Join the Book Club!

...because I can never have enough books...

Time for a trivial post.

I've rejoined the Quality Paperback Book Club: my initial shipment just arrived, and now I'm completely torn as to what I should read first. I just started a very long, involved space opera called PANDORA'S STAR by Peter F. Hamilton, bought during a book run last week.
(Why'd you buy books last week, if you knew you had more coming this week, hmmm?)
Shut up, voice in my head.
(No, really, it's like buying stuff for yourself on the twentieth of December. What were you thinking?)
I was thinking, if you really must know, that my initial QPB order might not show for another two or even three weeks. I could always cycle back through things I'd already read, of course, but a detailed survey of the library upstairs left me feeling like I'd just read everything in it. I could go to the library--I have, actually--but everything I'm itching to read has so many holds on it, I'd be reading in my grave.
So: book run. I've finished IMPERIUM, by Robert Harris, a so-so historical novel about Cicero. Riveting in places, plodding in others, I was kept interested by the detail. Ancient Rome has fascinated me for years. Everything from their houses to their politics wouldn't look too out of place today.
I also read the second of Giles Blunt's John Cardinal mysteries, THE DELICATE STORM. Blunt never seems to write the same book twice. This one had a healthy dollop of Canadian history thrown in with the murderous mayhem. Not up to the level of the others in the series, but worth a look.
Now I'm fifty pages into PANDORA'S STAR...and it's only half the story: between it and its sequel there are something like 2100 pages. Assuming it's all a good read, and bearing in mind upcoming holidays, that'll take me two weeks or so. Two weeks during which all these other books are just sitting here unread. But if I drop PANDORA'S STAR, given there are six (!!!) books vying for my attention, I might not get back to it until Christmas or later.
"So what?" says Eva. "It's not like they're going anywhere."
Too true. But one of the places they're not going is into my head, where I want them.

I wish I had my wife's facility for reading. She manages about a book a day, and she does it by multitasking. She even reads in the shower, the secret to which I am forbidden to divulge. She can read and watch television at the same time. I can't do that: when I read, the book becomes my world. I post sentries to alert me to anything unnatural in the real world around me, but the babble of a television wouldn't get their attention no matter what was onscreen.

As I said, I've got six books, including two Pulitzer winners. These'll be the first Pulitzer Prize winning books I've read in my life (not counting To Kill A Mockingbird, which I had to read for school and thus got next to no pleasure out of). All came highly recommended by one friend or a gaggle of strangers. And I just don't know what to crack open.

The Road (Cormac McCarthy): Postapocalyptic, which hooks me every time, and literary? Sounds fantastic.

Middlesex (Jeffrey Eugenides): Yes, it's an Oprah selection. So sue me. I've read a couple of the books she's touted and enjoyed them immensely. I Know This Much Is True is a powerhouse of a novel. Besides, Middlesex is also one of those Pulitzer winners: evidently Ms. Winfrey isn't alone.

Fragile Things (Neil Gaiman): Short stories, a point in this book's favour, actually. I've got most (but not all) of Gaiman's work now: he's one of about ten authors I'll buy sight unseen and know I'm getting good value.

Ysabel (Guy Gavriel Kay): Yes, I know, Jen, I should just burn all the other books and read this one. My friend Jen introduced me to this Canadian master of historical fantasy a few years back. I've now got his entire output except for the first trilogy. That trilogy is supposedly quite reminiscient of The Lord of the Rings, which has scared me off. Kay's set a good chunk of this latest book in our world, time present. That unsettles me just the teensiest bit, because all the Kay I've read is set in a parallel universe, jumping all over history. Can he pull off a book set in a world he didn't make up?

The Dark River (John Twelve Hawks): His first, The Traveller, was a tour de force of storytelling. But it's been two or three years since I read it and I've forgotten much of the detail. It's out on loan to Eva's parents. I think I'll wait to read this second installment until I've had a chance to re-skim the first.

1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus: because I wouldn't feel right without getting at least one book I could learn something from. This looks like the sort of book I could read in sips...like on the toilet. (You laugh: we have twelve different Uncle John's Bathroom Readers in this house. I've almost crapped myself more than once looking for that perfect book for the loo.)

