I read, therefore I am

I made an interesting discovery today: my voracious reading habits are actually useful. The current pick for my book club is The Plague by Albert Camus and, while reading it, I have been able to pick out instances of absurdism (as a literary device, not just as absurdity) as well as indirect references to George Orwell (who is listed as an influence for Camus in the Wikipedia entry).

Had I not been forced to read 1984 in Grade 12 or chose to study Edward Albee in one OAC English class, I would not be nearly as knowledgeable on absurdity or the Orwellian view of society as I am now. And - voila! - I now have an example of how this is helping me. Hurrah!

There. Now I feel so much better about my booknerdishness.

So proud!

Today on my lunch hour, I went into a bookstore and I purchased...nothing. Nada. Not one single, solitary book. I walked in, I looked around, I picked up books, I read descriptions, I perused the remainder table and then I walked away.

I. Am. So. Proud.

That's not to say I wasn't tempted. I contemplated a few books today:

Night by Elie Wiesel

The Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko

Invisible Prey by John Sanford

Our Gods Wear Spandex: Secret History of Comic Book Superheroes by Christopher Knowles (this was actually considered for my beau, not myself, but I would totally steal it from him and read it cover to cover)

I also discovered this book and what is one of my favourite covers in recent history. I would buy this book for the cover. Seriously. I have done that before. The fact that I am also interested in reading the book doesn't hurt either.

I purchased this book based primarily on its cover, but it's a Roald Dahl book, so was there really any worry about quality? It should also be noted that I HATE snakes. But Roald Dahl is worth it. That said, everyone should go buy this book now. NOW. Don't be strong like me. Cave to the pressure of the written word!! Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!!!

Why hardcover is hard

I'm still slogging my way through Late Nights on Air and I don't know why, but this book just hasn't grabbed my attention the way I hoped it would. I can handle books that move a little slowly or that spend time developing characters and showing character interaction. In fact, I appreciate a well-written book that does this, and Late Nights is one of them. But it just isn't grabbing me.

Wait...scratch that "I don't know why" bit from the last paragraph...I have a pretty good idea why I'm not getting into this book as readily as most and it has nothing to do with how it's written; as petty as this might sound, it is the format of the book that is holding me back. My copy of Late Nights on Air is hardcover. Generally, I don't do hardcover. (For the record, the book was a Christmas gift from my mother and I did request the title, knowing if I received it, it would be in hardcover. So I guess I did bring this on myself.)

Don't get me wrong - I can appreciate the beauty of a hardcover book, complete with dust jacket. And with the various finishing techniques that are used on the jackets and covers, hardcover books are often very pretty to look at. One recent book of note is The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall, which has a sturdy cover with a die-cut shark and no dust jacket. Even though I have not yet bought this book, I may have to buy the hardcover version just because it's so damn cool.

Cool or not, I just find hardcovers awkward to read. I like to read in bed and holding up a hardcover is tedious and sometimes more effort that it's worth, particularly when I'm tired. But since I like to read before going to bed, I'm more likely to grab my latest issue of The Hockey News than Late Nights. And hardcover books can be heavier, meaning carrying them with me to read on transit or in a coffee shop is (literally) a bit of a pain.

My preferred format is trade paperback and I will often wait for books to be published in this format before buying them. Okay, trade paperbacks tend to be the same size as the hardcover version, but the spine is softer so it's easier to hold the book open and they are a bit lighter so it's easier for me to transport them and the covers (sans dust jacket, which I always remove anyways) can be just as neat as the hardcover predecessor.

But I've already got Late Nights on Air in hardcover and I've already begun reading it, so I will soldier on and finish. It just might take me a bit longer than I'd like.

The List #1 - Some of the worst

I'm in a list-y kind of mood, as noted in a post on my autre blog so I thought I'd carry on here.
Here I give you...

10 BOOKS THAT SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN PUBLISHED
(In the order that they pop into my head)

10. Beautiful Losers by Leonard Cohen
9. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
8. Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
7. The Revenge of Kali-Ra by K.K. Beck
6. Bleeding Hearts by Jack Harvey (who is really Ian Rankin)
5. Roughing It in the Bush by Susanna Moodie
4. That really bad book of poetry by Margaret Atwood I had to read in university.
3. Through Violet Eyes by Stephen Woodworth
2. Angels and Demons by Dan Brown
1. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

This list was much harder to make than I had originally anticipated. Funny how that is. I've read a fair amount of books and plenty of them have been not-so-great, but since this list is books I think should never have been published, that's a new level of badness. Although it will be equally as hard to put together a list of the best books, as it takes a certain kind of specialness to be considered "the best". I'll have to start on that list now and see where I end up...

Bad bad bad

I totally need to make another post here and I know that, but I've been...otherwise engaged lately. I won't lie - it's the Stanley Cup playoffs and that really is all-consuming for me sometimes. But also, I've been working on a review of jPod by Douglas Coupland and I've been having some trouble with it. I enjoy reading Coupland and I was really looking forward to reading jPod, especially since it had neat non-standard-text parts to it (I'll elaborate more in the review, of course). The problem is that I still can't decide if it lived up to the expectations I put on it. I know I liked it, but I'm just not sure how much.

