A Journey Through Literary American: A Review

Who would have Steinbeck been without Salinas? Faulkner without Oxford? Hawthorne without Salem? Langston Hughes without Harlem? Many things shape a writer, but the one so often cited is that city or town that rose around them.

Most writers ultimately will move away from the city of their birth, and yet so often is it the one thing that they come back to as they write.

A few weeks ago, I was given a copy of the coffee table book “A Journey Through Literary America” by Thomas R. Hummel (photos by Tamra L. Dempsey), and I couldn’t wait to read it. More often than not, I am more fascinated by the lives of writers then the works they write—there’s something about seeing what influenced a writers writing that I find inspiring.

The book, which features 26  different American writers (I’ll list them below if you are interested), shows modern pictures of the town and talks about what it was like when the author was living, and what it is like today.

If you are a literary history buff, it’s a worthy companion to your bookshelf.

Featured in the Book: Washington Irving, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Robert Frost, Willa Cather, Wallace Stegner, John Steinbeck, Robinson Jeffers, William Faulkner, Thomas Wolfe, Sinclair Lewis, Sherwood Anderson, Langston Hughes, Toni Morrison, Rita Dove, Henry Miller, Ernest Hemingway, Flannery O’Connor, John Updike, Philip Roth, Raymond Carver, E. Annie Proulx, and Richard Ford.

Best Books of the Decade

My favorite books of the past 10 years was a little easier than picking the best music/TV/movies of the past decade simply because I haven't read that many modern books; I frequently run into the problem of being discouraged from trying new authors when there's a wealth of older authors I have read. Still, I have managed to read through a few dozen post-2000 books over the past 10 years, and these have been my favorite.

Check out Diana's list later tonight when she posts it.

Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowlings -- It will take a long time for any series to even come close to matching this one.


The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon (2000) -- I'm not sure the Great American Novel really exist, but this book is one of the closest things to it I've ever read.


A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers (2000) -- This book isn't Eggers' greatest, but I appreciate it for the movement that followed; I'm not sure McSweeney's would have exploded w/o it.


Chronicles by Bob Dylan (2004) -- Every once and awhile a memoir will come out that seems at times more like reading history than about someone's life; that's what this book is. Dylan remains reserved about his life as he always is, but does give true insight into the village life, and the folk movement.

Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace (2005) -- Wallace invented the creative non-fiction...read this awesome collection of essays if you want to know why.

Jarhead by Anthony Swofford (2005) -- Best war book I've read over the past 10 years.

Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination by Neal Gabler (2006) -- Living in Anaheim, I'm always a sucker to hear any Disney history; this bio on Walt is the best out there.

Dwelling Places: A Novel by Vinita Hampton Wright (2006) --When it comes to well written Christian fiction, Wright is the best there is (actually she's about the only one there is); she rights about themes many Christians just pretend don't exist (like depression)

Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell (2006) -- I've heard people say The Case for Christ is a modern version of Mere Christianity; I can see that...except for the fact that the book is lousy. Bell's book makes a better case for comparison.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (2008) -- This is the best series I've read sense Harry Potter ended.

The Hunger Games

I love distopia novels; if I had to list off some of my favorite books of all time, books like 1984, The Handmaid's Tale, Brave New World and The Giver would all rank pretty high. In each of those books, in their own way, they show that often society's biggest flaw is it's desire to be perfect and the sacrifice's they make to achieve this.
A few months back, I heard about a new distopia book called The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. In a nutshell, the book takes place in a future version of the United States; in this future there are 12 districts, and every year the 12 districts send two teens (a boy and a girl) to fight in the Hunger Games--a televised battle where 24 kids fight to the death and only one survives.
Katniss, a girl from one of the weaker districts (District 12), agrees to fight in the games in place of her younger sister; she knows she doesn't stand a chance in the games because, unlike some of the other districts, District 12 doesn't train kids for the games from an early age. Katniss learns quickly the power of media manipulation (one of many great themes in the book), and it's here that the book really starts to take off.
I've heard a few people say this book is just a cheap rip-off of Battle Royale; I haven't read Royale yet (but it's currently on my reading list), but I am going to take a wild guess and say they're wrong. I can see the similar themes, but The Hunger Games is more about finding identity than attacking a social structure--there's really hardly any back-story at all about how the society in The Hunger Games got to be the way it is. 
At the heart of the book is a story about friendship, romance, sacrifice, survival, and discovering your identity--each key ingredients in what makes compelling read. It's also not very gruesome--something I hear Battle Royale is.
The Hunger Games is the first book in a proposed trilogy (Catching Fire comes out in September); I imagine it's this book that will go a little deeper into what's wrong with the society and play more on the theme of man's voyeuristic tendencies. I can't wait to read it, because by the time I finished The Hunger Games I was completely engrossed with the characters and eager to see how they develop.
I won't give away the end, except to say the games do end and the government is not happy at all with the outcome, because they have been embarrassed.
Check it out if your looking for a summer read you won't be able to put down.
And thanks to Diana for the gift...

