Are YouTube videos an effective way to pique your interest in a book? Here is an example for A Fraction of the Whole by Steve Toltz:

Here is the accompanying blurb:

Most of his life, Jasper Dean couldn’t decide whether to pity,

hate, love, or murder his certifiably paranoid father, Martin, a man who overanalyzed anything and everything and imparted his self-garnered wisdom to his only son. But now that Martin is dead, Jasper can fully reflect on the crackpot who raised him in intellectual captivity, and what he realizes is that, for all its lunacy, theirs was a grand adventure.

What do you think?  Is this a good way to use “new media” to get a book noticed?

Ross Douthat has a great story about WFB over at The Atlantic excerpted from his book Privilege. Here is a hilarious passage:

“You aren’t actually going to go swimming, are you?” he asked me.

“Aren’t you?” I demanded.

“Well …”

“Well what?”

“I don’t really like to swim very much in general.”

“Well, Jaime,” I said grandly, “neither do I, honestly. But you know, I think there comes a time in a man’s life when he has a chance to say to his grandchildren, I once went skinny-dipping with William F. Buckley, Jr. And this, Jaime, this is that chance.”

Read the whole thing.

I thought it would be appropriate to collect in one post my reviews of Buckley’s books.  So here are the ones I could find:

- The Rake by William F. Buckley, Jr.

- Last Call for Blackford Oakes by William F. Buckley Jr.

- Miles Gone By - William F. Buckley, Jr.

- The Fall of the Berlin Wall by William F. Buckley

- Getting It Right by William F. Buckley, Jr.

- Nuremberg: The Reckoning by William F. Buckley Jr.

One of my heroes has died.  William F. Buckley Jr. died overnight in his study in Stamford, Connecticut.

It is one of those headlines or emails that comes across your screen and feels like a punch in the gut.  I was aware that his health was failing but you just don’t think about losing someone like this until it happens.  And then it hits you that the world is somehow different.  It feels like the end of an era.

WFB, as he was often known, changed the face of American conservatism and politics like few others.  And like millions of others it was his writing, persona, and magazine that lead me to conservatism.  I own all of his books and have read them all excepting his last (Cancel Your Own Goddam Subscription)

His range was remarkable.  He wrote political polemics; syndicated columns; unique memoirs; books on sailing, language, and faith; and novels.  He singlehandedly changed the perception of what conservatism could be.  And in the process changed America.

RIP.

I am just getting around to this, but the Telegraph posted their list of 50 crime writers to read before you die on Sunday.  Here is how they introduce the list:

We present them in no particular order, and make no apology for our omissions. But we would like to know what you think. Should Ellery Queen have been two of the names on the list? Hate Highsmith? Log on, or write in, and say so.

We wanted to compile a list of writers we had, jointly and severally, loved. We wanted to include writers like Dash Hammett, who brought something new and exciting to the genre; like Elmore Leonard, who turns an old trick in it with incomparable style; and like Poe, who invented it. We did not, except incidentally, take into account popularity.

Who, we asked ourselves finally, are the crime writers who can actually write? We believe any serious reader will profit from acquaintance with any of the writers on this list.

My reading habits are far too eclectic to make me a specialist in anything so I can’t claim expertise on the genre, but according to this list I am not well read in this particular area.  Here are the authors on the list with those I have read in bold:

GK Chesterton 1874-1936
Arthur Conan Doyle 1859-1930
Edgar Allan Poe 1809-1849
Ed McBain 1926-2005
Kyril Bonfiglioli 1929-85
James Ellroy 1948-
Janwillem van der Wetering 1931-
Carl Hiaasen 1953-
Dashiell Hammett 1894-1961
Dan Kavanagh 1946-
Margery Allingham 1904-66
Charles Dickens 1812-1870
Georges Simenon 1903-1989
Agatha Christie 1890-1976
Wilkie Collins 1824-1889
Jonathan Latimer 1906-83
Ruth Rendell 1930-
Ngaio Marsh c. 1895-1982
Benjamin Black 1945-
John Dickson Carr 1906-77
Michael Innes 1906-94
Raymond Chandler 1888-1959
Friedrich Dürrenmatt 1921-90
Michael Gilbert 1912-2006
Donald Westlake 1933-
Colin Bateman 1962-
Frances Fyfield 1948-
Reginald Hill 1936-
Andrea Camilleri 1925-
Henning Mankell 1948-
Patricia Highsmith 1921-1995
James Lee Burke 1936-
Jim Thompson 1906-1977
Walter Mosley 1952-
Denise Mina 1966-
Steig Larsson 1954-2004
Ronald Knox 1888-1957
EC Bentley 1875-1956
Lawrence Block 1938-
Edmund Crispin 1921-1978
William McIlvanney 1936-
George V Higgins 1939-1999
Dorothy L Sayers 1893-1957
Anthony Boucher 1911-68
Mickey Spillane 1918-2006
James Grady 1949-
George Pelecanos 1957-
Robert Crais 1954-
John Lawton 1949-
Elmore Leonard 1925-