While I figure that out, I am enjoying Late Nights on Air by Elizabeth Hay, which, of course, won the 2007 Giller prize. Maybe this will help distract me enough from jPod to get my thoughts together.

iPod, uPod, we all Pod for jPod! (A review)

If Douglas Coupland can make himself a character (as himself) in his book jPod, then I can declare myself an honorary jPodster.

jPod refers to a cluster of employees at a gaming design firm, in which all the employees have "J" names. The narrator, Ethan Jarlewski, leads us through the professional and personal worlds of the jPodsters, like any 30-something, borderline-slacker character in a Coupland novel. But if you've read Generation X or Microserfs, you'll have a pretty good idea of what these characters are like. So let's not dwell on that so much.

There are a few things Coupland does that I like and a couple that I really don't. To start with the stuff that didn't really do it for me, the first is that there is a character named Douglas Coupland in the book (as mentioned above). He is an author and he's not well thought of and does act like a bit of a dick. Having never met Mr. Coupland, I am left to wonder: is he really a dick? Or is this his chance to make himself a dick without actually having to be dickish? Or is he just taking his dickishness to new levels, exploring how those levels may or may not work out for him in real life? Why do I really care all that much? Of course it's a gimmick - this book is full of them - but I don't really care for it. To have just had a character in the book who is just an author, instead of Coupland, would not have had the same affect, I will say that, but I don't think I really would have missed good ol' Doug.

The other thing he does is not a gimmick, it's just plot, but I still don't like it. There is a storyline that takes a few people to China and stuff happens and Coupland shows up and yadda yadda yadda. Again, not really caring. Could've done without the sojourn to China, but what can you do?

But it's more fun to dwell on what I liked. Back to the gimmicks - since the jPodsters work as designers at a gaming company, they're tech-savvy and nerdy and almost too smart for their own good. (Okay, a little cliche, but that's how it goes.) At one point, Ethan challenges the podsters to write an eBay posting, selling themselves. We then get each of those postings from each person. And another podster, Mark, emails the first hundred thousand digits of pi, with one rogue number, and challenges the others to find said rogue. We are then treated to pages of numbers, which list the first hundred thousand digits of pi. While I could never find the rogue number, one of our podsters does find it, rather quickly too. And the gimmicks like this continue and I love them all.

Coupland also does a great job of developing the characters without overdoing the back story and without being boring. And there are some great back stories too, like why there is a character with the (legal) name John Doe.

Plus, someone builds a hug machine. Who doesn't love a hug machine?

In a way, it's kind of hard to talk about this book without giving too much away. While it has a clear plot and tells a story and interweaves many characters, it is almost like a snapshot of a moment in the lives of these characters and you really have to read it to truly understand and appreciate it. Yes, I know that's lame, but whatever. Just read it, okay?

A darkly dreamt review

Before Showtime came along and made it into the "hottest new show on television" (I'm sure someone said that), Dexter was the novel Darkly Dreaming Dexter, by Jeff Lindsay. (Side note: locate the version with the cover shown and check out the author photo. Worst. Photo. Ever.)

So what if you've seen the show? I'm still going to tell you about the book.

Dexter Morgan is a blood-spatter analyst in Miami, even though he hates blood and is also a serial killer who saves a drop of each victim's blood on a slide, even though he hates blood. (You do find out why he hates blood, but I won't spoil it for you.) Crime-solver by day, crime-maker by night. Simple enough, right? What keeps this book from being overly formulaic is who Dexter kills, how he rationalizes it and how he fits into society. Dexter only kills people who deserve it: murderers, child molesters and abusers that the police weren't able to catch. But he does it so well, no one in Miami realizes there a serial killer out there, disposing of these criminals.

But on to the how. Dexter perfected his art of killing through the careful guidance of his adoptive father, Harry. Early on, Harry discovered "what" Dexter was and taught him how to control the urge to kill and, when it rose, how to channel it into something productive, almost good. With Harry's help, Dexter also learned how to blend into society, how to pretend he had a heart and soul and feelings, how to be so inconspicuous no one would ever think him capable of the things he does. And Dexter is careful; he wants to follow the Code of Harry and get rid of the bad guys, but also needs to satisfy his own urges. He's a planner and he makes the most of his time with his victims.

In the book, Dexter works with the Miami police to catch a serial killer that ends up playing games - mind and otherwise - with Dexter. Through first-person narration, the reader is brought into Dexter's world as he delights in this new playmate that has appeared while trying to keep up appearances at work. It is this clever narration that moves the book above being just another serial killer book. Although the narration can drone on a bit at times, it really is what makes the book interesting. It allows you to see the two sides to Dexter, and even though he's a killer, you can't help but like him. He's funny, he's charming, he's a little OCD. But as the book reaches its climax and you discover more about Dexter, his new playmate and his past, you start to see him fall apart and show weakness, almost become - human.

While I found the most interesting element of the book to be the relationship between Dexter and the elusive killer, the supporting characters add their own spice. Deborah is Dexter's sister and a cop, like Harry, who wants desperately to catch the killer to prove herself a homicide detective. Lieutenant LaGuerta is consistently incompetent with a major crush on Dexter (who can't quite wrap his head around this idea of attraction). But Dexter does have a girlfriend, Rita, who is perfect for him due to being beaten by her ex-husband, which left her with no interest in any kind of intimacy. Sergeant Doakes has it out for Dexter and Deborah and, well, everyone it seems. And Harry, who has since died, appears in flashbacks and provides insight into how Dexter became the nice, polite, attractive, tidy, diligent, hard-working serial killer he is.

Despite the author photo, Jeff Lindsay writes in an engaging and compelling way, making you want to keep reading not just because you want to know whodunit, but because you actually like Dexter.

(I also watch the show, of course, but I only get the censored version on CTV. I've been told the uncut version is far superior. I can believe this; my favourite censored line so far is "mother lover".)