The Book Beast
Former Vanity Fair and New Yorker editor Tina Brown’s new online venture, The Daily Beast, is an amazing sensory overload of hard news, pop culture fluff, and opinion pieces from across the political spectrum. The site takes its name from the fictional newspaper in Evelyn Waugh’s novel Scoop, and it shows off its literary bent in its impressive Book Beast section.
On first glance the crazy conglomeration of dozens of reviews, interviews, celebrity recommendations, and links seems exactly the kind of venture that is killing off print newspaper book sections. While we read by the glow of their funeral pyres, it is hard to deny the addictive qualities of the Book Beast’s approach.
Its reviews range from best-selling novels to serious political and historical tomes, and a handy “Literary Round-Up” sidebar collects hot news items from the publishing world. The “Book Buzz” section throws out recommendations from a passel of celebs as diverse as My Name Is Earl’s Jaime Pressly and iconic playwright Edward Albee.
The site’s ever-expanding video library features interviews with authors like Michael Connelly and Jodi Picoult, while its “Book Bag” features a four-pack of blurbed “must-read” tips from prominent writers. The Daily Beast has also lined up an impressive collection of writers to provide content throughout the site, including Christopher Buckley, Michael Kinsley, and Scott Turow.
The Daily Beast appears locked in a steel-cage deathmatch with the more established Huffington Post to combine news analysis and tabloid cheap thrills in a multi-layered web platform. When it comes to book coverage, its Book Beast is leaving them in the shade.
Travel As a Political Act
I observe a predictable set of rituals when preparing for any big vacation, most of which involve overdosing on library books, DVDs, and websites to make sure I don’t miss any potentially life-changing experiences along the way. As Mrs. Bookmarking and I are about to embark on an intercontinental voyage, my collection of prep materials has maxed out my library card, filled up my DVR’s memory, and stacked up all around the coffee table like the turrets of a medieval castle.
The collected works of Rick Steves are almost unavoidable in any bookstore or library travel section, and I’ve usually considered him a reliable-if-slightly-nerdy resource for basic travel preparations. When I picked up his newest book after a glance at its arresting title, the mild-mannered, gigantic 80’s-glasses-frame-wearing PBS icon became my new personal hero by the middle of the first chapter.
Travel As a Political Act is only one of five travel books Steves has already published in 2009, but it is a particularly thoughtful collection of essays illustrating the interconnectedness of world cultures and the fundamental value of travel. Steves makes a powerful argument about how travel can change the way we think about the world, and his book suggests interesting ways travelers can broaden their personal, cultural, and political perspectives.
Steves turns out to be way more of a radical hippie than I ever would have imagined, and throughout the book he tells fascinating tales of his own travel experiences to non-traditional vacation spots like the Balkans, El Salvador, and Iran. He is a passionate advocate for the value of travel as a humanizing force, and the book illustrates the mind-expanding virtues of experiencing Muslim cultures, third world villages, and other locales that challenge Americans’ cultural norms.
An especially valuable section addresses the importance of overcoming fear in order to gain an understanding of alien societies. Steves advocates a ”refusal to be terrorized by terrorists” in a passage that aptly summarizes his book’s theme:
“Every time I’m stuck in a long security line at the airport, I reflect on one of the most disconcerting results of terrorism: The very people who would benefit most from international travel–those who needlessly fear people and places they don’t understand–decide to stay home. I believe the most powerful things an individual American can do to fight terrorism are to travel a lot, learn about the world, come home with a new perspective, and then work to help our country fit more comfortably and less fearfully into this planet.”
Steves also reflects on lessons that can be learned from visting countries like Denmark, routinely listed as the happiest nation on earth while operating with a rather different “formula for societal success” than our own. He also visits the still smoldering nations of the former Yugoslavia to observe the after-effects of a ruinous war, and he considers alternative approaches to social problems like drug abuse offered by Switzerland and the Netherlands.
Steves’s travelogues and observations are like the lectures of an engaging professor, enlightening without being preachy, and his book is a thoughtful challenge to Americans to engage with the outside world for our own good as well as the benefit of the planet. After reading Travel As a Political Act, my personal pantheon of literary heroes was re-shuffled to make room for the dude with the squeaky voice, goofy grin, and greatly inspiring message.
Rejuveniles
A pair of recent columns from the Wall Street Journal’s Daniel Akst and veteran bow-tie wearing buzz-killer George Will bemoan the destructive cultural ubiquity of . . . wait for it . . . denim fabric.
Akst kicked off the sartorial smackdown with his column “Down with Denim,” damning our Levis and Wranglers as,
“(A)n essential co-conspirator in the modern trend toward undifferentiated dressing, in which we all strive to look equally shabby no matter what the occasion. Despite its air of innocence, no fabric has ever been so insidiously effective at undermining national discipline.”
