longer vignettes featuring the eponymous characters, all with Sayers' trademark twisted humor. My fave of his strips (not in these, but on my friend's refrigerator): little girl begs mom for a pony, mom agrees, little girl cheers; in the final panel, the little girl is holding a knife and fork, crying in front of a piece of meat, and mom says "shut up and finish your pony."

Phase 7, #s 010, 011, 012, by Alec Longstreth
Great mini-comic about the author's development as a comics artist and zinester, so it's doubly meta: a comic about comics and a zine about zines. Which doesn't make it sound as cool as it is. I don't know how else to explain except to say that you'll feel as if you're catching up with a friend you haven't seen in a while.

The Way Things Used to Be and Argyle, by Erica Schreiner
Argyle tells the story of an intense and relatively brief love affair. I never could tell if it's a true story or not; it has the dreamy sort of feel of something not really imagined but more like a gilded remembrance. The Way Things Used to Be is a gripping first-person narrative of family, social, and romantic issues in senior year of high school. I would totally recommend this to teens of any gender, cuz it feels so real.

The Fart Party, by Julia Wertz
Hilarious mini-comic about slacker/hipster angst. Don't remember which ones (1, 4, or 7) I read, but I got giggles from both. She almost moves to Portland (yay!) but goes to Brooklyn instead. (Boo!)

Big Plans, Nos. 1-3, by Aron Nels Steinke
Completely charming mini-comics relating more or less ordinary events in the life of a young man. But just so effing charming! There's no other word. I have a crush on Aron after reading these.

Hey Tim: five letters, by Bob Wenzel
Poop-your-pants funny! Bob has Crohn's disease and sends letters to his son Tim about some of his extreme potty emergencies, Tim illustrates them and puts out a zine. Not for the squeamish, but if the word "poop" makes you giggle, you're gonna love it. (Crohn's disease isn't funny, and we shouldn't laugh at people who have it. But shit happens, and sometimes all you can do is hold on to your sense of humor.)

Somnambulist #10, by Martha Grover
"The Portland Issue" of highly readable short stories by Grover and others. I also read #7, which relates the smoking and quitting stories of an extended family, most of whom have smoked or still do smoke cigarettes. The smoking issue is more free-form, with less writing and more illustrations. Both are worth the time.

Crudbucket #6, by K.T. Crud
So freaking hilarious. It's "the hodgepodge issue," full of random funny stories. (Not sure how it compares to other issues.) If her last name weren't Crud, it'd have to be Sedaris. Definitely in my Top 10 of humorous zines.

Constant Rider #8, by Kate Lopresti
Oftentimes I like it that zines are short, but this is one I wish were longer. I'm kind of a transportation/urban planning geek, but I think these mini-reports about public transportation are interesting enough for any reader. I've also read #7, and soon the library will have the omnibus.

Superman Stories #2, by Mark Russell
Another entry in the Top 10 humorous zines, along with the first installment. In comic books, movies, television shows, you only get the highlights of a character's life. These zines fill in the blanks with things you never knew you wanted to know about Superman's real life.

Monsters #1-2 and Gordon Smalls Goes to Jail: an act of comicide, by Ken Dahl
Unintentionally giving your girlfriend herpes (and realizing how ignorant you both are about STIs) can make you feel like a monster, as explained in this well-written and highly imaginative comics series. Then, to cheer yourself up, read a realistically harsh and yet somehow also funny comic about spending the night in the clink. Eff the pigs, right? But you're better off not effing with them cuz it really sucks to get busted.

Wierd Sea Creatures of the Sea: focus on narwhal and Homobody #1-3, by Rio Safari
The genius of WSCS is that it's partially true, partially made up, and all precious: an illustrated bonbon of infotainment. Can't wait to see more creatures! The Homobody series consists of single panels and mini-comics relating incidents in the life of a young, gay, punk guy. Often sweet and romantic, totally crush-worthy.

Coffeeshop Crushes: tales of love and lust in coffee establishments (anthology)
I wish I had a copy on hand so I could give you this great quote about the peculiar pscyho-sexual appeal of skinny, pale, blank barista boys. A spotty anothology, but the gems in there are worth looking for — just be sure to give yourself permission to skip around and not read every single entry.

SteamPunk Magazine: lifestyle, mad science, theory & fiction (various authors)
If you've never heard of "steampunk," flip through some of these. If you adore old-fashioned "technology," then revel in these. If nothing else, interesting as evidence of a little-known subculture, and every issue has at least one cool DIY project.

Xploited Zine, Issue 002: public restrooms (anthology)
Reviews and related stories about places to go when you have to "go" in San Francisco. You don't have to live there to find it amusing or informative, though it might help.

Avow #22, by Keith Rosson
Intense confessionals (true?) about living and loving and struggling with addictions. Quality writing compensates for sort of depressing subject matter.

Mary Van Note's Experiences (of the sexual variety) vol. 1, by Mary Van Note
As George Michael once sang, "sex is natural, sex is fun...". Sex is also weird, occasionally icky, and frequently hilarious in this collection of bizarre recollections of sexual awakening.

Dancing with Jack Ketch: the life of Jackson Donfaire, notorious pirate, by Josh Shalek
Not a true story, as far as one quick Google can tell, which is shame. All about an escaped slave turned castaway-cook and pirate captain who returns a ship full of slaves to Africa, it would be great if it were true. Hard to put my finger on exactly why, but I found it overall a bit disappointing.

Mishap #21, by Ryan Mishap
Classic perzine out of Eugene, really runs the gamut. I liked reading the book reviews way more than I expected, and the interview with the lead singer of a Scandinavian, Middle-Earth-themed (yes, as in Tolkien) heavy metal band was a hoot.

Standard Deviation #1, by J.V. Whimper
A brilliant little science zine that's just too darn short. A little miscellanea, a touch of Q&A, and lovely wee lab report of sorts. Would love to see more, and longer ones, in the future.

Glossolalia No. 9, by Sarah Contrary
Lyrical and eloquent meditations on what makes New York and Portland special, each in their own ways. Too bad Sarah doesn't live in Portland anymore! Glad we got her to do a Zinesters Talking (2007) while she was still here.

Messenjerk: Lords of the Extreme, by Natalie Yager
Non-stop making fun of bike messenger culture, especially those ridiculous fixies. Funny cuz it's true, and even when it's exaggerated or made up, still funny cuz it's at someone else's expense. Not sure how actual messenjerks feel about it, tho.

Time Is the Problem #1, by Jim Lowe
Didn't finish this one. Too much non-religious spirituality and life-really-has-meaning. My not liking it is more a matter of my constitution and (lack of) beliefs than a function of the zine's quality, which (see previous) I'm not equipped to judge.

Proust and the Squid: the story and science of the reading brain

by Maryanne Wolf

I've read a bunch of other books about brains, so I was really excited to read this book. It turned out to be a little less science-y than I was expecting, and somewhat repetitive in certain sections, but overall it was a worthwhile read. What I took away from the experience is not so much a feeling for the science as an appreciation of the complexity of the reading process and, consequently, how many opportunities there are for failures in learning to read.

The author covers what is known of the history and origin of writing, and therefore reading, including Socrates' arguments against written language. There's also discussion of how readers of different kinds of languages — alphabetic, logographic, syllabic, etc. — utilize different brain structures and can form different kinds of connections among parts of their brains, as well as mention of how eye movements and use of peripheral vision allow the reader continuously to scan ahead and behind instead of focussing letter by letter or word by word. (Although it may feel as if you're only aware of one or a few words at a time, this kind of scanning and awareness is essential for understanding grammar and for selecting meanings and pronunciations of individual words.)

