Blog: Articles filed under books

I did a terrible thing today. I bought more books.

This is how it works: Chapters is located in a mega-lot that also includes Staples, Future Shop, and Wal-Mart, any of which I may need to visit a couple of times a month to purchase stuff. However, when my body comes in proximity to Chapters, my addiction centre sends signals to my legs to move in that general direction. Once in Chapters, I am utterly at the mercy of how the sales staff has laid out their enticing displays.

The books on the left are from a previous expedition—actually, the two Umberto Eco books and Sundiver (the book I’m reading right now) came from Chapters Online. I love their shipping. The book with the spine faced away from the camera is Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen. I forgot to turn it the proper way before I snapped this photo. Stephen Baker was interviewed in a recent episode of Spark, so I decided to purchase his book. Similarly, I bought The Stillborn God today because Mark Lilla was on Ideas.

The books on the right are from today’s expedition. My dad generously orders Chapters gift cards with his Air Miles (best use of Air Miles ever!). Thanks to him, my iRewards discount, my coupon, and some in-store discounts, I only spent $15.81 of my own money today. Thanks, dad! In addition to The Stillborn God, I couldn’t resist an anthology of over sixty short stories by Canadian authors. Another Salman Rushdie book caught my eye. The Assassin’s Song is more Indian fiction, which I‘m finding I enjoy more and more. And of course, I couldn’t buy books without getting Neil Gaiman‘s latest book, The Graveyard Book! Lastly, I purchased Watchmen to lend to people in case they were interested in reading the graphic novel before seeing the movie that’s coming out next year.

Am I addicted? Yes. Thanks to discounts and gift cards, it’s mitigated to the point where my addiction is not a problem—for now.¹ Hopefully, as I get older, I will adopt a less expensive habit, like sneaking into photos of local sports teams, or compulsively stealing the 32nd page of every phone book in the city.

In fact, if you‘ve read this and are bored, why don’t you leave a comment with an idea of some truly unusual addictions? Stretch that imagination a bit!

• [ 1 ] Sort of like in House, where House admits he’s addicted to vicodin but doesn’t have a problem.

Last February, I drew your attention to Harper Collins’ free online browsing of American Gods. Well, they are doing if again, this time with Neverwhere!

You can read it for free or download it as a PDF. You don’t get to keep it forever (the PDF will self-destruct in thirty days) but it’s an excellent offering nonetheless.

I mean, I could go off on a tangent about how self-destructing PDFs is an example of “tethered appliances” taking over the Internet and taking away our control over what content we can access. Then I could casually mention Jonathan Zittrain’s The Future of the Internet—And How to Stop It. But I won’t.

Literacy is wonderful. I love reading. I spent most of this summer reading Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth series, fed to me by my coworker. So I went to the library for the first time this summer last week and got out the books you see in the stack on the right. Three of those books are the second or fifth book in a series, however, so I’ll need to read the other books in those series before I can begin reading them. Naturally I made a list of books I wanted to get at the library. However, I forgot the list at home, and I ended up not needing it anyway, because I pretty much took home the New Books shelf, as I often do.

But first, The Pillars of the Earth! I bought that copy for my friend Carly for Christmas. She foolishly¹ mentioned that she was intending to read The Pillars of the Earth, and she did indeed have a copy, although it was a tattered paperback. There’s nothing wrong with cherished tattered paperbacks, but trade paperbacks are wubbly too. Now I’m finally ste—er, borrowing—this from her so I can read it.

The books in the stack below Pillars all came from Chapters. I love shopping at Chapters! Their shipping is amazingly fast. At first I was just ordering The Lies of Locke Lamora, Sundiver, and The Name of the Rose, because my local library does not have any of these. However, that was still under the $34 minimum needed for free shipping, and I figured the difference was small enough that adding an extra book would be a better value—so I bought Foucault’s Pendulum as well. Another coworker has recommended Umberto Eco to me. We shall see!