For those scoring at home that is ten out of fifty.  I have to admit that there are a great many on the list I have never heard of let alone read.

I haven’t had a chance to gauge the lit blogs reaction to the list.  Anyone have a strong opinion?

Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization by Nicholson Baker

Publishers Weekly

“Burning a village properly takes a long time,” wrote a British commander in Iraq in 1920. In this sometimes astonishing yet perplexing account of the destructive futility of war, NBCC award–winning writer Baker (Double Fold) traces a direct line from there to WWII, when Flying Fortresses and incendiary bombs made it possible to burn a city in almost no time at all. Central to Baker’s episodic narrative- a chronological juxtaposition of discrete moments from 1892 to December 31, 1941-are accounts from contemporary reports of Britain’s terror campaign of repeatedly bombing German cities even before the London blitz. The large chorus of voices echoing here range from pacifists like Quaker Clarence Pickett to the seemingly cynical warmongering of Churchill and FDR; the rueful resignation of German-Jewish diarist Viktor Klemperer to Clementine Churchill’s hate-filled reference to “yellow Japanese lice.” Baker offers no judgment, but he also fails to offer context: was Hitler’s purported plan to send the Jews to Madagascar serious, or, as one leading historian has called it, a fiction? Baker gives no clue. Yet many incidents carry an emotional wallop-of anger and shock at actions on all sides-that could force one to reconsider means and ends even in a “good” war and to view the word “terror” in a very discomfiting context.

 

A Church of Her Own: What Happens When a Woman Takes the Pulpit by Sarah Sentilles

Book Description

Thirty years after the first group of women was ordained by the Episcopal Church, women are among some of the most vital and successful ministers in all Protestant denominations, even as churches struggle to hold on to their members. Sarah Sentilles enters the lives of female ministers—women of various ages and races, in a range of churches—to paint the first real portrait of what it’s like to serve as a woman of faith today.

Sometimes triumphant, sometimes hilarious, sometimes painful, their stories take us from their calls to the pulpit through their ordinations and service in congregations. These women show us how the church can be more welcoming to the women who are its lifeblood. And in their inspiring determination to perform the ministry to which they are called, no matter what the obstacles, we might well see the future of the church itself

Buying books would be a good thing if one could also buy the time to read them in: but as a rule the purchase of books is mistaken for the appropriation of their contents.

– Arthur Schopenhauer

This quote is a new one to me, but it is so true as to be almost an epiphany type moment.  I buy books in the hope that I can acquire their knowledge, or the simple enjoyment of reading them, knowing full well I don’t have the time to really read and digest them all.

*I came to the quote via David Frum and Random Acts of Reading.*

As long time readers of this site will know, I have always been interested in myths and epic stories.  I also enjoy young adult fiction; particularly those with a fantasy element.  So a book that combines the two should be right up my alley. 

With this in mind, when I stumbled upon The Great God Pan by Donna Jo Napoli it seemed like a natural for me.  A quick read that combined my interest in myth with the target audience of young adults.

It turned out to be an enjoyable read, but a little on the bland side. 

To give you an idea of what it is about - other than the obvious subject of the title - here is the synopsis from the School Library Journal:

Meet Pan: half-god/half-goat, full of life, frolicking in the woods with maenads, playing his pipes, and creating pan-ic. In Napoli’s version of the story, he meets Iphigenia by chance and falls in love with her. Innocence disappears, and the curse placed upon him at birth-that he will never be loved-seems destined to come true, for his life revolves around finding her again. And he does find her, just as she is about to be sacrificed by her own father. Pan devises a trick to save Iphigenia’s life at the expense of his own, his love for the woman outweighing his lust for life. Napoli has written a fine story-it is fast paced, the characters and setting are well realized, and it even has intrigue and randy scenes of woodland romps tailored for teens. However, scholars of Greek mythology will find a strange dichotomy in this story: many bits of the known tales of both Pan and Iphigenia are here, but there is also a fabricated story that connects the two characters. Napoli has included many details from ancient texts, providing needed background for mythology novices. However, she has also created a story that fills in the “gaps” in each tale, rewriting myth for modern readers. Purists may find fault with this, but teens who enjoyed books such as Caroline Cooney’s Goddess of Yesterday (Delacorte, 2002) will simply find a good story.

