Reading for the Apocalypse:
It’s the End of the World as We Know It, and I Don’t Feel So Hot
So, Kitty’s starting off the New Year in a hopeful mood. Not so much me. I had the misfortune of watching a fascinating show on the History Channel the other night that scared me witless. Now, I’ll be the first to admit there is a lot on that cable channel that is basically BS, created to pull in big ratings. (Ancient Aliens, anyone?) But Prophets of Doom, which aired on Wednesday, was both sobering and pretty much legit, based on the news and articles I’ve already read.
Six gentlemen, students of various apocalyptic scenarios, discuss their fears for America’s and the World’s future.
Check out their bios, plus any links I’ve provided to their written work:
Michael Rupert, a controversial investigative journalist, spells out the big picture, focusing on the collision of peak oil and the population explosion. He’s author of Confronting Collapse and Crossing the Rubicon.
Dr. Nathan Hagens, economist, sees an economic collapse in our future. He compares our current world economy to a “global ponzi scheme.” Hagens is also fascinated with humanity’s inability to confront long-range problems because of our built-in cognitive dissonance, which lets us “discount” dangers if they are not staring us in the face. (You can read Hangens’s ideas on human “discount rates” here.)
John Cronin, co-author (with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.) of The Riverkeepers, reminds us that life itself is not possible without access to clean water, access that is dwindling rapidly as the world population grows and pollution increases. Time magazine named him a Hero of the Planet in 1999.
John Howard Kunstler is the author of The Long Emergency and Home From Nowhere, as well as other works that deal with the depletion and increasing costs of fossil fuels and other converging world crises that demand we transform the way we live if we are to survive.
Professor Hugo de Garis is a researcher in the field of Artificial Intelligence, and his concern is the eventual evolution of AI intelligence to the point where our machines will become hostile to humanity.
Robert Gleason is the most dubious authority, but he leaves his stranger ideas behind to communicate a very real threat of nuclear terrorism. (It’s kind of hard to get that one wrong!)
Following a round table discussion, the six gentlemen decide that the coming water and economic crises are the most pressing, although all admit that a large enough bit of nuclear terrorism could trump that. The threat of hostile AIs is considered the least eminent, since the other potential crises could slow down or even halt further technological development.
After all of this doom and gloom, I needed a pick-me up. Cue the video!
I was feeling so much better… until I saw the cover story in the recent National Geographic Magazine! Ugh!
Room in the World
Over the Christmas break, I read the novel Room.
If you’ve heard about Room in the press, or happened across some “best of” lists with brief reviews, you can probably understand why a few of my friends questioned the wisdom of diving into this new work by Emma Donoghue—especially during the “most wonderful time of the year.”
On the surface, the book sounds dark and depressing; obviously, Donoghue had to go to a dark place to write this. But our world is full of darkness, and one job of art is to illuminate this darkness in order to discover what it might say about our world and the human condition.
Five-year-old Jack is the protagonist, hero and narrator of the tale. The reader discovers very early that this intelligent and imaginative young boy is confined to a small room along with his mother, Ma. In fact, Jack was born in this 12-foot-square room, and he has never seen the outside world, since the only “window” is a high skylight. Ma has made a decision to make Jack’s whole world this room, telling him the people, animals and things he sees on television or reads about in books are not real—they’re just “pretend” things. Other than Ma and himself, the only other real things are Old Nick, the sinister man who occasionally visits in the night, and the food and other items Old Nick brings into the room.
When Jack makes a discovery soon after his fifth birthday, Ma decides to tell Jack the truth about their predicament, the truth about this fortified prison, and the truth about the outside world—truths Jack finds hard to believe. She also solicits Jack’s help in a do-or-die plan of escape, for Old Nick is suffering from the recession. He’s lost his job and is having trouble paying bills. Ma knows she and her son will never be left to live if Old Nick’s home reaches foreclosure.
I won’t give any other particulars away—there’s so much more to discover in this book—but I will tell you that Room is ultimately a life-affirming work. It’s a celebration of the love between mother and child, and a celebration of the resiliency of the human spirit—especially the spirit of a child who has been given the love, support, and nourishment every child needs.
While there are many tears in Room, this can be a funny book at times, and it is often a wise one. Jack’s observations of his world can make the reader chuckle, but they can also be oddly revealing, casting a new view on this tired and cruel old world.
If you decide to tackle Donoghue’s amazing book, know that Jack and Ma may linger with you long after you shut the door on this room.
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A library for Ma and Jack by Emma Donoghue.