I don’t think I’ve mentioned Goodreads much yet—I linked to it once obscurely in my entry trumpeting the new site design, but otherwise it’s just been sitting in my sidebar there. For those of you other bibliophiles out there, you can see what books I’m reading on the sidebar, and if you follow the link to my profile, you can learn what other books I‘ve read or plan to read and even read reviews I’ve left on some. Goodreads is a fantastic site; I have a terrible memory, so being able to keep track of my books in this fashion is quite helpful. Plus, it lets me see what my friends are reading. I’ll often see my friends reading something interesting and mark it as to-read for the future. It’s a great way to get suggestions.

• [ 1 ] Never mention to me that you have nothing to read or that you are planning to read book x but don’t have it. Many a friend has realized the error of such statements in my presence.

George Orwell was an English author of great talent. In addition to Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm, his two most well-known works of fiction, he was a journalist and an essayist. His topics varied; he covered politics and philosophy, as well as the evolving nature of language. Nineteen Eighty-Four has had a profound affect on our culture, introducing phrases like “Big Brother” into the English language. I’m certain that Orwell would shudder to learn that a term from one of his novels has become the title of a reality TV show … but I don’t think he’d be all that surprised.

Beginning Saturday, August 9, The United Kingdom’s Orwell Prize will serialize Orwell’s diary online. Apparently this date is significant, as it marks 70 years since the day Orwell first began writing his diary. The website will publish one entry a day until 2012, 70 years after Orwell stopped writing his diary. Seventy years ago would be 1938, so this means we get to read the diary of a brilliant writer watching Europe descend into World War II.

I’ve already subscribed to the feed from the Orwell diaries blog.

Let me begin by saying that I don’t support age rating of books (i.e., saying “this is for ages 8-12, this is for young adults, this is for adults…”). However, when you look at how we rate our other content by age, it seems hypocritical, does it not?

Games and movies receive official ratings that state whether or not the content of those products is suitable for a certain audience. Sometimes, the law enforces these ratings. That means if you’re under 18, you can’t get into an R-rated movie (without an adult). But you can go and buy a book that may have the same graphic scenes as an R-rated movie, and the cashier at the store doesn’t stop you. They don’t card you. (At least, they didn’t card me when I was under 18.)

Seems like we have a double standard here. I know, I know: books aren’t as “visual” as movies or games. Reading about mass violence or sexuality, reading a curse word, that isn’t the same as seeing and hearing it. Well I think that insults the average reader’s imagination. And even if it doesn’t compare to graphical depictions, wouldn’t a book’s descriptions, if done well enough, still be specific enough to scar immature readers? Should we continue to let unrated books be sold?! Where are you torches and pitchforks, people?

Luckily, since most children and young adults these days aren’t interested in reading for pleasure, we don’t have to worry about this crisis.

Let me begin by saying that I don’t support age rating of books (i.e., saying “this is for ages 8-12, this is for young adults, this is for adults…”). However, when you look at how we rate our other content by age, it seems hypocritical, does it not?

Games and movies receive official ratings that state whether or not the content of those products is suitable for a certain audience. Sometimes, the law enforces these ratings. That means if you’re under 18, you can’t get into an R-rated movie (without an adult). But you can go and buy a book that may have the same graphic scenes as an R-rated movie, and the cashier at the store doesn’t stop you. They don’t card you. (At least, they didn’t card me when I was under 18.)

Seems like we have a double standard here. I know, I know: books aren’t as “visual” as movies or games. Reading about mass violence or sexuality, reading a curse word, that isn’t the same as seeing and hearing it. Well I think that insults the average reader’s imagination. And even if it doesn’t compare to graphical depictions, wouldn’t a book’s descriptions, if done well enough, still be specific enough to scar immature readers? Should we continue to let unrated books be sold?! Where are you torches and pitchforks, people?

Luckily, since most children and young adults these days aren’t interested in reading for pleasure, we don’t have to worry about this crisis.