The middle portion of the book talks about the different stages of learning to read: from phonemic awareness in the pre-reader; through sounding out words and understanding how individual sounds are joined together to form words (as well as the correspondence between letters and various sounds); grasping increasingly complex grammatical and narrative structures; all the way to fluent, nearly unconscious reading that allows even higher levels of emotional and intellectual engagement and interpretation.

The section discussing dyslexia and other reading problems, in which the author suggest that non-standard brain functioning that results in reading difficulties might confer other advantages by fostering other ways of thinking and imagining — witness the many geniuses and artists believed or known to have been dyslexic — this section was less interesting to me.

The end of the book just dips into a subject I've been very interested in lately: how is technology and media affecting the way we think and the ways our brains function? Harkening back to Socrates, the author acknowledges that it's all to easy to distrust the future, only to find out the dooms-day predictions were unfounded, but she also makes it clear that we're in a time of increasingly rapid changes to how we produce, store, and consume information, and it would behoove us to conscientiously examine what's worth preserving even as we adapt to the ineluctable transformations.

One thing Socrates warned against regarding written language was the potential for false and unfounded belief in the apparent truthfulness of the printed word, simply because it's printed. Some modern intellectuals see the same danger today in many people's willingness to accept the validity of the first one or two Google results — a danger compounded by the fact that those results are manipulable by site owners, and that Google's customer is the advertiser not the searcher.

Socrates also worried that the ability to record information (and then, presumably, to forget it) would lead to degraded memory and intellectual abilities. To the contrary, the advent of written language opened up new mental terrain, perhaps in part because the brain adaptations required for reading (new connections among brain parts, analytical speed and precision in multiple brain areas, etc.) allowed the thinking brain to make new conjectures and associations. (The simple fact of having recorded knowledge in itself facilitated juxtaposition, interpolation, expansion, and creation of ideas.)

So what happens to our brains now, faced with an exponentially expanding store of knowledge and a technology to access that information that divides attention and replaces self-made inferences and connections with the illusion of endless connectivity, links, and tangents? The effects surely aren't all bad, but there is cause for concern The author and I aren't the only ones thinking about this: check out these articles from NPR and the BBC.

Now, I realize this post is getting pretty long (partly why I gave you the links instead of summarizing myself), but I want to go on a little tirade before I wrap it up. Something I thought about while reading this book is the phenomenon of people who say "I'm a visual learner". Of course, all sorts of input, including audio-visual and experiential, can be valuable ways of learning. I have a nagging sense, however, that "I'm a visual learner" is too often a smoke screen concealing the truth that "I don't read well and my reading comprehension is not what it should be". This bothers me because there's the connected phenomenon of saying it's OK for students not to be able to read well and/or to watch a video as a substitute for reading because they are visual learners. Furthermore, given the multimedia nature of the interwebs, technology and "2.0" boosters have a tendency to glorify visual learning as the future and salvation of learning and teaching. I've actually heard a speaker at a conference suggest it would be better to have a medical procedure from someone who watched a video about how to do it as opposed to someone who read about how to do it in a textbook. I don't know about you, but I'd like to think medical professionals are doing more than one or the other! False analogies aside, I'm a little suspicious of the video-watcher; if they have poor reading comprehension, surely that has implications for their other mental capacities and their capability in general.

Soon I Will Be Invincible

by Austin Grossman

"My first act will be to demand the surrender of all the governments of Earth, via the United Nations Security Council. You have no alternative. Legal details of this process can be found on my web site."

So states Dr. Invincible, the evil supergenius who narrates half of this hilariously entertaining book. The other narrator is Fatale (fuh-tahl, not fay-tal), a half-cyborg woman recently recruited to join a team of superheroes. It sounds frivolous — and so what if it is — but there are quite a few aspects of human nature that can be illuminated by considering what it would mean to be meta-human. (X-men, duh!) The author does a great job of portraying the interior monologues and motivations of both characters, and does a particularly good job of making the reader sympathize with Dr. Invincible. (Or maybe that's just me; after all, I am 74% evil.)

American Nerd: the story of my people

by Benjamin Nugent

While the author makes no pretense of this being a scholarly approach to the history of nerd-dom, it does begin with what seems to be a reasonably comprehensive survey of the origin and early uses of not only the word but the very concept itself. It starts out literary-historical, but when the explication arrives at the recent past it gets a bit bogged down in the minutiae of certain pop culture instances of nerdiness.

The next phase is more philosophical and looks at contemporary cultures of nerditude; I particularly enjoyed the chapter that discusses the way hipsters co-opt aspects of nerd culture.

There's a thread of the author's personal life as a nerd throughout the book, and it continues to grow stronger, eventually forming the central theme of the final third of the book. While the personal stories (the author interviews some of his friends back in his D&D days) are, in a way, less interesting, they're also more poignant and come closest to a critique of the injustice of nerd persecution. It's touched upon in several instances, and any more wouldn't really fit within the scope of this book, but the day-to-day suffering of school-age nerds is a serious problem in contemporary American society.

Good flow, easy and relatively quick to read. Didn't blow my mind, but it was good enough and short enough that it didn't need to do so.

The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service,
vols. 1-3

by Eiji Otsuka

O - M - G !!!! This is, like, the best manga ever — and it doesn't even have any gay sex in it. (At one point there is, however, a very muscular, very well-hung re-animated corpse of a convicted and executed murderer.)

The series has a great cast of characters — a sexy/nerdy hacker; a Buddhist psychic who hears the voices of the dead; a doll-faced embalmer; a channeler who communicates with an alien via a sock puppet; and a "dowser" who can locate corpses instead of water — who are featured in stories of varying lengths that center around justice for the dead, which could be anything from solving a crime to simply moving the body to an appropriate place. It's sort of a cross between CSI and Buffy.

Another awesome thing is that this series, published by Oregon's own Dark Horse, comes with a guide to the "sound FX and notes", which provides panel-by-panel translations as well as an explanation of the history and (for lack of a better word) theory behind them as it relates to the history of the Japanese language and writing system(s).*

All in all, highly recommended for manga-lovers and the manga-curious, including teens. Exciting, well-told stories, visually entertaining; some nudity, but no sex (so far).

*The explanation pretty much blows out of the water (as predicted) my surmises in a previous post.

Warchild

by Karin Lowachee

There are some obvious parallels to Ender's Game, but this is a more mature novel. (My library has it cataloged as young adult, but I just checked two others that both have it as adult.) By the end, the protagonist is still a teenager but nearly post-adolescent; the violence is more gory and visceral; and there's some sexual innuendo — and pretty unsavory innuendo at that (child molestation, prostitution, human trafficking). There's also a much clearer and further psychological journey for the character. (It's been a while, but I remember Ender's Game as being more of a psychological journey for the reader than for the character; at the end of the book, Ender just seemed sort of flabbergasted, or like he had PTSD.)

I don't want to do a plot summary, because that'll make it seem more derivative than it actually is. I mean, on some level it is, but then (almost) all really good sci-fi books share certain story elements and plotting techniques. And this book is really good, potentially classic. (Also, the guy on the cover is hot, and I enjoyed having him in mind while reading the book. Too often the cover illustration ruins one's imagination of the character.)

Helping Me Help Myself

by Beth Lisick

For some reason, I thought this book got a bad review. When I checked the review-a-day on the Powell's website, however, it was a positive review. In any case, I can sort of see why some reviewers may have dissed it — but I totally disagree with them if they did.

When's the last time a book made you laugh out loud? When's the last time a book made you laugh so hard you were in tears and almost peed yourself? The author's sense of humor is not for everyone, but I really connected with her deeply ingrained sarcasm. It's as if she stole my own sense of humor.