Decisions, decisions. Those of you on Facebook will see the outcome...

Long weekend scuttled: Forty Words for Sorrow

It turns out that I'm not getting a long weekend this time, either.
I work Sunday night into Monday--which I had thought was a stat holiday. I called Head Office on this, in the guise of caring about unnecessary labour dollars spent (why pay people time and a half when you don't have to?) and was cheerily informed that no, as far as they're concerned, if the shift *starts* on Monday it means time and a half. If it *starts* on Sunday and goes into Monday, nope, that's regular rate.
I still think they're full of shit on this point. Every collective agreement I found on the Web yesterday took my side. (Never thought I'd say this, but I regret not being at one of the unionized stores right now.)
When I worked at 7-Eleven (and believe you me, I worked a lot of stat holidays), their policy was a shift starting at 11:00 p.m. the day before the holiday and going into the holiday itself was paid at time and a half.
But I won't argue it any further: I'd lose.

So I'm working Sunday night and off Monday night. Which bites, not just because hey, no long weekend! but because it means I work one night and am off for one. Why is that bad? Because I pretty much have to keep the same schedule on my one day off: sleep during the day and stay up all night. I'll "flip" for two consecutive days--and was really looking forward to three--but a single day off isn't worth the effort. I'd probably get sick.

I guess I shouldn't bitch overmuch. After all, I don't generally work weekends, which is all but unheard of in retail. Even getting two consecutive days off at any time is an extreme rarity: you office types have no idea how lucky you actually are.

So our condensed weekend involves plenty of relaxation. We haven't had a weekend alone at home together with no obligations for what seems like a year or so.

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Went to Value Village yesterday. I used to be more than a little leery of even going into stores like that. Somehow I'd gotten it into my head that all those clothes belonged to the recently deceased. Even when that misconception was corrected, I still had a case of the yuckies at the thought of wearing clothes that somebody else had worn.
Stupid of me. You go into any clothing store at all, even an upscale one, and chances are good to excellent anything you try on has been tried on before. Possibly by somebody with serious hygiene issues. You never know, right? What's more, none of it's been washed since.
Really, you can find some amazing deals. I got a suit once, an almost perfect fit, for $25; it probably originally retailed for at least ten times that.
Then there's the books. You never know what you're going to find. I just finished an excellent Canadian crime novel called Blackfly Season--easily one of the best police procedurals I've ever read. Unfortunately, I discovered after I started reading it that it was the third in a series. I've made that mistake before, picking up Kelley Armstrong's Dime Store Magic on the strength of stellar reviews, only to find out it was the third in a series. (Eva's since collected the whole set).
Anyway, Blackfly Season stands alone quite well, but hints at character development in the other books. Blunt's writing is phenomenal, and I like to reward Canadian writers when I can. We were actually planning a Chapters run today. Lo and behold, sitting on the shelf in Value Village was the first novel in the series, Forty Words for Sorrow. My hand shot out like lightning and grabbed it...the cashier couldn't find the price, so I ended up getting a $10.99 novel, one for which I was more than willing to pay full price...for 99 cents. My inner miser was doing a happy dance for the rest of the day.
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The fall election campaign in Ontario is cycling up and unless something comes out in the next few weeks that blows my socks off, I'm probably not voting Tory for the first time in my life. The more I look at the Green Party platform, the more I like it. They're really not just a one-trick pony. I don't like everything in it: they're in for a rude awakening if they think they can rely on solar and wind to meet our energy needs, for instance--but I'll never like everything in any party's platform unless I create the platform myself.
The only thing still tethering me to the Tories (well, two things, really): our MPP, Elizabeth Witmer, who really has done an excellent job. Also, the Conservatives have the best chance of defeating Dalton "Pinocchio" McGuinty and I really don't like the thought of four more years of broken promises and outright lies.
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Macleans this week has a great article about mediocre students and how they tend to do better later in life than the academic dynamos. Teachers, it says, are "former A students teaching mostly B students how to work for C students". I recognized myself several times along the course of that article. I was an Ontario Scholar, which just means I got an A average in my final year of high school. I used to brag about that, but long ago realized it meant diddly-squat. I had, and still have, a drive to learn things. I've never had much of an urge to do anything with the stuff I've learned. According to this article, that's pretty common amongst A students. The C students (and even the dropouts) have a different skill set, one that's often more in tune with getting ahead in the world. For instance, C students are often social climbers, which translates into people skills that reward them in their careers. Also, many of them simply find school boring and irrelevant. Their grades have little or nothing to do with their intelligence. Once they find something that interests them, they can attack it with determination and diligence. (That's Eva, right there...her high school record was no great shakes, but she's gone on to get diplomas and designations galore, and has been a raving success in everything she's tried. You look at her marks in high school and you might make the mistake of thinking she's dumb. My wife is smarter than I am.
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Seven in the morning. Time to go back to bed. That's another pitfall of working nights...even if you stay up most of the day trying to flip your inner clock, as I did yesterday, and go to bed utterly whipped, odds are you'll pop fully awake sometime in the wee hours. Ah, well, all together now, weekends are for napping.

