The Bookshelf

As Oscar Wilde observed, “It is only superficial people who do not judge by appearances.” So why shouldn’t we judge books by their covers? Happily, blogger Joseph Sullivan agrees. He’s the author of The Book Design Review, a site devoted to the best and worst of book jackets. One of the cooler things about Sullivan’s addictive blog is that he often compares how designs change in different countries; for example, check out the UK and US covers of Margaret Atwood’s Payback below (the UK cover is on the left, the US design is on the right):

For more critiques and appreciation of book design, visit The Book Cover Archive or Covers, a site maintained by the graphic design agency FWIS. Or if you’re in the library, take a look at Front Cover: Great Book Jacket and Cover Design by Alan Powers and Chip Kidd Book One: Work: 1986-2006, a retrospective of the acclaimed book designer’s creations (Kidd is the person responsible for, among other things, the T. rex on the cover of Jurassic Park).

Have you had a chance to check out DailyLit.com? This neat simple site offers a cool new way of reading books. It sends you bite size portions of books (variable by your choice) to read through your email or RSS Aggregtor.

I am currently having portions of Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother sent to my Google Reader account. I have decided to have a short (maybe 5 minutes of reading) section sent once a day, everyday (also variable) to break up my normal tech/library heavy email/RSS load. Perhaps you would like to intersperse your day with Willa Cather’s My Antonia in 98 emails or Leaves of Grass by Walt Witman in 423 installments.

One of the best aspects of this website is the majority of the books are completely free. Some books cost a few bucks but those are the newer items. DailyLit very intelligently added a send more link which will cause the next installment to be sent immediately (very useful if the section cut off at an exciting moment).

I think this service would be incredibly cool if you have a Blackberry or another like device. Or, like me, you want to break up working day with 5-10 minutes of fun reading.

Cross poster from The Radar

The beloved and very British Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has a new book coming out in the very near future.  The late, great Douglas Adams created, I think, the quintessential comedic science fiction series but tragically died before writing a planned continuation.

16 years later Eoin Colfer, the author of Artemis Fowl series (which I have not read but now must), will write And Another Thing… with the blessings of all involved.  Big shoes to fill.

I hope it will be a decent addition.

Busted Flush is at best a mediocre addition to the usually fun Wild Cards series.  This book revisits the characters introduced in the much more entertaining Inside Straight, which is necessary to read to have any real understanding of who the characters are and why they are doing what they are doing.

The Wild Card series takes place in an alternative now.  In the 1940s an alien disease was spread across the world creating a genetic mutation eventually ending in humans becoming aces (super powers e.g. flying, animating the dead, etc.), deuces (powers that are somewhat useless), black queens (death), jokers (physical mutations e.g. having 6 arms) and norms (people unaffected by the disease).

Sadly this volume was a disappointment.  It lacked the usual sophistication of characterization and in many ways seemed written for teenage boys.  The writing subject and style which would not have surprised me, considering the comic book nature of the universe, if I had not read some of the other entries in this series.

Read the interesting Inside Straight or one of the other  books in this normally outstanding series before reading Busted Flush.  In fact in would probably be best to start at the beginning of the series.

Like many book lovers, I sometimes despair at the size of my “to-be-read” book pile (so much so, in fact, that I’ve moved the stack from my nightstand to the attic, in a vain attempt to lessen my guilt). However, I don’t let the flood of new or recommended books get in the way of re-reading old favorites a few times a year. It’s the literary equivalent of tucking into comfort food, and is especially reassuring in times like these, when holiday stress, bad weather and the dire economy tend to have us all a bit on edge.

One of my favorite books to re-read is the gentle memoir A Country Year: Living the Questions by Sue Hubbell. It chronicles five seasons on Hubbell’s Ozark farm, where she keeps bees and keenly observes the surrounding natural world. Among the book’s warm, plain-spoken vignettes are descriptions of animal life from the common (dogs, deer, rabbits) to the creepy (wood cockroaches, moth ear mites), as well as fascinating details on the art of beekeeping and Hubbell’s reflections regarding her own life and humanity’s place in the wild. Hubbell’s contemplative prose is reminiscent of Annie Dillard; reading her lovely, peaceful narrative is uncommonly soothing.