In this book about a year-long attempt at self-improvement, the author pulls off an odd combination of cynicism and earnestness. She mocks, even as she makes a good-faith effort to follow the advice of ten self-help gurus. Hilarity ensues, as do some actual life lessons; happily, the lessons do not overwhelm the funniness, since this book is more about the self-help experience than the help itself.

The funniest chapters are "Shape Up and Ship Out," in which the author goes on a truly inspiring Richard Simmons cruise, and "A Place for Everything (Is Not the Basement)," in which the author consults an organization expert and confronts her life-long lack of organization.

My moon is in Virgo, so I was especially tickled by the organization chapter. Favorite quote: "I never thought I could get satisfaction from snapping a lid onto a plastic container that houses Hot Wheels and Hot Wheels only."

Embracing Love, vol. 3

by Youka Nitta

I don't know if my library ever had volumes 1 and 2, but we sure don't now. (No luck with interlibrary loan either.) Luckily, there's a section that brings the reader up-to-date on the story so far: Iwaki, a former (het) porn actor, and Katou, also an actor, are lovers, a fact with which Katou is perfectly comfortable but which causes Iwaki, and his conservative family, some distress. In classic, if somewhat annoying, yaoi style, Iwaki doesn't consider himself gay because Katou is the only man he could ever love.

Though their relationship is tempestuous, the fighting is part and parcel of the emotional intensity and physical passion that bind them together. There are some hot love-making scenes, and also some advances in terms of emotional intimacy, with Katou supporting Iwaki in a confrontation with his family after the death of his mother, and Iwaki finally letting Katou into his bedroom — and his heart?

With solid storytelling and good sex, this is the best kind of yaoi. I just got volume 4, and ordered 5 and 6, so stay tuned for updates. (I have to read some other stuff first, or else I'm going to get fines.)

The Year of Living Biblically: one man's humble quest to follow the Bible as literally as possible

by A.J. Jacobs

This book is primarily funny and a teensy bit uplifting, so if you're a religion hater like me, you've been warned.

That said, I do recommend this book. It's got some laugh-out-loud moments and an appealing earnestness throughout. The author, a secular New York Jew, seems genuine in his openness to feeling some kind of spiritual effect by adhering to the rules set forth in both the Old and New Testaments, even while his ingrained skepticism and a lifetime of agnosticism underline the utter absurdity of the majority of those Biblical injunctions. He doesn't dwell much on the scarier aspects of fundamentalism or the history behind competing interpretations and translations, but he manages to include a decent sampling of the types of Biblical literalism found in contemporary Judaism and Christianity.

One last (very minor) warning: the author's style is a lot like magazine writing (he's published other books but also has worked for Esquire for many years), which isn't necessarily a bad thing — it's just that, after 300-plus pages of magazine writing, your brain sort of feels the way your stomach would after a three-day juice fast.

J-Boy 1

by Biblos

This had a brief review on the Library Journal blog In the Bookroom, and based on that I submitted a suggestion for purchase at my library, and then found out from the library's new graphic novels RSS feed that we did purchase it — isn't the interwebs neat?!

I've had it out for a while and finally was forced to read it because some other jerks had made hold requests and I couldn't renew it any longer. Luckily, it was a pretty quick read and interesting enough to keep me up past bedtime for the couple of hours necessary to finish it in one go. (Still had to pay $2.50, darn it all.)

It's an anthology of one-shot and spin-off yaoi stories originally published in a Japanese serial. As with most compilations, some hit and some miss; I'd say the hit-miss ratio is about 70% to 30%. One or two stories were downright confusing, a couple were creepy (child-molester creepy, not spooky creepy), and four of the good ones really stood out. A couple of stories were more on the romantic side, most at least insinuated sex, and a few were very unambiguous about the characters getting down and dirty — but even the most hardcore scenes had the genital areas covered or blurred out. (It's rated for matures audiences 18+ and has a parental advisory for explicit content, one on the front cover and one on the back.)

Before I give you some highlights, I want to mention something that I absolutely adore about manga. In addition to the speech bubbles and the regular narration, they include lots of little side notes. Some are essentially sound effects (like the fight scenes in the '60s Batman TV show), some indicate actions (grab, stare, dash, hug), and some indicate emotions (stunned, blush, thudding heartbeats). Now, I'm kind of making this up, so it might be totally wrong, but I suspect that the prevelance of these annotations has some relation to the fact that Japanese writing is not entirely abstract (the way our strictly phonemic alphabet is) but also has ideogrammatic and symbolic elements to it, which makes the characters and words easier to stylize and incorporate into an illustration; for example, when a person is drawn with lines to indicate motion, characters for a word describing that motion can be drawn in a style that blends with or enhances or even takes the place of the motion lines. It doesn't quite work the same way in English, which is one of the reasons the annotations sometimes seem bizarre in translated manga. (The other reason is that sometimes the translation itself is weird.)

Aaaand, the whole point of the preceding paragraph is to introduce the first highlight, which nearly made me pee my pants laughing: an upset and crying neko samurai with the words "man tears" next to his face. The story, "Neko Samurai - Ocean of Barrier," is one of the best in the book. (A note in the margin explains that tachi is the person who is leading and giving in a sexual relationship, the one taking care of the partner, while neko is the person who is receiving in a sexual relationship, the one being taken care of by the partner. Top and bottom, essentially — I have more to say about gay stereotypes in yaoi a bit later.)

Actually, looking back, "man tears" was in a different story that I can't find now. But the samurai story — about an almost-thirty guy searching for his ideal tachi to whom he will give his virginity — was great, sexy, and a tiny bit raunchy, though less visually explicit than some. Other standouts include:

• "Indecent Encounter," about a guy with a nipple fetish who seduces his younger brother's classmate; one of the most explicit sex scenes in the book.
• "The Summer and the Nostalgia," more on the romantic side, although they definitely do it at the end.
• "Loving Boys Boarding School," where the boys are forbidden contact with girls and turn to each other for sexual release; they also have Native American–style "spiritual" names such as Tongue of the Heavens, Well-hung Babyface, and Public Toilet (because he's "open for public use, mostly for semen excretions").

Bottom line: great book, highly recommended to yaoi fans, and I hope the library gets more volumes.

In closing, however, I want to mention my frustration, not just with gay stereotypes that sometimes show up in yaoi, but even more so with many of the characters' unwillingness to accept their own homosexuality and their simultaneous willingness to accept society's judgement and lack of acceptance of homosexuality. Sure, their uncertainty and the hiding of their desires creates tension that adds to the story, but it would be nice if they eventually got over it.

The Blind Watchmaker: why the evidence of evolution reveals a universe without design

by Richard Dawkins

Reading this book was like being the choir that's getting preached to — but it did also deepen and enrich my personal understanding of the Darwinian model. It's been a long time since I read a book by Dawkins (I read most of — okay, okay, some of The Selfish Gene because he was coming to talk to all the nerds in the honors program when I was a college freshperson), and I forgot what a terrible writer he is. It's a shame, because he has some amazing things to say.

I'd only recommend this if you're a science geek like me. If you just want to tell off a creationist (or intelligent design-ist, which is a creationist in a sloppy disguise), there's lots of easier-to-read stuff out there.

Deadline

by Chris Crutcher

I was just trying to figure out which other books by C.C. I've read so I could tack them on to this entry. I know I read Athletic Shorts, but I can't figure out which other one. I know it was something to do with sports... Um, yeah, pretty much all his books are. In any case, it didn't make a huge impression, apparently, and neither did the short story collection, although I remember both being perfectly adequate examples of the high-school-athlete-overcomes-obstacle genre.