Debt to Clancy

As I watched the two towers burn on 9/11, the first thing I thought was "Tom Clancy wrote this would happen."

I've had a love hate relationship with Tom Clancy for quite sometime; on one hand he describes WAY too much and isn't the greatest writer...on the other hand he may just be one of the best storytellers of the Cold War age.

I have read his Jack Ryan books off and on ever since I picked up "The Hunt for Red October" one summer while looking for an easy read to spend a few days with. Those of you not familiar with Clancy, Jack Ryan is the main character in most of the books, and he's done it all and seen it all. In "Executive Orders" he became President--one of the best ones the country ever saw, of course (it's fiction, after all)

When Amazon released Tom Clancy on Kindle last month, I was in the mood for an easy read, and download "Debt of Honor" (SPOILER ALERT: the reason this book is known as the 9/11 one is the ending has a plane crashing into the Capital Building in DC, and wiping out a huge chuck of the government (including all nine Supreme Court Justices and the President), which is how Ryan becomes President, and the stage is set for "Executive Orders")

The book is about a war between the U.S. and Japan; the book would be interesting if it was just a plain old fashion war, but what makes it absolutely fascinating is one of the ways Japan attacks the country--economically; Japan engineers the collapse of the U.S. stock market--done so in a way that made me think instantly of our current economic crisis; in the midst of this, the Vice President is involved in a sex scandal, and Ryan is later asked to become Vice President just until the elections over.

Most of his books are about 800 pages; a good editor would have no problem cutting this down to 350 or 400. Writing narratives isn't what makes Clancy so great; it's his stories. He writes about scenarios that I'm not sure the government has fully worked out, and he does so in a way that makes you just a little afraid, because you know that everything he's writing could quite easily come true.

The dialogue is a bit corny at times, but if you ever wanted to know the workings of government he's worth the read.

A Book Review A Long Time Coming...

Several months (yes, months), ago I received a note and book from Ian Sansom (author of "The Book Stops Here"), which I have just now got around to answering; those who know me know that it often takes me seconds to answer an email, but way too long to answer an actual letter--a bizarre phenomenon, I know. My wife is the one you should direct any corresponds to if you desire a prompt reply.

Added to the fact that that this letter was physical and not digital was the matter of the book. I felt obliged to read it, as I feel obliged to read anything sent to me in the regular mail, and I found it would be rude to reply before reading it. But I feared reading it, because that would mean I immediately was put in danger of not liking it, and having to fluff my letter in reply with unfit praise.

Alas, however, I have finished the book, finished the letter, and wrote a blog to tell about it.

Some of you know that I teach online writing for the Gotham Writers’ Workshop in NYC; the thing I tell my students most often is write characters well. It doesn’t matter how weak the plot is—if you create characters that are interesting, then your book will be great.

I’m not trying to say the plot of Sansom’s book was bad (it’s not)—I’m trying to say it has fantastic characters. They were absurd, dry, bitter, and absolutely hysterical to watch. The plot of the book centers around the disappearance of an old, beat-up, bookmobile. It’s a strange plot for a book, but Sansom makes it work.

I’m not a fan of mystery books (it’s probably about the only genre, aside from erotica) that I do not read. Because of this, I had a stand-offish attitude towards the book, and that’s a shame because it was such a fun read.

In recent years, I have been drawn away from contemporary fiction; I think part of this is the stories I’ve read in recent years takes themselves too seriously and don’t offer the same kind of escape as classics. They are often full of thought provoking themes, but not enough actual storytelling—there are exceptions to this of course, but sometime it seems like these days there’s less and less exceptions.  The Book Stops Here is an exception; it’s a lighthearted story that never takes itself too seriously.

I recommend you buy, borrow it, check it out, or do whatever it is you do when you are looking for something good to read.