Akst goes on to condemn denim’s essential “hypocrisy,” as it requires fussy tailoring, pre-washing, and acid treatments to achieve an un-earned sense of fashion authenticity that the writer considers a “sad disguise.”
Not to be outdone, the eternally disgruntled Will piggybacked Akst’s piece with an even more hysterical column of his own, headlined “Demon Denim.” For Will, denim represents a “plague . . . which is symptomatic of deep disorders in the national psyche.”
Both columnists point to denim as a symptom of American adults unwillingness to let go of the trappings of childhood, with Will diagnosing it as,
“(T)he infantile uniform of a nation in which entertainment frequently features childlike adults (”Seinfeld,” “Two and a Half Men”) and cartoons for adults (”King of the Hill”) . . . . In their undifferentiated dress, children and their childish parents become undifferentiated audiences for juvenilized movies (the six — so far — “Batman” adventures and “Indiana Jones and the Credit-Default Swaps,” coming soon to a cineplex near you).”
Not surprisingly, these columns proved to be low-hanging comedic fruit for the likes of Stephen Colbert. The underlying theme of not-leaving-behind-childish-things is also discussed in Christopher Noxon’s examination of adults indulging their inner children: Rejuvenile: Kickball, Cartoons, Cupcakes, and the Reinvention of the American Grown-up.
Rejuvenile describes otherwise responsible adults, like the author himself, who enjoy Spongebob, Harry Potter, video games, and defiantly wearing denim in almost any occasion. Noxon also studies the value of play, not just as pure escapism but as a vital component of a healthy, balanced life.
The book describes a redefinition of adulthood that is sure to put a knot in George Will’s triple-pleat herringbone trousers. Noxon does worry that rejuveniles may “morph from fun and free-spirited to just plain pathetic,” but his book puts this trend in such interesting psychological and historical context that adult readers may indeed feel empowered to bust into the lineup and take a few swings at the neighborhood kickball field.
Banned Penguins
Last month the American Library Association announced that the award-winning children’s book And Tango Makes Three topped its list of “frequently challenged books” for the third straight year.
Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell’s 2005 book is the story of Ray and Silo, two male “chinstrap penguins” living in New York’s Central Park Zoo whose longtime companionship was noted by zookeepers. When the two penguins were observed attempting to hatch a rock that resembled an egg, zookeepers successfully introduced an actual egg from another penguin couple who were unable to hatch theirs. When the chick, Tango, was born after their several weeks of care, Ray and Silo raised her for two-and-a-half months until she could survive on her own.
The book’s interesting story and pictures are enjoyable enough on their own terms, but the especially great part (for previously uninformed readers like myself) comes in an afterword where the authors confirm that this is indeed a true story. As the New York Times reported, this “love that dare not squeak its name” between the two inseparable penguins is a fairly common phenomenon according to zookeepers and biologists.
According to concerned folks in Illinois, Virginia, and North Carolina, among other places, the book’s controversial celebration of diverse families means access to it in libraries should be restricted. Some libraries have moved it to the non-fiction section in an attempt to avoid controversy, and other school districs have removed it from the shelves altogether.
Co-author Parnell reports that at a book signing at BookExpo America a few years ago, many librarians waiting in line told him, “I love your book, but I could never buy it for our library.”
A memo from school administrators in North Carolina explained their reasons for banning it from the district:
“First, it is a picture book that focuses on homosexuality. Second, we did not feel that such information was vital to primary students. Next, we did not believe the book would stimulate growth in ethical standards, and the book is too controversial.”
The ALA’s “Most Frequently Challenged Books” list features other titles for which objections were raised due to “homosexual themes,” while separate categories of offense include “occult/satanism” (the Scary Stories series), “offensive language/sexually explicit” (The Kite Runner), and “political/religious viewpoint” (Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series, showing up at #2 on last year’s list).
The ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom reported 513 book challenges across the country in 2008. With the threat of rampaging gay penguins on the rise thanks to global warming, 2009 could well be another challenging year for those infamously hedonistic radicals, Ray and Silo.
“Reading Minds” Interview: Michael Owens
In this video interview at NewsOK.com, Oklahoma author Michael Owens discusses his compelling new book Yes I Am Who I Am: A New Philosophy of Black Identity.
In the interview, Owens discusses some of his life experiences that led to the book’s challenging critique of ideas surrounding Black Americans’ identity. His examination of the terms “Black American” and “African American” are an especially interesting part of the book, which Owens also touches on in the interview in regard to Black Americans’ efforts to “carve out an identity from the American experience.”
Owens also notes the role of Hip Hop as a polarizing element in considerations of Black identity. The author describes the need for Hip Hop to reshape itself in order to make a more positive impact, and his book effectively puts this vital and controversial movement in proper context as part of an effort to reach a consensus on Black identity.