Anyway. I do remember thinking it was all too obviously an adult (and I don't even mean twenty- or thirty-something) trying to write in the voice of a teenager. But I didn't notice that in this new book, oddly enough. It was a fun, quick read — fun despite the plot revolving around the imminent death of the 18-year-old protagonist from a fast-acting, incurable disease that he hasn't told his family or friends about.

The character has a really engaging voice, and he does all the narrating, so there's no evidence of Crutcher's crotchetiness. There is the occasional odd turn of phrase, but I'd chalk that up to the rural Idaho setting and/or the "things my dad says" phenomenon. For example: "I'd swim through five hundred yards of molten turds to listen to her fart into a paper sack over the telephone" — which actually cracked me up.

And speaking of crack, this football-related quote gave me a different sort of thrill: "Thomas taps the lineman on the hole he's going through, twice on the butt."

The Loss of Sadness

by Allan V. Horwitz and Jerome C. Wakefield

Two researchers are making a case — no coincidence that revisions are underway for a fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders — that the diagnostic criteria for Major Depression have led to over-diagnosing and the pathologizing of normal sadness. Long story short: the DSM entry for depression makes an exemption for bereavement but not for other significant life events (romantic betrayal, financial woes, and so on and so forth) that can result in profound sadness, i.e., can cause symptoms that meet the criteria for a diagnosis of depression if the symptoms are taken in isolation and no consideration is given to the context in which they arose, which leads to people being medicated for normal kinds of sadness that would abate with time, ultimately feeding the expectation that no one need ever feel sad and "there ought to be a pill for that."*

Ultimately, I think the book is too in-depth and sometimes too technical for a lay audience. I actually learned everything I wanted to know from this lengthy review.

*See also my review of Happiness: a history.

Take It Off: an Insiders novel

by J. Minter

Basically, this series is like Gossip Girl with more focus on the boy characters — filthy rich, gorgeous Manhattan prep school boys. Mindless, yet irresistible. Decadent, and unsatisfying.

Kind of poorly written, too. In this installment, one of the characters gets stuck in Barcelona and has trouble communicating because he doesn't know a word of Spanish. He does, however, know some Portuguese and French, so he really shouldn't be completely unable to communicate, the way it's portrayed in the book. Fortunately, the books are such fluffy, quick reads that these sort of research and editing (and basic knowledge) failures are easily overlooked.

See my earlier review of Hold on Tight.

I usually don't do stuff like this, but I like what this says about me.

You Are 74% Evil

You are very evil. And you're too evil to care. Those who love you probably also fear you. A lot.

How Evil Are You?

Severance

by Robert Olen Butler

The concept is pretty rad: a human head is believed to remain in a state of consciousness for one and a half minutes after decapitation, and a person speaks about 160 words a minute in a heightened state of emotion... so, the author wrote 62 stories, each 240 words long, "capturing the flow of thoughts and feelings that rush through a mind after the head has been severed." (Quotation from the book jacket.)

Some of the best short stories I've ever read have been of the extremely short variety,* but a whole book of micro-stories becomes rather tiresome after, oh, five or six. Plus, stream of consciousness is always dicey to begin with. After the first ten or so, the choice of characters — ranging from a prehistoric man, to Anne Boelyn, to a roasting chicken, and beyond — became more interesting than the stories themselves. Yet, the stories are so brief, you ought to read them all anyway for the occasional flashes of brilliance. (Such as the aspiring court jester whose acrobatic prank goes awry and ends with him falling crotch-to-face upon his master while "already full excited at my joke.")

Another good toilet book, or, if you're not a compulsive in-bed reader, read one or two just before sleepy time.


*There's a possibly apocryphal tale of Ernest Hemingway's answer to the challenge to write a story in just six words: "For sale: baby shoes, never worn."

The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2007

edited by Dave Eggers
introduction by Sufjan Stevens (my future husband)

A lovely anthology of recent writing as judged by a group of San Francisco high schoolers, and Dave Eggers, under the aegis of the 826 Valencia writing program (and pirate supply store!). Runs the gamut from lists to comics to journalism to fiction to memoir... Truly eclectic and all well-done, though some were more to my liking than others purely as a matter of taste and not due to a failure of craft.

My favorites were "Best American Names of Television Programs Taken to Their Logical Conclusions" by Joe O'Neill*; "Ghost Children" by D. Winston Brown; "Selling the General" by Jennifer Egan; "The Big Suck: Notes from the Jarhead Underground" by David J. Morris; and "Literature Unnatured" by Joy Williams.

*An example:
1. Touched by an Angel
2. Contacted by a Lawyer Who Deals with These Sorts of Cases
3. Settled Out of Court with an Angel
4. Blamed All Subsequent Problems in Life on Encounter with the Angel

Spud

by John van de Ruit

Somewhere on the cover it says this book is "South Africa's Catcher in the Rye." I don't get the comparison. This book is so much better than Catcher. (Disclaimer: I think I waited too long to read CitR; I was nearly 30 by the time I read it, and all I heard was a spoiled brat whining about his rich-kid problems.)

Spud's about a 13-going-on-14-year-old who goes to boarding school on scholarship. (Younger and poorer than Salinger's protagonist; also, this is the story of him actually going to school rather than the story of him getting expelled and/or running away.) This book is funny; I laughed out loud several times. (Still not getting that comparison.)

Since it's set at an all-boys boarding school, you get a bit of implied/suspected homosexual shenanigans (not really involving the main characters), as well as a bit of the homophobia standard among boys of a certain age (not so much as to be offensive or discomfiting).

The story takes place in 1990, the year Nelson Mandela was released from prison and the South African government began the process of repealing apartheid laws. These facts don't affect the plot terribly much, but you get a good sense of how political events were often on people's minds during this time. Without being preachy, it's simply taken for granted that apartheid is wrong and it's days are numbered.

Bottom line, I loved this book and I'm anxious to read the next installment. I may have to ILL it, though — which I can't even do until the new year. It's on the thicker side for a young-adult novel, but the diary format makes it a quick read. I'm not sure how to recommend this one; I almost think girls would like it more than boys would. Well, boys would like it, but they'd be embarassed about it at the same time. And actually, now that I think about it, there's a bunch of stuff that would totally gross out the young ladies.

The Book of Lost Things

by John Connolly

From an author who's previously written mysteries and thrillers, we now have this abso-freaking-lutely awesome fairy tale for adults. I loved this book, tore through it in less than three days, and have already verbally recommended it to at least five people.

It's a coming-of-age story with a young boy/man whose mother has died after a long illness and whose father rather swiftly remarried and produced a baby brother. (Step-mom was a nurse at the institution where the dead mum was receiving hospice care, which gives you an idea of the timeline.) The story begins in the suburbs of London during WWII. Boy has conflicts with step-monster, but she's not evil; everyone's having tough times, and once we cross Narnia-style into the alternate reality we'll see that all the characters are imbued with complexity and ambiguity.

The coolest thing about this book is the way it retells the fairy tales you thought you knew. For example, Little Red Riding Hood wasn't a girl who was nearly eaten by a wolf, she was woman who fell in love with and seduced a wolf, giving birth to a race of half-wolf, half-human creatures that embody the struggle between instinct and intellect.

This book also gets bonus points for having a gay knight (disowned prince, in fact) searching for his lost lover, and for managing to encourage acceptance and diversity while acknowledging that those ideals don't mean that people won't sometimes have negative reactions and that those reactions don't necessarily indicate their deeper feelings.

I'm putting this book in my Top 10. (There are actually only two other books that are definitely in my Top 10: The End of Faith, which I've already blogged, and Cloud Atlas, which I haven't yet, although I have written up another of the author's books, Black Swan Green. Building my Top 10 is one of the things I hope to accomplish through writing this blog.)