Born Standing Up: A Review

In the past, I’ve spent little time reviewing books, and I fear people might developed the impression that I am in fact the Illiterate Librarian of that short story I wrote a few months back. To insure that indeed I am not in fact illiterate, and do in fact read, I have decided to post a review of a book I recently finished: Steve Martin’s Born Standing Up. In the future, I’ll do my best to post a few more.

Tell all Hollywood memoirs are a dime a dozen in publishing, so Martin’s memoir is particularly shocking because he avoids telling all by telling pretty much nothing. There were nuggets here and there (such as he lost his virginity, at the age of 18, to the bestselling Christian author Stormie Omartian). This isn’t to say it wasn’t a good book—it just wasn’t the juicy, insider, read that I have come to love from celebrities.

The other thing I kind of expected from the memoir is for it to follow the comic tradition of other comedians who decided to tell their life story—which is to say they used humor to tell their story. Oddly enough, the memoir from America’s “Wild and Crazy” man is neither wild or crazy—or funny. Instead Martin simply tells the history of what it was like getting started in the business, and how he got famous.

Martin confesses that he had issues growing up with his parents—particularly his father who had been abusive with him—but these things read like issues that Martin wasn’t quite sure how to handle. This is where the book fell flat for me; Martin distanced himself too far from the story—as if he was trying to pull a Henry Adams and remove any feelings from the story and simply tell things as they were with no personal bias. I got the feeling that he simply didn’t want to talk about family, but the editors forced him. He also writes about how he wasn’t close with his sister until later in life, and implies that he is going to share how they rekindled a relationship later in life, but never really reveals how or when.

He writes about how lonely he was on the road, but never talks about how he overcame this and never shares why he left standup comedy for good; he reveals that he was tired, but as I finished the final page, I couldn’t help but wonder if he loved it so much why he never even thought about trying it again for old-time sake.

As a personal memoir it didn’t work for me. As a history of standup comedy, it wasn’t too bad—although, I hoped that he’d talk a little more about the comedy going on around him; one would think, having read this, that Martin was the only one doing standup comedy in the seventies. Martin definitely knows how to write, as anyone whose read his stuff in the New Yorker knows, but a part of me wonders if this was the write story to tell.

McShhhh?

Earlier this week, I blogged about Air Borne Toxic Event attacking a critic to their CD; this week I got my own dose of a nasty review curtesy of the SF Guardian. True to my word, I will not comment about critics attack...

Someone once said there's no such thing as bad publicity; I suppose that's kind of the case. If you hated the book, then I'm sure you'll love the review--check it out!

He Doesn’t Talk Pretty No More?

Like many people, the first thing I discovered by David Sedaris was SantaLand Diaries; I enjoyed his dry, bitter humor and continued to enjoy it in Barrel Fever, Naked, and, especially in, Me Talk Pretty One Day. Then came Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim—a forgivable work that was pretty hit and miss, but mostly miss.

If it was any other writer, I probably would said Dress Your Family was a great piece of work, but this was Sedaris, and I had higher expectations for him. Still I forgave it, and passed it off as good but not great; I even shelled out cash to go and listen to him speak when he was touring for it.

Now over two months after starting, and desperately trying to finish, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, I have to ask what happened? Have I just matured as a reader? Has my taste in reading simply changed? Or are Sedaris' books merely getting more lame and gimmicky? Whatever the reason, this book just was not that good.

It was largely about nothing, which is common in Sedaris books--but nothing to forced extremes. It was as if Sedaris closed his eyes and said “I had a cyst on my rear” and then with that wrote whatever came to his mind, and half the time they didn’t even sort of relate.

Another problem I had with the book was he seemed to be focusing too much on the fact that he’s gay. In his early books, it was basically a known fact, but he spent time writing about himself and not his relationships. The problem with spending so much time talking about his gay lifestyle is it just isn’t interesting or funny; he even claims (several times) that his relationship isn’t exciting—so why does he spend so much time talking about it? There were a few descriptions about Hugh that almost made me laugh, but the few good parts about the books were when he was writing about how he saw other people's lives, and not his own.

He's a great observe of other, but not so much himself. Sedaris' best humor has always been observing people and how he himself interacts with them. That’s where he should stay, because that’s when I always find myself laughing. When he’s dealing with issues and struggles he has it simply just doesn’t work.

The book has a great cover, but the laughs pretty much stops there.

Watchmen: The Anti-Superhero

I’m not a comic book fanatic; growing up I’d read the occasional comic, but, by and large, they were single issues, and certainly not called “Graphic Novels.”