Every day I find myself becoming more of an autodidact whose primary goal is to propagate knowledge. Seems like a pretty worthy goal for a set of self-replicating DNA, no? After all, that’s all we—everything in the universe—are: information, in one form or another.

My thirst for knowledge is perhaps my most consistent trait as far back as I can remember. I loved and continue to love to read. When I first got MSN (because I was jealous of my younger brother), the next step I took was to learn HTML so I could create my own website. From there it … sort of snowballed (as this site evidences). The Internet is an autodidact’s dream: a nearly limitless, ever-updating source of information. Thanks to Google, Wikipedia, and the Oxford English Dictionary, I can learn the answer to most questions or the definition of a word (still not sure about that whole group of groundhogs issue, however). I read sites like Lifehacker regularly, learning about subjects as varied as technology to productivity to cooking. The Internet’s vast potential for education is enough to make me love it, despite of its drawbacks that some critics use to declare technology a destructive social mechanism.

And yes, asking about groundhogs was very weird. That’s me though. I ask weird questions because something comes up, and I want to learn it. I wouldn’t do well on a trivia show. Although I don’t consider any piece of knowledge trivial, my retention and recall just doesn’t work that way. It’d be cool if it did.

Yes, I love learning. I was the guy who always sat in the front of the class and wanted the rest of the class to stop talking so the teacher could continue. I was the guy who always had an answer—or question—and put his hand up, so eventually the teacher would say, “Does anyone know the answer—anyone except Ben?”

I‘ve changed my mind about buying books, too. Originally I borrowed the vast majority of my books from the library. I seldom read a book more than once unless I really enjoyed it. Now, because I’ve got a job and the money that goes with it, I enjoy buying books. I like giving them to people or lending them. I don’t care if that person reads the book. While I try to select books that I think my friends will like, ultimately, the act of giving is the crucial part. Even if my friend doesn’t read the book, maybe someone else will. If my friend does enjoy the book, and tells me, then that’s great.

So I guess what I’m trying to say is … every day, I am more inclined to read and learn. I can’t slow down. The clock is ticking until I die, and I have so much to know!

(P.S. Laura, I realize that this is the second time in two entries that I‘ve made you think during the summer. I’d apologize, but you‘d just tell me I didn’t mean it again. And you’re right. We only have so long to learn things, so go out there and think!)

As previously mentioned, Neil Gaiman and Harper Collins have put the entire text of American Gods online. You can read it for free here.

I own a copy of American Gods, of course, so it’s redundant for me. Nevertheless, it’s extremely cool because, hey, let’s face it: it’s free stuff. And it exposes more people to Neil Gaiman and one of his wonderful novels.

So, as the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation says, Share and Enjoy!™

Got your attention, didn’t I?

Neil Gaiman, one of the greatest authors of our era, is going to offer one of his books online for free to celebrate the seventh birthday of his blog. But that’s not the best part. We get to choose which book! Head on over to his blog and vote for the book you want to see online for free. Take his advice, though, and instead of voting necessarily for your favourite book, vote for the one you’d give to a friend. I just introduced a friend of mine to Neil Gaiman and lent her my copy of American Gods.

I’ve finished Sandworms of Dune, the final installment of the Dune saga. Originally conceived by Frank Herbert, who wrote six novels before his death, his son Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson have written six prequels based on the material left behind by Herbert. Since then, they tackled the challenge of completing the famed “Dune 7”, the conclusion of the story arc begun in Chapterhouse Dune. This book they split up into two: Hunters of Dune and Sandworms of Dune.

I love the Dune saga. It is perhaps my favourite serious science fiction novel, because it’s just written so well, and it’s so wonderful to read. The prequels will never be as good as Frank Herbert’s original works, even if they are based on his notes and plot ideas. I like Kevin J. Anderson as an author—but that’s one problem. The books have more of Anderson’s voice than Herbert’s. They are pale shadows compared to the original six novels—enjoyable, but not as fulfilling. I experienced the same problem with these last two sequels, and now that I‘ve read the conclusion, I must say that I’m disappointed.