Sloppy Firsts
    and
Second Helpings

by Megan McCafferty

A friend of mine who also reads quite a bit of teen fiction turned me on to this series. It's kind of racy, in that it doesn't shy away from sexual topics or language, and yet it's totally not explicit at all. In fact, it's frustratingly inexplicit if, like me, you actually want to read the sex bits. Oddly, my library has these books cataloged in adult fiction, but I just checked three other library systems that, with the exception of a single branch, have it cataloged in young adult.

So what's so great about another series about the dating/sex-life woes and family travails of a suburban teenager? Partly it's that flirting-with-the-edge-of-naughtiness aspect, but I also appreciated that the protagonist is (academically) smart without being the stereotypical geeky girl who gets a makeover. Best of all is the boy she falls for — cuz, honey, I fell for him too! He's also smart, but he's a bad boy too. Is there anything hotter?

I'm a little wary going into the third book, since high school is over and the star-crossed lovers are going to different colleges. It took two whole books to bag the hot bad boy, and I don't know if I'm ready to move on. We shall see. Yes. We shall. (That's an inside joke that you'll only get after you read Second Helpings.)

Glacial Period

by Nicolas de Crecy

When I first read about this graphic novel, it was supposed to have been the first in a series of GNs commissioned by/in cooperation with the musée du Louvre, but I haven't seen hide nor hair of any others. (Could just be my library's not getting them.) The author/illustrator is well-known in Europe, apparently, but close to unknown here across the pond.

It tells the story of archaeologists far in the future, during a glacial period, searching across the frozen wastes for evidence of a fabled lost civilization (us). The part that threw me was the talking dogs, who also have the ability to smell traces of the past, brought along on the expedition not quite as equals but certainly not as servants either. (My advice is just to pretend they're not dogs.) Anway, they manage to get into the ruins of the Louvre, where the paintings and what they depict mystify the explorers, who make many bizarre assumptions and speculations about the people who created them. Meanwhile, a bunch of ancient artifacts depicting gods/goddesses of various cultures start talking to each other and one of the talking dogs. And from there it just gets weirder...

Left me a little cold (ha ha), but one of my friends really dug it. (I know, the puns have got to stop.)

Rin! 1
Rin! 2

by Satoru Kannagi

This is a really cute three-book series (and of course my library doesn't have the third book!!!!) about a kid on the high school archery team with a weird sort of crush on his older brother's best friend. See, he gets really nervous and afraid and can't shoot well unless he gets a hug from this older boy, who acts peeved about it but harbors romantic feelings he won't admit to — at least not until another suitor comes a-courtin'. There's some boy-on-boy kissing, but nothing sexier than that. Definitely one of the better non-explicit yaois I've read.

I just ILL'd the third volume.

Corrections to My Memoirs

by Michael Kun

A collection of very-short short stories, most humorous — occasionally laugh-out-loud, other times wince-inducing. I'd probably only recommend it to a connoisseur of the form. It would also make a good toilet book, as the book itself is small and the stories are easily digestible.

Worst things about it are the mock publisher's introductions to each story detailing the fictitious awards not really bestowed upon the author's work. Kind of amusing at first... then cute... then precious... then just plain irritating (rather like an infant).

Best thing about it is the cover, which, along with the title, is a jab at James Frey's A Million Little Pieces:

Oh the Glory of It All

by Sean Wilsey

I don't recall where I heard of this book, but it was pitched as "if you liked Running with Scissors...", and it's by an author who's written for McSweeney's. It lives up to that pitch, having the requisite self-absorbed mother, quirky and precocious child, and distant father, adding an evil step-mother, a series of boarding schools, a dash of juvenile delinquency, and actual verifiable facts. (The author's wealthy and well-known parents went through a drawn-out divorce even after which their relationship laundry regularly was aired on the society pages of San Francisco newspapers.) It isn't as funny as Running with Scissors, but makes up for that with the emotional depth and real pathos that was lacking from Augusten Burroughs' memoir. It could have used a touch more editing, though; I was skimming a bit toward the end.

The Nature of Monsters

by Clare Clark

Another book I read because of reviews. I was intrigued at first, but didn't actually put the book on my list until after a second or third review. It's good, but not great, but definitely good enough to recommend for historical fiction junkies. Reminded me a little of Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson.

I'd like to say there's a strong feminist undercurrent, but the author's handling of it is uneven — a matter of opportunities missed, perhaps. There's a reference to midwifery being supplanted (undermined and sabotaged, in point of fact) by medical "science" at a time when the science was plagued by all sorts of bizarre and mistaken theories, such as the idea that certain experiences or emotions during pregnancy could result in monstrous babies (with dog heads or monkey tails, harelips, birthmarks and the like). But the story ultimately skates over the issues of the vilification and persecution of midwives and the loss of herb lore and "folk remedies" to pin the shortcomings of the emerging culture of male physicians/doctors on the opium-fueled delusions and resentments of a frustrated (and himself disfigured) apothecary.

Ultimately I think this book is more about the way each of us is utterly alone, the challenges of taking care of someone else while struggling with the question of whether anyone will ever take care of us. Rather bleak stuff, but not quite on the level of a Thomas Hardy.

The Baby Jesus Butt Plug: a fairy tale

by Carlton Mellick III

There isn't much I can say about this book. I stumbled across the title somewhere, put a hold on it so I could look at it, wound up reading it just cuz it's pretty short and weird enough to captivate even while it disgusts. (Tries to disgust, I guess, it was too dumb to be truly disgusting.)

It's a punk (not my definition) fairy tale about a future (?) world where people are slaves to corporations run by children, people are copied at Kinko's instead of being born; a world in which some people keep Baby Jesuses as pets (here's a mental image for you: a Baby Jesus with six swollen teats giving suck to a litter of baby Baby Jesuses) and some people use Baby Jesuses as "marital aids" (i.e., sex toys).

I'd recommend this book only to three types of people:

1. those who like to look at blobs of who-knows-what and/or festering wounds
2. those who frequently say, "Omigod, this is so gross — taste it"
3. those who enjoy the smell of their own farts

Just in Case
     and
How I Live Now

by Meg Rosoff

I am an Anglophile. I read young adult fiction. I love Meg Rosoff!

The main character in How I Live Now is a 15- or 16-year-old girl with an eating disorder (which I totally don't remember, but it's in the subject headings) who leaves New York to stay with her auntie and cousins in England. Some sort of unspecified terrorist attack or outbreak of war leaves the kids home alone and auntie stuck wherever she went on some kind of business trip or something. So there's a bit of Swiss Family Robinson element, with the kids trying to feed themselves from the garden and survive without electricity; some Lord of the Flies conflict among them, and some bad stuff that goes down when they leave the relative safety of home to try to find out what's happening only to encounter a band of crazy Mad Max types gone nuts in the seeming apocalypse; and a dash of Blue Lagoon romance. (The anorexic girl bangs her slightly younger cousin, which caused a bit of a stir when the book won the Printz award in 2005, because technically it's incest or something, but, like, whatever, they're cousins, who cares?)

[a few hours later...] Looking back at what I wrote, it doesn't sound like a good book. I don't know why I compared it to so many books/movies when it isn't even very much like any of them. I guess it's hard to explain why it's good. The story is told in retrospect and concludes with the narrator/protagonist returning to see her cousin who was scarred — literally and figuratively — by the same experience from which she emerged more or less unscathed. I don't know what else to say, except that I really liked this book. It's relatively short, so it'd be a good one for teens not that into reading. The shortness also lends itself well to urgent book report needs, and the whole terrorism/apocalypse theme should make it that much easier.