What are some books that you find yourself returning to again and again?

With the upcoming release of the film Revolutionary Road , many articles have been written reappraising the novel by Richard Yates. Here’s what Time had to say about it when it made its list of the All-Time 100 Novels:

We think of Updike and Cheever as the masters of postwar American suburbia, of its sunlit euphorias and its drunken discontents. Add Yates to the master list, just subtract the euphorias. His great novel is a bitterly funny and bitterly unfunny account of lethal disappointment in the Connecticut suburbs in 1955. When they were single and in love, Frank and April Wheeler thought of themselves as different—smarter, hipper, more alive. Then comes marriage and the steamroller of daily existence—his job for a big company, her wife-and-motherhood. The rewards of the material life seem like small compensation for the daily blows to the ego, which eventually detonate their lives. This may sound like a common predicament, but Yates gives it uncommon force. Though none of his six other novels enjoys the enduring prestige of this one, it doesn’t matter. If Revolutionary Road doesn’t make him an immortal, immortality isn’t worth having.—R.L.

The Chicago Tribune and The New Yorker are just a few of the more noteworthy articles which have been published.

The Final Empire is a fun take on the fantasy genre. Sanderson’s premise is, what if the bad guy won the climatic struggle/battle that takes place at the end of most fantasy series e.g. Suaron being destroyed at the end of the end of J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic Lord of the Rings series?

A hero supposedly destined to defeat a great evil is born but fails… The setting of the first Mistborn novel is a thousand years following that climatic event. Ash constantly falls from the sky, green leaves are a myth, and people are gruesomely murdered out of hand.

A group of high class thieves, with intriguing magical abilities, embark on a daring scheme to steal from the Dark Lord. To do so they enlist the serfs in a rebellion, ferment discord between the great houses, and try to distract the Spanish Inquisitor-esque/ Matrix like agents.

The magical abilities of the characters and how they use them is intriguing and very well designed by the author. Individuals swallow small amounts of metals and “burn” them to gain a particular type of power. For example, burning tin will increase the reach and intensity of the 5 senses, zinc will enable the burner to enflame the emotions of those nearby, and so on.

I very much enjoyed this book and am looking forward to the reading the next two in the series. If you like fantasies I highly recommend Mistborn: The Final Empire. If you like the idea of fantasy stories from the evil point of try Jacqueline Carey’s less interesting but still good Sundering series.

In keeping with this windy theme, I would like to share one of my favorite books, The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon.

This is a true “word-of-mouth” novel. Periodically a library patron approaches the desk to see if we have this book. Their cousin or neighbor or fellow book club member has told them to read it. It is also very good listened to as an audiobook…you are right there in post World War II Barcelona with Daniel, a young boy who is in despair because he can no longer remember his dead mother’s face and who is taken by his father to the Cemetery of Lost Books to choose a book that is otherwise likely to be forgotten. His father cautions him that once he chooses a book, it is his responsibility to protect it. Daniel chooses The Shadow of the Wind by Julian Carax and ultimately discovers that someone is methodically destroying each and every one of Carax’s books. Becoming obsessed with finding out who and why, Daniel soon realizes his life is beginning to strangely mirror that of Carax and his search has opened a veritable Pandora’s box of secrets of murder, doomed love and madness.

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss is a wonderful debut novel in the Fantasy genre and brings to life a sure to be well loved character.

The Name of the Wind tells the story through the eyes and with the voice of Kvothe. Kvothe is a famous (some would say notorious) wizard/warrior/musician/actor/all around genius now living and hiding under an assumed name as an innkeeper in a small village.

The Chronicler (a recorder of stories) discovers Kvothe and prompts him to tell his epic story of growing up with traveling actors, living as a homeless child, fighting drugged dragons, attending university to learn magic, playing music beautiful enough to cause tears, and much more.

I highly recommend the award winning The Name of the Wind. However, this is the first in the trilogy with the second installment due in 2009 and the third following that, so if you are the type of person that must read all of a series at once perhaps you should hold off.