Throw the Dog a Pun

It truly is the dog days of summer. Siriusly. I'm pooched for blog ideas, and when one does come along, I lack the energy to pursue it. What can I say...I'm a Terrier.
Been Shepherding my wife around to various shops. I tend to stay in the car and Rottweiler Highness conducts her business. Sometimes I actually have to go in and Springer loose. I just want to Pinscher (my nails, they're Shar-pei?) because Mastiff back acts up after awhile. Just not used to sitting still over that kind of time Spaniel understand.
Enough of that, Ken. Whippet.

On the reading docket right now: Perdido Street Station, by China Mie'ville. This book started out a bit slow, but it's rapidly ascending through pretty good into holy crap this is freakin' amazing.
Offhand, I don't think I've ever read anything so dark. This novel gets under your skin and lurks there, caressing your brain in profoundly disturbing ways. Mie'ville plumbs his thesaurus at every turn describing the filth of his city, New Crobuzon, until you can actually feel its grime and rot and smell its decay. He populates his city with the weird, the fantastic, and the utterly terrifying (one creature is so menacing that demons run in fear from it!) And wonder of wonders, he actually gets you caring about these things. I never thought I'd find myself connecting emotionally with a character who has the body of a woman and the head of an insect, for instance. Not to mention accepting her fully human lover. Mie'ville introduces themes of abandonment, bigotry and political corruption without treading on the toes of his plot. Truly phenomenal: I just hope it ends well.

Nothing else of note to write: just thought I'd better check in to this here Breadbin and let you know we're still kicking.