Just in Case is also pretty good. It's a similar teen-friendly length and tells the story of a 15-year-old boy who changes his name and his image in order to try to escape Fate. Not just lower-case fate, and more than his fate per se, because Fate is a character in the book. It's a bizarre conceit to have Fate interjecting threats and heckles here and there, and it's a little annoying, but not too bad because there isn't that much of it. Much more effective and interesting are the parts of the story narrated by Justin's pre-verbal toddler brother, wise beyond his years in a very Zen sort of way. His parents are useless and nearly absent in the way parents often are in young adult books, but Justin gets by with a little help from his friends. More proof that teenagers are temporarily insane.

American Purgatorio

by John Haskell

Reviewers loved this book. Even so, I didn't bite until I'd read several of the glowing reviews. It's been a while since I read it, so maybe that's why I'm having trouble thinking of what to say; but I also remember being a little bored and frustrated with the book, but not enough to stop reading. (At least one review calls the book "mesmerizing," but last time I checked that's not what the word means.) It's kind of gimmicky too.

It must be lifted from the jacket, because several reviews refer to the main character walking out of a gas station convenience store to find that "his life has vanished." Really, it's his wife who's vanished. To the extent that his life vanishes, it's because he can't accept her disappearance and goes off on a cross-country odyssey to find her — a goose chase, in chapters corresponding to the seven deadly sins, on which he ultimately finds himself, so to speak.

******SPOILER ALERT*******
Don't read any more if you think you might read this book, I'm about to ruin the ending...

Alls I got to say is, this guy must have really liked The Sixth Sense.

M or F?
by Lisa Papademetriou and Christopher Tebbetts

Cyrano de Bergerac meets instant messaging — hilarity ensues. That's what was supposed to happen, I guess. Also, this whole gay-boy-and-his-fag-hag-are-into-the-same-guy-and-they-don't-know-if-he's-gay-or-straight thing is getting a little tired. I wanted to like this book, I really did. And it does have a surprise twist at the end. If you haven't read as many gay-themed young adult novels as I have, you might enjoy it, cuz it's not actually that bad.

Let Us Be Perfectly Clear

by Paul Hornschemeier

This is a weirdly constructed book — really two books (Let Us Be and Perfectly Clear) back-to-back and bound together so that it has no back cover but two front covers from which one reads toward the middle of the book. It's a collection of short comic (as in strip, not as in funny) pieces which occasionally overlap but don't have an overarching theme. Some are great, some are stupid, some are very short and deeply unsatisfying, one of them will make you feel a bit nauseated. To some extent these are "art comics" that will be most appreciated by other graphic artists and illustrators. For the rest of us, it might be worth flipping through but it's not really something you'd want to read straight through.

The Invisible

by Mats Wahl

Now a Major Motion Picture! Gosh, I hate when they put that on the cover. In fact, just as this is the English translation of a book written in Sweden, the American movie is remake of a Swedish movie, and of course the American version ups the ante by adding a second invisible character because, as we all know, most Americans are incapable of detecting subtlety or paying attention to a tragedy that isn't also a romance.

As to the book, subtlety is not in the plot but in the excruciatingly slow unfolding of events. I'm not giving anything away by telling you there's an invisible character — the title does that well enough, and his invisibility becomes apparent early in the story. Really, much of the plot is rather predictable, but, thanks to excellent writing, that doesn't diminish the tense, strangled urgency or the crushing sense of tragedy that permeate the book. It's a pretty quick read, a good recommendation for "reluctant reader" teens and those with a book report due tomorrow.

Also, spend a few moments pondering the book jacket. I didn't see it until I held the book open and looked at the whole image that wraps around from front to back cover.

I Love Led Zeppelin: panty-dropping comics
     and
Monkey Food: the complete I was seven in '75 collection

by Ellen Forney

Hilarious and highly recommended if you like comics. (These are definitely comics, not graphic novels.) Forney's drawing style is well-suited to both the comedic and the erotic themes.

I Love LZ is mostly one-page, one-off comics in the how-to vein: how to be a fag hag, as explained by Margaret Cho; how not to get caught using drugs; how to reattach severed fingers; how to twirl the tassels on your pasties — all a little dirty, subversive, sexy, etc. It also includes a few longer comics, including one written by a gay male friend and illustrated by Forney. Not that everything else is oppressively gynocentric, I just found that one extra interesting, for reasons you should be able to imagine.

Monkey Food is the episodic narrative of the author-illustrator's wonder years. I was only two in '75, but I'm still old enough to appreciate the way bell-bottoms and loud colors can turn the screw on ordinary human foibles.

Happiness: a history

by Darrin M. McMahon

A survey of the evolving definitions of "happiness" in Western thought — not, as you might expect, dealing with psychology, but rather in terms of mythology/religion, philosophy, sociology, a touch of linguistics, and even a bit of zoology (happiness being one of the things that distinguishes man from the other animals). Some examples: in ancient Greece, happiness was a matter of fate or luck; the spread of Judeo-Christian values gave rise to the notion that happiness could be achieved through virtuous living; in modern times people think happiness is mankind's natural state, that we are entitled to happiness, that we simply need to eliminate the physical and/or psychic barriers that are keeping us from being happy.

I found this book intensely interesting, but it was slow reading. I got about halfway through, took a break and read some fluffy teen fiction, then went back and finished. I'd only recommend this book to someone who's certain s/he wants to read philosophy and intellectual history; dabblers should look elsewhere.

Children of Hurin

by J.R.R. Tolkien

Unless you're a nut-case, skip the introductory stuff, which will be especially confusing for those who haven't read The Silmarillion. Otherwise, this is a nice stand-alone novella of Middle Earth. The action takes place well before anything in the trilogy, and it won't add much to the experience if you're planning to read or re-read the trilogy. But like I said, it's a fine story, worth reading even if you're not a hardcore Rings fanatic.

P.S.: Sorry I haven't posted in so long. Busy with other stuff, yadda-yadda-yadda. I'll try harder.

Call Me by Your Name

by André Aciman

The first review of this book that I read made it sound really boring — and I am totally OK with books in which not much happens, so it must have sounded re-e-eally boring. I don't recall what tipped me over the edge, but it may have been the sexy cover:


Interesting, isn't it, how an image can be non-explicit and yet somehow sexier than if it were? But I digress...

I really didn't want to read another book about a teenage queer boy and the older (but not much older) man who changed his life. But I'm glad I did. The writing is just lovely, and the emotions are rendered with an intensity and realism that overshadow the plot's un-originality. The book is mostly about the build-up, the excruciating anticipation; then the short-lived explosiveness of the thing itself; and ultimately the book tries be original by tacking on a completely unnecessary chapter showing how one of the lovers never totally gets over it.

I was about to say the book is slim, so the unnecessary epilogue-y bit doesn't ruin it, but I checked online and it's 248 pages. It sure didn't seem that long, which means I must have been reading it quickly, which is kind of odd for a book that's mostly about anticipation — but maybe it isn't. The author writes about one's sense of time being affected by feelings of anticipation and desire, and I must have had an experience similar to the character's. I guess this book is more original (in quality, if not in content) than I thought. (Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure one of the reviews said something to that effect, which means I'm not being original. It's a vicious, vicious circle, isn't it?)

Twinkie, Deconstructed: my journey to discover how the ingredients found in processed foods are grown, mined (yes, mined), and manipulated into what America eats

by Steve Ettlinger

I'm behind on my reading -- again. Luckily I've just cracked Twinkie, Deconstructed, which is nonfiction but reads really fast. It's all about the origins of the ingredients of Twinkies, including a lot of stuff you probably never thought of as "food." Although not as disgusting as Fast Food Nation, it'll still make you think twice before snacking. Also a good recommendation if you enjoyed Garbage Land.