When Entertainment Weekly ran a story on the comic book, soon to be movie, Watchmen and called it not only one of the greatest comics, but the greatest books ever written, I was intrigued.
It certainly was not the graphic novel I was expected; filled with twist, comics within comics, and detailed back story on each character, this is not the comic I remembered as a child.

I think it’s a stretch to call it one of the greatest novels ever wrote, because, while it does have a great plot, I found the dialog to be lacking. Sure it was better then other comics, and that in itself is commendable, but I thought it could have been better. I also found the comic within the comic a bit unnecessary.

The plot was completely unpredictable and against all traditions. I admire the comic for that. If I was into writing comics, then this would definitely be the one that changed things for me. It’s just a bit away from the perfection that I expected. I still recommend the read.

It was darkly written (the perfect angle Hollywood is looking for after the success of The Dark Night), and I can’t wait to see the adaptation next year.

City Paper

The City Paper in Baltimore has a review of Quiet, Please up; they believe the cast of characters is better suited for TV...if that's the case, then would someone in Hollywood please buy this book and put it in that domain?! And if he's available, please get Morgan Freeman to play me...

Quiet, Please vs. Free for All

Newsday reviewed "Quiet, Please" and "Free for All" on Sunday; I'm really surprised that this is one of the first times any Newspaper has reviewed the books side by side. Go here to read the reviews.

Telegraph Review

The Telegraph in the UK had a review of Quiet, Please this past weekend. Check it out here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/05/24/bodou124.xml

The Times (UK)

The Times in the UK reviewed "Quiet, Please." Read the review here: http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/non-fiction/article3986786.ece

Bookslut

Bookslut has a review of "Quiet, Please" on their website.

The London Paper

People in the UK got one of there first reviews of "Quiet, Please" in The London Paper, a daily commuter paper. Read it below:

"Scott Douglas is pretty cool for a librarian: the American has a blog andwrites for Dave Eggers' hip literary website McSweeney's. his clear belief in the importance of libraries for communities gives the book heart."

Chicago Tribune (Editor's Choice)

The Chicago Tribune picked "Quiet, Please" this week as their editors choice. See the review below:

Editor's choice—Elizabeth Taylor, literary editor May 10, 2008
With this week's summer reading recommendations from librarians, one wonders: Who are these characters? In this cleverly written book—a set of stories, really—drawn from his perspective as a California librarian, Scott Douglas brings us into the stacks. "Libraries were the place where people of diverse backgrounds and cultures could come together for the common pursuit of discovering something new," writes Douglas. "Librarians were the people who helped them find this discovery."

Metro Spirit

The Metro Spirit ran a nice review of "Quiet, Please." Check it out here!

Wrapping Up...

This week went good for "Quiet, Please." Reviews in USA Today, Pop Matters, and the OC Register helped get the books sales rank...it was even sold out for a brief moment on Amazon.

Then the weekend came and even more good reviews came in. It was listed as a Discovery book in Sunday's LA Times Review of Books (who said it, "given us closet librarians an appreciation of what that job entails"), given a quite extensive, and good, review in The Scotsman (so I guess now I'm global), who said, "There is a rich vein of humour in the book, at times wry and at others boisterous, like a Douglas Coupland slacker hero relocated from the world of e-commerce." And Finally, down in Florida, Solares Hill said it was, "a good read, often funny and occasionally thought-provoking."

I have three upcoming radio appearance, rumors of more book reviews, and Flaunt Magazine will be excerpting a portion of the book in a summer issue...so hopefully the book will continue to do well. Thanks to all of you who have supported me from the books get go...please keep spreading the word!

The Good

Apparently, National Library Week makes people excited about reading...go figure. Here's one more review from yesterday.

The New Orleans Times-Picayune: http://blog.nola.com/susanlarson/2008/04/two_new_books_perfect_reads_fo.html

USA Today, OC Register, & PopMatters

The Orange County Register, USA Today, and PopMatters each have coverage of "Quiet, Please" today.

OC Register Article:
"Quiet Please, the Librarian is Watching"

USA Today review can be found here. Really, I'm not sure exactly what to say to someone who calls me "self-consciously hip." What the heck does that even mean! I never claim to be hip in the book, nor to I claim to be hip now! I'm a nerd with glasses, which, no, doesn't mean I'm a hipster! But it's USA Today, so I'll digress...

Finally, PopMatters has a reveiw & interview up.