Some of the author’s solutions to the “broken identity” of Black Americans are also discussed, including the need to re-educate and re-tell the early aspirations of Black Americans. In Owens’s words,
“‘Black History Month’ was never the goal. Black history is American history.”
This YouTube video is an excellent introduction to the book’s themes, and the author’s website is full of interesting resources on Black history and links to some of Owens’ other writings.
Yes I Am Who I Am is available at local bookstores, including Full Circle, as well as online at Amazon.com and BarnesandNoble.com.
Book Vending Machines
A recent NPR story described yet another revolution in the publishing industry that could change the way we purchase and read books.
The Espresso Book Machine is “essentially an ATM for books that automatically prints, binds, and trims, on demand at point of sale, perfect-bound, library-quality paperback books.” About a hundred pages can be printed per minute (meaning it will take about a quarter of an hour to churn out that copy of War and Peace I’ve been meaning to scan on my next coffee break).
The manufacturer claims books will cost about a penny a page and,
“Ultimately, the EBM will make it possible to distribute virtually every book ever published, in any language, anywhere on earth, as easily, quickly, and cheaply as e-mail.”
Other revolutionary claims for the “EBM” see it replacing the traditionally centralized supply chain for book distribution with its “direct-to-consumer retail model.” Over two million public domain and in-copyright titles are currently available at the fifteen or so current vending machine locations in bookshops, libraries, and universities around the world. The manufacturer sees the devices eventually costing about as much as a traditional copy machine.
This statement from the company’s founder discusses his view of “the end of the Gutenberg era” and the revolutionary new publishing infrastructure offered by devices like E-Books and the EBM.
This spec sheet gives more interesting details of the machine itself, with the impressive claim that the EBM “makes it possible to distribute virtually every book ever published, in any language, anywhere on earth, as easily, quickly, and cheaply as e-mail.”
This CNN video shows the machine at work at a London bookshop, with the store manager describing how the revolutionary device all the sudden makes his shop “ten times bigger.”
A History of the Next 100 Years
On first glance, George Friedman’s The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century looks like one of those instantly obsolete titles commonly found at thrift stores and garage sales: The Inevitable Economic Crisis of 1996, The Inescapable Y2K Apocalypse!, How to Profit from Global Cooling.
As far as wildly speculative and often hilariously detailed non-fiction ”histories of the future” go, it’s actually quite a compelling read.
Friedman is founder and CEO of STRATFOR, described as a “leading private intelligence and forecasting company” and immodestly repped in some circles as “the shadow CIA.” In the book’s slightly ponderous introduction, the author describes his methods of prediction based on “identify(ing) major tendencies” and “transmit(ting) a sense of the future.” Once the book proceeds with its galloping 200 pages of prognostication, though, its matter-of-fact tone and slightly guarded outlines of upcoming geopolitical events actually become rather convincing.
In his especially interesting opening chapter, Friedman chalks up the essential elements of the United States’s international primacy to its unique, straddling dominance of the Atlantic and Pacific sea lanes. Despite temporary doom-and-gloom reports of the 24-hour news cycle, according to Friedman this fundamental geographic fact is likely to make the the 21st century at least as much of an “American Century” as the previous 100 years.
The book also rapidly dismisses fears of Chinese, Indian, or Russian threats to American dominance with reference to their own geographic and demographic limitations, while counter-intuitively forecasting a global population downturn in the next several decades. The implications of this for Friedman’s narrative include massive robotics programs, serious cultural strife between traditionalists and social libertarians, and an ironically desperate future need for increased immigration.
As the book quickly moves through the 2030s and 2040s, seeing the rise of surprising new international powers like Poland and Turkey, it takes on more of a sci-fi/alternative history tone. For readers who can dig this material without a simultaneous need for flowery, fiction-y prose, Friedman’s work becomes compulsively readable.
To my surprise, I could hardly put the book down until I found out how the Global War of the 2050s would turn out, with a sneak attack from Japan’s secret bases on the far side of the moon devastating America’s orbiting “Battle Stars” in an upper-atmospheric sequel to Pearl Harbor. Readers may half-expect Kirk and Spock to come to our rescue by the third act, and Friedman’s stone-cold seriousness can stretch plausibility to the breaking point, but not a chapter goes by without several fascinating speculations that can’t be dismissed out of hand.
By the end of his tale of the 21st century, Friedman openly admits his predictions cross into the realm of pure imagination. Nevertheless, his anticipation of the rising economic power of Mexico and its inevitable clash with U.S. interests in the 2080s makes for a compelling series of “What Ifs” that turn current conventional wisdom on its head. His speculations on future energy sources, weapons systems, and demographic trends combine the imagination of sci-fi/fantasy with some fairly serious analysis of our present and recent past.
In this YouTube video, the author gives a quick and interesting gloss of his book’s forecasts. This San Antonio Express-News review details more of the book’s predictions through the next 100 years.