Publishers Weekly is a little more critical: 

As in her Sirena, Napoli populates this ambitious novel with classical literary figures, chief among them Pan, the half-goat, half-god associated with nature. While Napoli’s Pan physically conforms to classical type, psychologically he is very much a contemporary creation. Here he is said to fall in love with Iphigenia (readers who don’t know that Iphigenia is to be sacrificed by her father, Agamemnon, at the start of the Trojan War may not appreciate the tension in the plot). Love makes Pan painfully vulnerable in a mortal, not godlike way: he broods over his hybrid state, worries about being taken seriously and suffers from alienation. All of these conditions might make this Pan a mirror for adolescent readers, but, unfortunately, Pan seems indistinct from the other characters here. The voices sound alike, whether god, nymph, maenad or human is speaking. Interestingly, Napoli follows a variant of the Iphigenia legend, in which Iphigenia, unbeknownst to Agamemnon, is in fact the daughter of Theseus and Helen. This change transforms the shadow of her anticipated sacrifice, from something inspiring pity and terror to a doomed and brutal act of violence. Accordingly, when Napoli deviates from the seemingly inevitable ending and spares Iphegenia, she moves the story from the realm of tragedy into that of romance. The novel may be more pleasing to young readers than its classical models, but it is also a dilution of them.

 
I think perhaps this illustrates the limits of YA fiction for adults.  The book does a good job of imagining the world of myth where gods and mortals interact.  It also explores some of the interesting emotions and conflicting loyalties involved.  But it never achieves the depth required to make the story more interesting.  It seems an almost lighthearted story despite the underlying themes of love and death.

It might be a good introduction to myth for young readers intimidated by more serious approaches, but in the end it is a little too light to pack much a punch. 

The Ultimate Battle by Bill Sloan is about the last World War II battle between the Americans and Japanese, the Battle of Okinawa.  Sloan concentrates on the American soldiers, Marines, sailors, and airmen who fought and died on and around Okinawa.  These brave Americans poured their blood, sweat, and tears into taking this island from the Japanese.

The battle began even before the troops landed on the beaches.  Japanese kamikaze pilots tried to take out some of the 1,500 U.S. Navy ships in the invasion fleet in the days before the landing.  These kamikazes, numbering around 2,000 planes, came in roughly ten waves throughout the battle.

The Americans, expecting a ferocious fight for the beaches, landed relatively unopposed on April 1, 1945.  Five hundred forty-one thousand soldiers and Marines of the U.S. Tenth Army were eventually landed to fight against Japan’s 110,000-man 32^nd Army.  The fighting began in earnest a few days after the landing and continued into July.  The three months of fighting pitted the tenacious Japanese defense against the awesome offensive power of the Americans.  By the end of the battle, more than 115,000 soldiers, Marines, sailors, and airmen from both sides were killed and more than 150,000 Okinawa civilians were dead from the crossfire or suicide (encouraged by the Japanese).

Read the rest of this entry »

Just came across your response to the WSJ article on Random House’s buy-by-chapter test. Just thought I’d let you know that we (Lonely Planet) launched a buy-by-chapter product last July, called Pick & Mix, which enables customers to purchase and download individual digital chapters from our travel guides.

 

The response has been outstanding, significantly better than expected. When we launched, only our guides to Latin America were offered. But due to the positive feedback we’ve expanded to include guidebooks to North America, with Africa, the Caribbean and the South Pacific coming very soon (like this week) [now available. -KH].

 

I agree that offering individual chapters from a work where the chapters build on each other may not be appealing. But for travel guides, the buy-by-chapter approach seems to work. For example, when travelling to one particular region of a country, like Patagonia for example, you may not want to lug the entire Argentina guide along - many travellers have written us to say they appreciate being able to get just the bits of our books they need, and saving weight, luggage space, paper, and ink.