Nothing happening around here

Just got back from a library trip.
A ritual precedes every library trip I make these days, a pointless ritual of research. The night before, I scour Internet lists for the 'best of' whatever genre I'm in the mood for, with the Waterloo Public Library catalogue open in another window so I can determine every so often that no, they don't stock that book either. Or maybe they do, but there are umpty-dozen holds on it and it won't be in until long after I'm dust. Every so often I discover, miracle of miracles, an interesting-looking book which the catalogue informs me is actually ON THE SHELVES. Then, almost without fail, I'll make my way to the library and find a dozen things that weren't on my list in the first place.
Such was the case today. Only one Neil Gaiman on offer, and I just read it a couple of months ago. A couple of books from this edition of The List that, on closer inspection, didn't appeal as much as I thought they might.
WPL has a "FastRead" 4-day loan system for recent hot arrivals, and every so often I'll kid myself into thinking I can finish off six or seven hundred pages in that span of time. Years ago, I wouldn't even blink at a deadline like that--I managed two or three books that size a week--but then, I didn't have a wife, kids (and just try and tell me our two dogs aren't kids) or any responsibilities. My life consisted of working, sleeping, and reading.
(And no, I don't miss those days one bit. Not when loneliness and despair came standard with all that free time.)
So today, I'm looking at that FastRead section again, noting the latest Stephen King novel, Lisey's Story, on there and thinking hey, four days is a long time. Especially when two of them are weekend days. I can do it.
Add to cart.
On the off chance Lisey's story turns out to be on a par with From A Buick 8, which made me want to buick myself, I needed at least one backup book. I found a Greg Benford book of short stories that looked very promising, and threw it in. Eva was busily gathering together her list for the next three weeks, a considerably smaller pile than usual, only seven or eight books. (I've seen her get twenty: carrying that kind of load out of the library is an exercise in engineering.) Eva tends to divide her reading time lately between certain kinds of romance, and children's series like Pendragon and Artemis Fowl. The kind of job she has, her brain needs to be dialled way down or she'll explode; and that was how I found myself in the children's library for only the second time since I was a child myself.
While I'm down here....
I scooted right over to the K's, looking for Korman, Gordon. His Macdonald Hall series is a blast from my past. I didn't know the first time I read through those things that their author was scarcely older than I was...he wrote This Can't Be Happening At Macdonald Hall! when he was all of twelve. And there staring out at me was a book I consider to be a masterpiece of children's literature, entitled Don't Care High. It helps that I went to a high school that might have been its twin.
Quick, get that in the basket before some little snot sees it.
La-di-da-di-da...hurry up, love, it's taking you longer to find How To Eat Fried Worms than it will for you to read it. In fact, excuse me, I'll go fry up some worms right n--
Tom's Midnight Garden!
That's it!
For years I've been trying to remember the name of a book I read way the hell back in grade four or so. All I could remember was a kid discovering a huge garden behind his aunt's place that seemed to be at least partly imaginary. That and I'd loved that story to pieces, once. I'd thought it might be called "Secret Garden" or something like that, but my searches always led nowhere. Now here was that book, right in front of me.
Three CDs later, we're checked out and home, and I find within pages that I'm really not in the mood for Lisey's Story. The first twenty pages are mind-numbingly depressing. Knowing me, I'll pick it up again anyway, probably tonight. That's an odd little foible of mine. The Leafs might play so badly that I'll snap the TV off in disgust, but wait five minutes and it'll be on again. But I doubt I'll get anywhere close to finishing Lisey's Story in four days...no, three, now.

Under the reading lamp...

Neither Eva nor myself are what you'd call "bandwagon jumpers". We tend to walk one of two paths: either we like a group until it gets popular (Barenaked Ladies), or we shun the trend du jour for a few years, let it age a little, before embracing it.
Take television: "The Simpsons" was into its sixth season before I deigned to watch it. (Granted, part of the reason was my naive predjudice against cartoons...pshaw, I'm not a kid! Cartoons are for kids! Right? Right?) Of course, I quickly became a fan--not a fanatic, but a fan.
I've yet to see a single episode of any of the myriad of CSI spinoffs. Just no interest in them. And I once watched about twenty seconds of the first Survivor before I realized what it was and turned the channel lest I get reality-cooties.
Harry Potter is another example. The books were a phenomenon before Eva brought the first one home. Again, I reacted at first with disdain: "Kid's book! Kid's book!" After having my wife inform me repeatedly--like after every chapter--that this book was pretty good, I suddenly recalled that I had read and enjoyed some pretty damned good "kid's books" over the years: the Wrinkle in Time series. the Oz books, Gordon Korman, even some Judy Blume. Yikes. Resigned, I read Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone after she'd finished with it.
I'm now reasonably close to a fanatic on all things Potter.
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So that brings us to what's on the reading list right now. The only book I've got going is Dude, Where's My Country?" by Michael Moore. Eva decided to pick up Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, after it had been on the best seller list for, um, eleventy dozen weeks. I'll read the latter later (looters with litres of lighter fluid are littering letters everywhere....hmmm, where was I? Oh, yeah.) I just finished the former.

This book, from what I understand, forms the baseline for Moore's controversial, award-winning film, Fahrenheit 911. If you're willing to go into it with an open mind (and from the reviews on Amazon.com, it seems few are), you'll find it an interesting and thought-provoking read. I can't say I agree with all of his assertions, but even on those, Moore is persuasive enough to make me wonder if my thinking might be wrong.

The first chapter of "Dude, Where's My Country" is a tour de force. Thirty-one pages and ninety seven footnotes. This is the kind of chapter that does a complete home makeover on your brain. By the time you're finished it, you'll have been confronted with questions like

--was 9/11 the work of hijackers with a few flight lessons under their belts, or trained Saudi soldiers? (Moore asserts that to guide a plane into a five-storey Pentagon at 500 mph demands skills no rinky-dink flight school in Florida will or can teach.)