Only thing I'm going to add here is that the author isn't the greatest writer (not a lot of flair), but in a book such as this that isn't a bad thing. The writing is solid, organized, and easily understandable without sacrificing interesting details.

How Language Works: how babies babble, words change meaning, and languages live or die

by David Crystal

This is what happens when one doesn't write one's reviews right away: of course I remember what the book is about, but my initial reaction is lost and I'm having trouble organizing my thoughts about it. So, this'll be kind of a short one.

I wound up having to skim parts of this book, especially at the end. I'm really interested in cognitive linguistics, neurophysiology, semiotics... so the creation of language, learning of language, the biology and psychology of language are all subjects I'm jazzed about. Heck, I already knew about Noam Chomsky's universal grammar theory. How Language Works covers a lot of ground, including some stuff I found rather boring, but the parts I liked were super.

It's hard to find nonfiction that strikes the right tone between professional/academic and popular/readable. This particular book was a tad to "approachable" for me, in part because I'm already acquainted with some of the material. Overall, I'd say this book is an OK introduction to a broad range of subjects loosely gathered under the banner of Linguistics, but it's too broad and loose to satisfy more than a passing fancy.

Point to Point Navigation: a Memoir, 1964 to 2006
     and
Palimpsest: a Memoir

by Gore Vidal

Unless you already have some familiarity with Gore Vidal, don't read Point to Point Navigation until you've read Palimpsest, which covers the earlier part of his life. Even having read the earlier memoir, as well as some of his fiction and essays, I still found this latest book a bit erratic and at times full-on confusing. (Give the guy a break, he's getting pretty old.) Anyone who enjoys reading memoirs will enjoy Palimpsest, but P to P is probably only going to appeal to hardcore Vidal-ophiles.

I read Palimpsest ages ago, at a time when I had zero interest in nonfiction. I really only picked it up because it had a picture of G.V.'s extremely handsome boarding-school boyfriend. Turns out Vidal's life is a fascinating mix of politics, old money, and show business. It helps, too, that he has a very sharp wit and isn't shy about speaking his mind. He was also, in his own way, a gay rights pioneer: he wasn't an activist, and he didn't "come out" publicly the way the famous do these days; he simply always was, unapologetically, who he was, one facet of which happened to be that he's gay.

Other books by Vidal that I've read include Myra Breckenridge and The Smithsonian Institution, both trashy-fun fiction (the latter actually has a paperback edition with a romance-style cover); I also read a collection of his essays, Dreaming War: Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta. I wanna read more of his fiction, but there's so much other stuff to read too. Sigh.

The Effect of Living Backwards

by Heidi Julavits

Although I read it maybe five years ago, this is a book I frequently recommend — in part because it's frequently on the shelf in my library, unlike a lot of other titles I'd like to recommend. Plus it's just a really interesting, weird book with flavors of Douglas Coupland and Haruki Murakami, and even a little Tom Clancy.

What does that get you? Surreal... familial... terrorism... with laughs. Two sisters who hate each other are on a hijacked plane, where they start competing for the romantic attention of their blind captor. Doesn't sound like the kind of story that's capable of providing insight into the human condition, does it? And yet somehow it works, but it's difficult to explain; you just have to trust me. The convoluted plot and psychological screw-turning are kind of reminiscent of an M.C. Escher drawing: there's that quality of convincing realism at war with the subtle (but obvious once you see it) impossibility of it all.

Still not sounding like much of a recommendation? What can I say, it's a tough sell. Best for adventurous readers and risk-takers.

Zine roundup

Yay zines! I've been reading tons, and I just don't have the energy to blog them all individually, so here are a few quick and dirty zine reviews.

The Secret Files of Captain Sissy, No. 5
Kind of a journal-y storytelling zine written by a guy who:
1. Got a real bad concussion when he crashed on his skateboard (sexy)
2. Did an internship with the United Steelworkers (righteous)
3. Traveled with a mobile zine exhibit (kewl)
4. Witnessed the Great West Philadelphia Food Co-op Strike of 2002 (my homie!)
5. Suggested changing the Flaming Hot Cheetos mascot to a flaming hot queer boy (delicious)

Camp Mania
Hilarious recollections from a summer-camp counselor. Occasionally creepy, as summer camp should be. The typos only make it funnier.

Go Fuck Yourself : a mini-zine devoted to D.I.Y. sex toys and gender-bending devices
I only flipped through this one. Like a cookbook, it's not the kind of the thing you read cover to cover. Lots of great ideas if you're crafty and horny.

28 Pages Lovingly Bound with Twine #13
Another journal-y zine with stories about getting a new hybrid car and peeing on campfires after drinking lots and lots of Reed's Extra Ginger Brew. Very well put together — they're not kidding about the "lovingly."

Applicant
Pictures of '70s-era graduate students with phrases culled from their faculty evaluations. Who knew professors were so cruel? And yet it's funny... funny like when people fall down.

Sugar Needle #29
Amusing reviews of strange candies from around the world, reminiscent of McSweeney's Reviews of New Food. Ooh, and the cover is hand-colored!

A Tale of Love and Darkness

by Amos Oz

Here's a book I read a few years ago that came to mind recently when I found out the author is on the shortlist for the 2007 Man Booker International Prize. I must have a read a review in the NYT Book Review, because I read it at a time when I wasn't doing much nonfiction; it's actually one of the books that got me interested in reading more nonfiction.

Oz is known for his controversial views on the Arab-Israeli conflict, and this memoir recounts his childhood and young-adulthood before, during, and after the creation of the Israeli state and the many wars and skirmishes (military, political, and otherwise) that entailed. While the backdrop is certainly interesting, the author isn't taking sides, expressing opinions, or directly confronting any of those issues. What's really compelling is the author's personal emotional and intellectual journey. It's damn well written (and translated), very moving (I got a little verklempt), and definitely one for posterity (for literary merit and historical value).

I'm not quite ready to put this in my Top 10, but if I had a Top 100 it'd be a shoe-in.

All of the Above

by Shelley Pearsall

Yet another based-on-a-true-story tale of inner-city kids overcoming adversity with the help of an inspiring teacher — but I don't mean that in a bad way. The concept has been over-used in movies, but the author, a former teacher herself, makes it work on a kid-friendly level in this cute, heartwarming book. (We're talking upper end of the J-fiction age range.) The kids form a sort of math club to try and build the world's largest tetrahedron, but the story is all about the kids and doesn't dwell on the math long enough to become nerdy.

Rotating chapters through different characters' points of view is risky in a book of this length, but it's pulled off fairly well. From the junior thug with a heart of gold to the frustrated white math teacher, most of the characters display a basic goodness, but not without flaws. The range of characters ensures most young readers will find one with whom to identify. (All the characters are black except the teacher.) The ending is positive and upbeat without being overly triumphant; it's realistic because you can see the kids' problems aren't all magically fixed by this one success story.

I would definitely recommend this book for average middle-school readers and younger kids reading above grade level. Although the story and the characters would probably appeal to a reluctant or struggling readers, the length might be an obstacle for them.

[Note to readers: I promise I'll do some grown-up stuff soon.]

The Left Hand Dreams of Him

(Only the Ring Finger Knows, vol. 2)

by Satoru Kannagi

I LOVE THIS BOOK SO MUCH. I was giddy most of the time I was reading it — picture this: me, on the bus, reading a lavender book with pretty boys and flowers on the cover, giggling every few minutes. If you know me, you know I'm just about impossible to embarrass, but this nearly did the trick.

