Linkification

Someone asked about a blogroll recently.  I lost mine in a template move and just now brought it back as a tab at the top of the page called "Links."  Use it to find far more fascinating reading than whatever you found by accidentally clicking onto this blog.

I wasn't sure how many people actually used my previous blogrolls and links with so much traffic coming from feed readers, but you never know. I also figured the "Members" thing on the sidebar is a good place to click on to find other blogs.  Also, of course, the comments usually lead to wonderful bloggers. But it's nice to give props to some of my favorite hangouts on the web.  I'll do my best to go through and keep it updated from time to time.

Let me know if you've linked to me and I've neglected to link to you.  Or if there's any blogs or whatever you think I should check out just because.

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore

  I don't give a flying fig about the Oscars, but it was nice to hear that this bit of book love won some recognition.

The Innocents Abroad

The Innocents Abroad is early Twain.  In fact, other than "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," he was more well known as a young, satirical travel writer.  This is a photograph taken in 1867, around the time of the travels written of in the book.

Being a collection of writings gathered together that had been published serially, it's a bit rough around the edges and lags in parts, but even at 32, he had a wise, sardonic eye and a talent for skewering his subjects, himself and his readers all at the same time.  It was also apparently his bestselling book during his lifetime and one of the bestselling travel books ever written.  It certainly gave P. J. O'Rourke and other wise-cracking, travelling journalists something to emulate.

It's the report of a cruise aboard a repurposed Civil War vessel with a bunch of other Americans around Europe, North Africa and the Holy Land.  Just as Jon Stewart makes fun of a lot of things but the roasting of the television news media itself seems to be the heart of The Daily Show, Twain makes fun of many things but always goes back to the contrast between what he's seeing and experiencing and what he's been led to expect to see and experience by the overinflated travel writers before him.  Of course, he also has at his fellow travelers, himself, the countries he's visiting, and everyone he meets as well.

A particular favorite target of he and his fellow travelers is "Ferguson." He (it's always a he) is the name they give to every tour guide in every country they visit whether they like the name or not.  Usually not. Poor Ferguson is teased mercilessly no matter the context.  In Italy, he's repeatedly asked if the artist of whatever great work they're currently appreciating is dead when it's clear that he would have to be.  Or he's asked if the great work is by Michelangelo when it's clear that it's not.  So he's torturing "Ferguson" for being a know-it-all who tells them more than they wish to know and has fun with the idea of the "Ugly American" traveller at the same time.

He employs both skepticism and appreciation when they finally get to the Holy Land.  He obviously has reverence for the place and knows the stories well, but can't help but trash the folly of man and his religions who constantly war and do violence to one another for slim theological differences.  He also enjoys pointing out the sheer absurdity of the so-called religious relics that are enshrined at nearly every church or holy place they visit throughout Europe and the Middle East.

I'll leave you with some of the many quotes I underlined:

"The information the ancients didn't have was very voluminous. Even the prophets wrote book after book and epistle after epistle, yet never once hinted at the existence of a great continent on our side of the water; yet they must have known it was there, I should think."


"I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week to make it up."


"The gentle reader will never, never know what a consummate ass he can become, unless he goes abroad."


"A thistle grows about here which has needles on it that would pierce through leather, I think; if one touches you, you can find relief in nothing but profanity."


"All sects of Christians (except Protestants,) have chapels under the roof of the Church of the Holy Sepulchure, and each must keep to itself and not venture upon another's ground.  It has been proven conclusively that they can not worship together around the grave of the Saviour of the World in peace."

The Dreaded TBR Pile: One Approach

I'm not some OCD guy or anything (just look at my office in the library, ugh) but I do have a few little systems in place that help me get some things done.  Some of them help me make decisions, some of them help me from having to make decisions.  The most obvious example is the tickler file I keep in my office.

Donalyn Miller (@donalynbooks) tweeted recently that her pile of To Be Read books was so big she might start choosing them by color.  That got me thinking that I should share my new approach to my reading list.

Now I must take a moment to define my terms.  I consider my TBR (To Be Read) pile the books I actually own or have been given that I mean to read.  But I also like to keep lists of books I may want to read someday.  Well that has gotten completely out of hand.  I have lists of books I'd like to read on my Goodreads site and on my public library site and on my Amazon wish list and scribbled on notecards.  Now those lists are even better than my actual TBR books because they cause less guilt.  I may get to them, I  may not, but I haven't actually paid for them (yet) so I'm free to scratch them off the list(s) whenever I feel like.

In his recent book, The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction, Alan Jacobs talks about the oppressive influence of people who write books of lists of books you "should" read at some point.  He espouses the much freer idea of reading on Whim.  Yes, I meant to capitalize that.  "Whim" differs from "whim," in that it's somewhat more purposeful.  It's not complete randomness.  But you look at the things you want to read and you pick based on what you want then.  Not what everyone else is reading.  Not because it won an award.  It may have, but that's not why.  You're reading it because it brings you pleasure.  Whether it's a light teen comedy or a deep examination of the tax code, it doesn't matter as long as it interests you.

My problem is I like lists.  I guess that's one reason for the whole librarian thing.  I hear about an interesting book and I need to write it down.  But then how do you go about tackling this huge list of books.  If you read them chronologically you'll never get to that cool new sequel of that book you read last year. If you read only the newest stuff, you'll never go back to that book you meant to read after college.  If you read alphabetically you'll never get to that cool Carl Zimmer science book.