Spoiler warning below.

So basically in Sandworms of Dune, it is Dune meets The Matrix. I’m not kidding—all the parallels are there. You’ve got the thinking machines waging a war against desperate humanity. They have two avatars: the Oracle, a woman; and the Architect, a man. Both of these avatars are independent machine personalities. In Dune, you’ve got Erasmus and Omnius, respectively. Then, you have Duncan Idaho as the Kwisatz Haderach—the Dune universe’s version of the One. Those of you who have seen The Matrix Revolutions can guess what happens next: rather than destroying the thinking machines, Idaho bridges the gap between humanity and machine. To put it in his terms, instead of choosing victory, he chooses peace.

I was fairly disappointed with most of the novel’s plot. It seemed like a contrived series of deus ex machinae. While a miracle plot twist at the right moment can do wonders, when used too often—or too fantastically—it begins to be hard to believe. The entire characterization of the thinking machines was just so cliche—a word that I cringe using, but it applies here. Erasmus is delightfully sociopathic; Omnius is completely megalomaniacal. But I got no enjoyment from watching the Oracle of Time defeat him in the face of his bluster—I wanted to, but I didn‘t. After that event, the book continued its sharp turn downhill. It felt like it took way too long to end, even though one of my complaints is that it didn’t tell us enough about how the universe changed after Kralizec. Also, it seemed like the authors were in a hurry to just dispose of each character now that the climax was over. Leto II just climbs into a worm. Waff dies on Rakis. So what?

Even if this is the ending that Frank Herbert intended, I‘m still disappointed. :/ Sandworms of Dune is a conclusion, yes, but it is a plodding one that beats at the same tired old themes with no new revelations. It lacks the descriptive genius and scope of Frank Herbert’s original novels, and Duncan Idaho is not as cool as Neo.

As I‘ve said previously, I’m tired of the repetitive fearmongering being done in the name of our “global warming” crusade. It’s another example of herd mentality exacerbating a crisis that it is supposed to be solving. Last century it was nuclear weapons, this century it’s global warming.

Well wake up people, and stop being so selfish! After all, we are not the only planet in this universe. There are many other planets out there that are heating up. In fact, I’ve “discovered” a dangerous new phenomenon that must be stopped! Universal warming.

Here’s how it goes. We constantly produce information. Information is useless without transmission; it only becomes usable when conveyed from one state to another (i.e., from person to person). Transmitting information requires energy. As energy is used, entropy in the system increases. To demonstrate, take talking for example. If you talk about something, you are transmitting information. This means you are increasing the net entropy of the universe. Everything you do increases entropy, unfortunately.

Why is entropy bad? Because entropy is the tendency of a system toward increasing disorder. As entropy increases, the amount of usable energy declines. Eventually we’ll suffer the heat-death of the universe and the end of all life as we know it!

This is a serious problem. If the universe ends, then Paris Hilton won’t be able to make any more movies, which means she’ll have to get a real job. We must all work together as a community to decrease the Earth’s universal footprint. The fate of reality depends on it1 My first recommendation is that Al Gore create a new documentary entitled An Incomprehensible Truth. That would be the best way to further spread this information to as many people as possible.

Let’s get on this, people!

You heard me. I’m now among one of the elite who have read War and Peace from beginning to end. Not only that, but I am among the elite who read it for pleasure instead of being forced to read it for some other purpose. If only I could read Russian. This actually happened last week, but I never got around to blogging about it.

Yes, War and Peace was excruciatingly boring at times—particularly when Tolstoy described the battles. I don’t care about battles, but at least make it interesting, man! Don’t describe the formations. Give me something to stimulate my imagination, honestly! The interaction among most of the main characters was great though.

After reading this, it strikes me that Tolstoy is essentially the Dickens of Russia. He is an excellent storyteller, but a terrible writer. Sometimes he gets lost in the social commentary and forgets that he does have to advance the plot once and a while; that’s what made it boring at times. After all, the last part of the epilogue is just an indulgent treatise on his views of history and how events happen.