First, the plot: "Passion builds and tempers flare in The Left Hand Dreams of Him. Wataru and Yuichi may think the biggest challenges of their new love are far behind them, but no one said they'd be left alone for good! Even a private vacation getaway is full of meddling intruders who seem to have their sights on disrupting the careful lovers. Their matching rings unite them in heart and spirit ... will the men trust in this special bond enough to weather the storms of controversy?"

Wataru, the younger half of this couple, starts off as his usual wimpy self, but with the mentorship of a new friend — who at first has the ominous aura of a dangerous liaison — he finds an unexpected inner strength. Yuichi, who's always been Wataru's rock, stumbles when confronted with a formidable familial foe. (Sorry for the alliteration; I couldn't help it.) It's not a complete role reversal, but it's an interesting new dynamic that has me excited to read the third book. (But I'm also a little scared, because volume 3's title is The Ring Finger Falls Silent — aieee!)

This second installment in the series also turns up the heat between the sheets, if you know what I mean. There's nothing explicit; this isn't erotica or porn, it's Harlequin-style romance. But there are a number of stirring scenes, like this one: "While sweetly biting his earlobe, Yuichi spoke in a thrillingly romantic voice. Wataru reflexively stiffened his body, but his lips were accustomed enough to this to patiently melt that away. Each time Yuichi moved his kisses bit by bit from earlobe to neck, then to left and right collarbones, a light giddiness attacked Wataru. In the afternoon sun-filled room, only the sense of rubbing skin and the timbre of kisses stretched out just like an ephemeral ripple." I'm not sure what "the timbre of kisses" is, but I want some!

See also The Lonely Ring Finger.

A note to readers

Blame my moon in Virgo, but I'm going to be re-publishing some more stuff today that isn't really new but just has tweaked formatting and/or labels. Apologies for the annoyance.

A note to readers

I'm trying to finish a bit of re-formatting and tagging of older posts, which involves re-publishing, so they may show up in your blog reader as new items even though they are not new. Thank you for your understanding and support. (Now, how about some more comments?!)

American Born Chinese

by Gene Luen Yang

It's the first graphic novel to win the Printz Award. While it's certainly worthy, I can't help feeling that the format is what put it over the top, that the librarian judges wanted to seem progressive and hip. (The immigration/diversity theme can't have hurt either.) That said, I don't think the story would work very well without the pictures.

Myth, reality, and fantasy converge from three separate storylines that turn out to be threads of the same narrative. Although the conclusion is a tad abrupt, it's satisfying as well as surprising, and it combines the three elements without seeming forced or unreal — despite the essential unreality of two of the stories. There are some obvious lessons about cultural and personal identity, but it manages not to be too preachy, which might actually be a function of the obviousness. The lesson is explicit, so it doesn't have to be dwelled upon or reiterated.

As far as graphic novels go, this one's easy to read. It uses a straightforward square-panel design, and the illustrations are clean and simple with bright, engaging colors. I tore through it in about an hour.

The format, the humor, and the brevity make this book a good recommendation for "reluctant readers," but I can't help feeling a little disappointed that an award winner doesn't demand a bit more of the reader.

The "God" Part of the Brain: a scientific interpretation of human spirituality and god

by Matthew Alper

I was really intrigued by this book — that is, until I read it. (Well, some of it anyway. I couldn't finish.) I'm really interested in neuroscience and neurophysiology, and I've been thinking about god and religion lately, so I was pretty excited to read this book.

Where to begin? Title, subtitle, and... what the heck is that? Off to the side of the cover, vertical rather than horizontal, there's a sub-subtitle: "a personal journey." So our author is neither scientist nor theologian. He is widely, but not deeply, read. As a result, some of his ideas and interpretations are over-simplified, and the superficiality tends to undermine the cross-discipline synthesis he's attempting.

That said, the underlying concept is pretty interesting. Just as our capacity for language, for example, is tied to certain physiological sites and structures within our brains, and these sites and structures have developed through evolutionary processes, perhaps we have also evolved a capacity to think and to experience the world in spiritual terms. (Now I'm simplifying. This part of the argument takes up a number of chapters.)

OK. Fine so far. So what's the evolutionary advantage of our spiritual capacity? (The author sometimes calls it a "tendency.") The author suggests that as our time consciousness evolved and combined with our awareness of our own mortality, we would have been paralyzed by fear of our inevitable death. And this is where he loses me. I don't get why the fear of death would be so great that proto-humans (or whatever) would be unable to perform the tasks of day to day survival. The author's analogy of a bunny confronted by a mountain lion does not compute. Fear of imminent, violent death is not equal to fear of theoretical, potential, eventual death. (Yeah, any of us could die in the next two seconds, but probably not.) Dragging in our ability to conceptualize infinity (and therefore to recognize our personal insignificance) does not, for me, enhance the fear — or the thesis. Ditto for fear of losing loved ones; it's just not scary enough to make me stop eating.

I soldiered on a bit, but it only got worse. Next the author tries to explain the range of spirituality and religiosity with the bell curve: most people fall somewhere in the middle, but some people are at the extremes. Atheism is the side of the curve where folks have little to no spiritual capacity/tendency. So why aren't atheists acting like terrified bunnies? Why aren't they dying because they're too scared to live? This incongruity further destabilizes the already shaky theory.

And then I quit reading.

Clay

by David Almond

Another young adult book that I checked out ages ago and only recently got around to reading. Although the author is popular — at least with librarians and award-givers — I had no problem renewing the book repeatedly, so the kids weren't exactly champing at the bit.

It's a bit of an odd story. It borrows heavily from Jewish folklore (the legend of the golem) without ever mentioning Judaism, and it's set in what seems like the '50s or '60s against a background of Catholic versus Protestant animosity without being in Northern Ireland (rather, it's in northwestern England). Even setting all that strangeness aside, I'm not sure for whom the author is writing, cuz I don't think too many teens are going to connect with this story. It manages to seem old-fashioned without actually dating itself very clearly. (Unlike Black Swan Green, a book by another English author that is set in the indirectly specified recent past but manages to seem timeless. Also unlike Almond's Printz award runner-up Skellig, which was weird and supernatural in a positive way.) It also does that thing where it jumps right in to the story and the reader is supposed to figure out the setting and get oriented by picking up little clues and cues; authors seem to think this terribly clever, but the technique is rarely deployed effectively, in my experience. No offense meant to teens, but if I found it hard to assimilate the dialect and social context, it won't be easy or fun for young adults.

Anyway, it isn't horrible (mercifully short, more like it), but I wouldn't recommend it. The ending is kinda slapdash, and the themes are much more effectively explored in Skellig.

The Burn Journals

by Brent Runyon

It's kind of weird, given the subject matter, to say I was excited about this book — but I was. I first heard this young man a year or two earlier on "This American Life" talking, with surprising humor, about how he had attempted suicide by self-immolation, survived, and recovered (as much as one can from something like that).

The book, as you might guess, is based on the journals he kept during the many months he spent in hospital, chronicling his physical and emotional recovery process. While I give the book high marks overall — it's very readable, even for teens who don't read a lot, despite appearing to be kinda thick — I was a bit disappointed in the pre-burn portion of the book. I mean, I realize it's difficult to put intense emotions into words, but I just wasn't feeling it in the lead up to the actual suicide attempt. Not to be harsh or anything, but it sounded like a bit of a lark: got in trouble at school again, parents'll be mad, maybe I'll just set myself on fire. (See this earlier post for more evidence of my inability to empathize.)

Good nonfiction recommendation for teens, especially those who like to read true-crime and/or true-trauma books in the vein of A Child Called "It". Another sort of similar book I'll be blogging at some point is Sickened: the Memoir of a Munchausen by Proxy Childhood.