--why were bin Laden's relatives and Saudi royalty whisked out of the country, by air, in the days immediately following 9/11, while all other air traffic was still grounded?

--Why did Bush sit peacefully listening to children read stories for more than five minutes after being informed the United States was under attack?


That's just the start of a wild roller-coaster ride that examines the Republican string of lies, offers a dramatic solution to the instablity (Want to stop terrorism? Stop being terrorists!) and at every turn paints the sitting president as, if not the walking talking Antichrist, than at least his close cousin.

It's no secret that Canada resonates with Moore, although there's very little mention of us in his book. He bemoans the Patriot Act being used to detain John Clarke, who is the head of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP). There's no mention of John Clarke's sordid past--the man could reasonably be called a terrorist himself.
Moore does offer some tips to "liberals" in order to make their beliefs sounds more palatable to conservatives, and offers a quick primer on talking to "right-wingnuts", stressing to always remember Republicans are self centered and care only about themselves and their own money. That chapter forced me to consider my own Conservative leanings and conclude that no, I'm nowhere near that shallow. As I've written elsewhere in this blog, I don't mind paying taxes, even high taxes, so long as I see value for money.
I do hope that the White House gets a Brazilian this November...I'd like to see all traces of Bush removed. So I believed before reading "Dude, Where's My Country"...now I just have about thirty more reasons to believe.

For your inspirational reading, we recommend...

I was baptized Catholic...twice.
First, when I was a baby. A Church requirement, that: a little moisture to ensure my place in heaven.
Second, when I was twelve. A 'rededication' to the Faith, done with a twelve-year-old's full knowledge and consent--which is to say, it carried the weight of a political campaign promise.
I've always questioned the standard beliefs about God. Like many, I've wondered how a loving God could judge and condemn us to eternal damnation. I wondered why God was supposedly so needy, so jealous, so insecure. These always struck me as human, not divine, traits.
So I went through a period in high school where I rejected God, trying on atheism to see how it fit. For a time, I spouted the atheistic creed as mindlessly as I had once been taught to wheedle Hail Marys and Our Fathers.
But that didn't feel right, either. God as a crutch for weak people was all well and good, except I felt weak myself.
It was through my voracious reading that I first began to hear God speaking to me...through what seemed to be the most unlikely author: Stephen King. First in THE STAND (a book given to me by my atheist best friend, ironically enough); shortly thereafter in DESPERATION, a novel concerning itself very much with the power of prayer. I started to think a little more about the possibility of deity, and started halfheartedly paging through spiritual books, like THE CELESTINE PROPHECY.
Then came the books that changed my mind: the CONVERSATIONS WITH GOD series, by Neale Donald Walsch.
It wasn't, strictly speaking, an epiphany. Rather, it was the curious (and very agreeable) sensation of seeing my mind laid bare in print. It wasn't learning; it was realizing what I already knew. Very empowering and inspirational stuff, this.
Not that everyone's willing to listen to it, oh, God, no. I've read a bunch of reviews from devout Christians that stop just short of calling Neale Donald Walsch the living antichrist.
What's so controversial about his books? Plenty, if you believe in the God I was taught about in catechism class. According to these dialogues, God is everywhere, in everyone, all the time. He/She/It never judges nor condemns; there is no Hell apart from our tortured imaginings; all paths lead to God; all paths ARE God.
On evil, the text is quite provocative. It states repeatedly that there is no such thing as absolute evil, that nobody ever sets out to harm another without what they think of as a very good reason.
Take Hitler. Pretty much the entire world over personifies Hitler is evil incarnate. Yet in 1930s Germany, Hitler thought he was doing good for his country, and the true horror was that millions agreed with him. It took fifteen years for enough of the world to decide it was time to put a stop to his activities. Hopefully, we're a little quicker on the uptake now.
Book 1 is kind of like a big hug from God; book 2 is a stern, yet equally loving, lecture on where we are as a species and how to get where we say we want to go; book 3 is an examination of universal cosmology, including the lives of 'highly evolved beings' elsewhere.
The strongest reason I have to recommend this series to anyone and everyone is that it is by no means authoritative. It doesn't claim to replace anybody's holy text. Rather, it invites you to read its words, and respond how you will.
It worked for me.