It is worth it, though. It is boring, and it takes way too long to read, but if you sit down and can finish it, then it’s actually pretty good. Maybe you should try it the next time you’ve got nothing to do on a rainy day.

Often you’ll read one critic or intellectual or another say something along the lines of how Hollywood is destroying the movie industry, creating cheap flicks at the expense of “art” and “culture”. And as much as I am sometimes tempted to agree with this cynical evaluation of our entertainment industry, I can’t bring myself to jump on that bandwagon. I just can’t.

I have observed that more movies are “packaged” these days. What are “packaged” movies? Well, these are the hits that look and feel like the director simply sent in a form from a mail-order catalogue—he or she filled out the title and main characters, and the company sent back a pre-packaged movie: special effects, music, etc. Movies like Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter, and—especially with its third installment—Spider-Man are packaged blockbusters.

Are packaged movies inherently evil? Does it make a movie bad? Of course not. I like each of those three movie series above—although none of them are particularly spectacular—but they aren’t moving and they aren’t cathartic. And sometimes you need that. Sometimes you don’t need a purging; you just need some action, some humour, and some explosions. The only reservation I carry is that it’s too reflective of certain negative aspects of our society—namely, this increasing dependence on pre-packaged items, like food, that we just buy in bulk at a grocery store.

There are the “indie” films, complete with festivals, to attempt to carry on the art-form that Hollywood has—so some say—left behind. The problem with this phenomenon is not its goals, but rather, its demographic. The people who go to film festivals are precisely the type of people who like the films at film festivals. Which brings us to the hilt of the matter: the audience. Do people really want art? Or do they want entertainment?

The answer has and always will be both, and this is why I can’t endorse those pessimistic and pretentious pundits who pretend to put-down Hollywood. I’m going to use Shakespeare as an example. Take King Lear, for instance. King Lear is one of my favourite plays and one of Shakespeare’s best. It has pithy intellectual themes, and as a tragedy, is carefully written to move us to pity and compassion for the terrible tribulations of the hero, Lear, and his descent into madness. But Shakespeare was no fool. His plays weren’t wildly successful just because of these themes—they were successful because they were also entertaining. King Lear has humour aplenty—ribald or otherwise—and that’s why it has endured 400 years’ worth of Eberts. If the jokes seem stale (or you just can’t get them), it isn’t because they’re silly. They just get lost in translation; the language differences over the past four centuries make Shakespeare a tad hard to understand at times.

Yet I digress. Shakespeare and his ilk knew something about how to get a crowd’s attention, and how to leave a part of their work with the crowd when the play was done. That’s why the movie industry isn’t in “decline”. This perception of decline is just a misinterpretation of the charts. We‘re changing all right, but we’re always changing—it’s what culture does. It’s a reaction to the last two decades of increasing technological development. Technology affects movies faster than it does stage or books (and to a degree, music) because of the visual nature of the medium; advanced technology means advanced movie-making techniques. Technology has developed more in the past two decades than it has in the past century. And it shows no signs of plateauing, so we have to be ready for more change.

Culture is dead. Long live culture!

Now you know.

For you see, Stephen Harper failed to learn a critical lesson of statecraft: never tick off an artist. The problem with annoying an artist, especially someone as influential as Yann Martel, is that artists are, by definition, creative people. And they find very creative, sometimes unexpected ways to get back at those who slight them.

Of course, since the purpose of an artist is to create, and not destroy, Yann Martel came up with a form of ingenious constructive revenge against Mr. Harper. I won’t go into all the details, for they are explained on the site. Suffice it to say that the Canadian government did not pay enough attention to the Canada Council of the Arts’ 50th anniversary, and that made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.

So now Yann Martel has pledged to send Harper a book every two weeks, along with a letter. The books he chooses, he hopes, will offer Harper in his moments of “stillness” suggestions, opportunities, if you will.