Nah, straight adherence to any list will drive me crazy.  It kills the spontaneity.  No, I need the structure of a list but the freedom to pick on a whim.  So here's what I'm trying now.  I made a spreadsheet [I know, I know, but please don't make fun of me yet] and I put all the books from all those lists on there.  It was a good exercise because some of the books didn't make it onto this list.  When things get unwieldy, it's okay to start separating the wheat from the chaff.  Then I sorted it alphabetically by author.  I highlighted the books I actually own in red.  Those take precedence for the TBR Double Dare.  Since we pick our book club books a few months out, I added those and put the due dates next to them.  Also, since I'm not a format snob, I added a note about how the book is available.  Is it available at the library?  In book or audio?  Or will I get it on the Kindle?  Or will I have to actually buy the physical book in a book store.  (It happens.  The Paulsen book for tonight's book club meeting wasn't at the library in any format and not available as an ebook.)

Now what I do is work the list alphabetically, but not strictly so.  For example, let's say I just finished a Phillip Pullman book.  I look at my list, see there are no Qs on the list, but many Rs.  Rick Riordan, Bertrand Russell and Mary Roach.  Each with more than one title.  So I'm limiting my huge list to just these few authors and titles and picking within them.  I can choose an older Russell or the newest Riordan.  It's up to me. Then I'd look at the Ss.  I have Michael Shermer, John Sandford, Neal Stephenson (always), and some others on there.  The Patty Smith Just Kids jumps out because it's an up coming book club book.  Then  I look at the Ts and so on.  I would obviously make adjustments for book club books or anything I had to read for school or whatever.  And it's not set in stone.  I'm free to do whatever I want.  If I feel like I must read all three Riordan's in a row, well then I'll knock myself out.  If I decide to skip the Ts altogether for now and jump to the Vs, that's fine.  Nobody gets hurt.  It's just a skeleton of a structure to give me a little guidance and to keep books on the list from never getting read.  If I get to the Es and all that's on there is one book there and I've passed it up twice before, that might be a hint that I'm just never going to read it. That's okay.  There are so many books and so little time!

I tend to have one book I'm listening to on audio and one I'm reading in either print or electronic form. I also read various blogs, magazines, etc.  But my point is I might have two books highlighted in different portions of the list, one on audio and one book.  That's just me.  And things are a bit messed up because of the TBR Dare and the need to finish a couple things I stared before the last book I finished.  So I'm in the middle of two collections and an audio book from the library which came in that's not strictly part of the order.  No biggie.  I'll go with the flow and then pick up either where I left off or after that author's name.

I like it because if there's an author you love, it keeps them in the loop without draining you.  If you want to read the last four Stephen King books but you have other things to get to, you know you'll be reading a King every time you get to the Ks for a while.  It's not even every 26th book since I don't have any Is or Ns or Us or whatever right now.

Until the TBR dare is over (and maybe for a while after) I'm looking at books in red first.  Then I'll open the list up a bit more, making sure to fit in the next book club book (if I feel like it, of course).  Does that all make sense? Or am I just crazy?  Okay, now you can make fun of me.

Let me know what you think or how you handle your TBR pile and the other books you want to get to someday.  And especially let me know if you don't do any such thing and read without any plan whatsoever. That would be interesting...

The Hobbit

Two birds with one stone with this one. This book satisfies the requirements of both the TBR Double Dare and my book club.  Of course, the meeting for this one isn't until next month, but there you go.

If you hadn't heard, Mr. Tolkien made up this story for his children however many years ago and it has been a popular and classic addition to our culture ever since.  Of course I've always meant to read it but it wasn't until C.B. poked me with his Double Dare stick that I finally got around to it.  I give no credit to my cronies in the book club; I had it on my TBR list before they added it to this year's slate of books.  Obviously many others want to catch up before the new movie versions make their way to theaters.

Briefly, long ago there were in fact elves and magical dwarfs and dragons and wizards and a little people called hobbits.  One of their number, a Mr. Bilbo Baggins, is gently tricked by the wizard Gandalf to accompany a crew of Dwarfs through the Misty Mountains and help them defeat a greedy dragon named Smaug so they can reclaim their rightful home.  How is this quiet little hobbit supposed to do this?  By burglaring of course.  It seems incidental that he has no actual experience as a burglar.  Lucky for him (but unlucky for his cousin Frodo in later tales) he happens upon a magic ring that allows him to become invisible.  This is clearly an advantage in his pursuits as a burglar.

So we have fantasy elements along with the time-honored tradition of basic greed.  What set this far above other, similar tales, is the beautiful and rich way it is told and the warm and striking figure of Bilbo.  I liked it even more than expected.  I thought it would pale in comparison to the Lord of the Rings, but in some ways it is actually better.  It's obviously a tighter story but the character of Bilbo is even more compelling than that of Frodo in the later tales.

For the record, I listened to the Rob Inglis audiobook version and I can't recommend it enough.  I'm sure the ensemble recordings available now are good as well, but this guy was amazing.  He apparently did the whole Lord of the Rings as well which I may have to get to someday.  It was an brilliant performance.