The E-Book Future
In a recent Wall Street Journal piece, author Steven Johnson described some of the ways the E-Book “will change the way we read and write.” Johnson argues that E-Books are a technology that, like the Internet itself, fundamentally changes the rules of communication.
In addition to making it easier and incredibly immediate to purchase books, Johnson sees E-Book technology being able to create a searchable, “shadow version” of the entire library of books one has read from childhood to the present.
“It is hard to overstate the impact that this kind of shift will have on scholarship. Entirely new forms of discovery will be possible. Imagine a software tool that scans through the bibliographies of the 20 books you’ve read on a specific topic, and comes up with the most-cited work in those bibliographies that you haven’t encountered yet.”
Johnson also notes data from Amazon showing Kindle owners buying far more books since purchasing the device. The flipside of the ease of impulse buying is the equal ease the author finds in jumping from book to book. As if our attention spans weren’t shrinking enough already, Johnson points out the difficulty in maintaining “linear, deep-focus reading” on a device in which the reader can instantly switch to almost any other book in the world — or easily jump online to surf the web.
E-Books are also beginning to impact the library world, as noted in the April 13 issue of the journal Library Hotline. A piece here notes Amazon’s mixed responses to libraries who are checking out Kindles to their patrons.
Apparently, Amazon does not pursue enforcement of their policy excluding library lending, thanks in part to a grey area of interpretation of their Terms of Service. The policy blocking “distribution” to any third party is vague enough for some libraries to have begin lending the devices, a service one library director in New Hampshire describes as “a great opportunity” for patrons to discover that they like the new technology and consider purchasing their own.
Library E-Book lending could also be a cheaper alternative to Inter-Library Loans and expensive newspaper subscriptions, but the $360+ replacement fee for returning a damaged Kindle rather dwarfs the usual ten-cents-per-day overdue fee so many of us have gotten used to.
Johnson’s Wall Street Journal piece also notes the possibility of E-Books ushering in a “standardized micropayment system” for online content that could even, in a happily ironic twist, help make newspapers profitable again.
J. G. Ballard: 1930-2009
The Independent UK’s obituary of J. G. Ballard questions how much the 21st century will be “Ballardian,” whether humans can overcome the violent natures so memorably and disturbingly drawn by the author, or if we are doomed according to the prophecy of his last novel, 2006’s Kingdom Come:
“The human race sleepwalked to oblivion, thinking only about the corporate logos on its shroud.”
Ballard’s dystopian novels and short stories portray a mechanized world in which technology provides both a civilized mask and a tool for mankind’s basest instincts. His work has been cited as a major influence on cyberpunk writers and like-minded musicians from Joy Division to Radiohead.
While one publisher described the author as “beyond psychiatric help” in a rejection of his controversial 1973 novel Crash, Ballard’s best work challenges readers to confront the implications of mass consumerism, ecological destruction, and the human urge for violence.
Ballard’s most popular work was probably the autobiographical Empire of the Sun, which draws on his experiences as a child in a World War II Japanese prison camp in China. In this fascinating interview with Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air, Ballard notes the differences between his novel and the Steven Spielberg film version, and he describes how his later experiences in a British boarding school were not dissimilar to his life as a prisoner of war.
Ballard’s official website features a number of interviews and essays about his work, and the Ballardian site is a terrific resource for fans with a large collection of memorial links.
Animals Make Us Human
Author Temple Grandin has been described as “the most accomplished and well-known adult with autism in the world.” Grandin has written numerous books on autism issues, and her newest book, Animals Make Us Human, explores the ways animals think, act, and feel based on the author’s unique studies and perspective.
Grandin’s book describes ways she believes humans can give animals the happiest possible lives, on the animal’s terms rather than the human’s. Chapters describe the “core emotional needs” of dogs, cats, farm animals, and some zoo animals, and the author identifies emotions shared by both animals and humans. Grandin’s work draws on her own insights into autism to consider the ways animals emotionally experience their worlds.
“The rule is simple,” Grandin explains, “Don’t stimulate rage, fear, and panic if you can help it, and do stimulate seeking and also play.” The author also provocatively compares the relative quality of life of livestock versus that of “pampered pets” like trophy dogs who end up “alone all day with no human or dog companions.”
This interesting piece from slate.com discusses Grandin’s book and her work as a consultant within the meat industry to improve the conditions of American livestock.
In this NPR interview, Grandin talks about how her autism has helped her see things the way animals do, using a ”sensory-based thinking” process she believes animals also share.
Grandin’s academic homepage shows examples of her handling, restraining, and transport systems along with links to her research articles. The essay “Thinking in Pictures” explains Grandin’s process of translating spoken and written words into images, a process that has allowed her to design invaluable equipment for humane livestock treatment and veterinary care.