I for one think that this is an interesting idea. Certainly superior to publishing a roasting rant about Harper’s policies on someone’s blog. So it’ll be interesting to see what sort of response (if any) we get from Mr. Harper.

We’ll miss you.

What? You expected more? Perhaps some sort of heartfelt testament to my love of his work? I enjoyed Breakfast of Champions and Player Piano. But frankly I’m just too tired at this point in the night to even consider delving into praise of Vonnegut’s vast oeuvre. I’m going to sleep.

Congratulations to Cortney and Vivike for getting into Guelph and Brock, and Guelph and OCAD, respectively! Unlike yours truly, who simply had to poke Lakehead with a pointed stick (I don’t think they even bothered to check if I was any good at math… they just let me in), these two actually had to send work to get accepted—Viv in particular had to assemble a portfolio, and in the case of OCAD, fly down for an interview.

Shortened weeks are killer. Yes, four-day weekends are awesome. But right now, right before midterm, at a critical juncture? :/ The thesis for my history ISU is due this Thursday. I‘ve sort of got a thesis down, but I’d really feel more comfortable handing it in if I had some solid research to support it before I get in too deep. Unfortunately, I worked tonight and I’m working tomorrow. On the days that I work, I get home at about 8, and I‘m too tired for serious work (like research). Methinks I’ll just word my thesis very convincingly and then do as much research as I can on the weekend. I’m blogging instead of reading about Locke and Hobbes right now.

On the up side, the first six of the books I ordered from Chapters came in—The Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher. I’ve been watching the Sci-Fi Channel series based on the novels, so I want to read the novels, since they sound pretty interesting.

Anyway, back to history. Thanks for taking the time to read about my laziness!

As I continue to expand my boundaries of knowledge by reading and watching more books and movies, it occurs to me that there are some books/movies that are regarded as “classics” by culture, but that I‘ve never had a chance to actually experience the whole way through. An example of this is It’s A Wonderful Life—classic Christmas movie, but I guess because it’s been played over and over on TV so much, I never really sit down to watch it, so I’ve never seen the whole thing.

What are some books and movies that constantly pervade your life, but that you’ve never actually taken the time to read or watch in their entirety?

American Gods, by Neil Gaiman, is one of the best stories I have ever encountered. I once read it, oh, must have been two to three years ago. Then I bought it from Chapters last week on a whim, even though I barely remembered the plot. When it arrived and I picked it up and started to read, I instantly felt better. Just being able to sink into the universe that Gaiman creates with his words.

The tale is compelling, and it blows my mind. Very few books do that for me—I enjoy most of the books that I read. Some of them I find hard to put down (lately, for example, I have been reading some Jennifer Fallon. She is no Gaiman, but I still hurry to reach the end of her books). But my memory isn’t that great, and they slowly slip away. Dune, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, American Gods … these books resonate and impart something to me that transcends that. It’s why books are so great.

I’m going to try and read my entire novel in one sitting now. I finished the second draft a few days ago, and I have found a title. Now comes time for a final look, a gentle dust and polish, before sending it once again to people who say they’ll read it even if they never do. Maybe someone will read it this time. Hopefully.

Anyway, I just wanted to point out American Gods to you if you haven’t read it already. Mind blowing. Read it. That is all.

I finished The Da Vinci Code yesterday, my English teacher lent me the illustrated edition for March Break. It was awesome! The plot is compelling and excellently constructed, and the characters are pretty realistic. The ending was slightly rushed, in my opinion, and not as fulfilling as I would have liked.

Speaking of the March Break … it’s over now. It was fun while it lasted. Would I like more time? Yes, of course, but I’m also glad to be going back to school. Besides, it’s Easter Weekend at the end of this week, and Space is airing a miniseries marathon. Part 1 of Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars on Friday, and Part 2 on Saturday! All 3 parts of Frank Herbert’s Children of Dune back to back on Friday! Muwahahahahah!