After you’ve read the book, visit What Jack Didn’t Know by Wendy Smith.
Room is packed with themes about parent/child relationships, child development, the concept of home, and so much more. It’s ideal for a book club discussion.
Space Opera Hunting Party begins Serrano Legacy
Went on a work trip and one of my bosses, who knows I like space opera lent me Elizabeth Moon’s Hunting Party. This is the first book in the Serrano Legacy series. Hunting Party is an interesting mixture of old traditions and new technology, tossed with generational conflict, and strong female characters.
Heris Serrano has been forced to resign her commission from the Regular Space Service, for failure to follow the self-indulgent and destructive orders of Admiral Lepescu. Cecelia is the rich older lady space yachet owner who has just given her a job. Of course the Sweet Delight, offers some unexpected challenges to our space captain. Cecelia and Heris find themselves in companionable friendship, making a bet that each learn more about each others dreams and priorities. On board we also find Cecelia’s spoiled brat nephew along with his friends 
who are entering their own coming of age trials. Young women becoming more than they ever thought they could be when tested by evil and their environment. All this is played out against a background of fox hunting amid a space port that looks every bit like a castle. It’s the stuff space adventure is made of, toss in a little unsuspected romance, and you’ve got yourself a nice long airplane ride read.
I see a lot of whining on Amazon about it not being a great book, blah, blah, blah. Every book doesn’t need to be great. This is a good read if you like the space opera experience. Good enough for me to find more in the series. Now that I’ve finished book one I’m ready for more. I would recommend this title to female young adult readers for a glimpse at a genre that gives them a strong voice.
To give you a feel for her work, try out this audio of Elizabeth Moon reading from Hunting Party. This is a piece starting with Ronnie (Cecelia’s nephew) trying to rescue his friend George before the hunters get to him.
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Events that Shaped the American Character
Tony Williams’s America’s Beginnings: the Dramatic Events that Shaped a Nation’s Character satisfies two goals. It provides the basics on important events that influenced the early nation and continue to shape us today. And it also serves as a springboard for further exploration and study.
Indeed, the entries on each event are so brief—no more than two to three pages—that many readers will probably come away with even more questions that need answering. And that, of course, can lead to a very good thing!
All of the biggies are here, from the Mayflower Compact to Common Sense to Bunker Hill to the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.
Also included are other events that are less well-known, (or is it just me who wasn’t paying attention in history class), like Shays’ Rebellion, an uprising that lead to calls for a stronger national government.
Even the Salem Witch Trials are included, since they have come to symbolize intolerance and persecution. And Ben Franklin and his Lightning Rod make the list since Franklin “would later use the fame he had acquired as a scientist to advance America’s struggle for liberty on the global stage.”
It’s a great gathering of events for budding historians or anyone who seeks a handy reference companion on Early American history.
Williams wrote the book in association with Colonial Williamsburg, the worlds largest living history museum.
The Last Line on a Midlife Crisis
It’s hard to believe it’s been more than 30 years since the publication of Gail Sheehy’s landmark Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life. I read that book soon after its publication, and I can attest that it has been helpful in navigating the decades of my life, especially the 30s and 40s. Now, this is not to say that I have avoided those “predictable crises” along the way, including a classic mid-life crisis that put me in a deep funk. It’s just that I knew what was going on. Life can be scary, and information helps. Still, even though you can understand a crisis from an intellectual perspective, it’s very personal when it’s happening to you.
I thought about Passages after I finished Michael Cunningham‘s new novel, By Nightfall. Forty-something Peter Harris is a high-end art dealer and gallery owner in New York. He has a successful wife, Rebecca, who he married for love. He lives in an enviable space in SoHo, and enjoys the company of the rich and influential. But there are clouds on the horizon. He is struggling to relate to his young adult daughter, feels distanced from his wife, and wonders if his career has reached its apex, with professional stagnancy or decline around the corner.
When Rebecca’s troubled younger brother, Mizzy, comes to live with them, Peter’s midlife blues grow into a fully-bloomed existential crisis.
It’s a common condition when we start to feel the clock ticking on our own mortality. Have we made the right choices? Do we have time to again experience the exhilarating feeling of new love/new career/new life/new insert here.? Have we left something important behind? What is the meaning of all this? And true to midlife crises, there is often a catalyst that becomes an obsessive focus around which our larger existential questions are posed. For Peter, the catalyst is his brother-in-law, Mizzy.
The joy in reading this book, beyond Cunningham’s sublime writing, is wondering if Peter is going to chuck it all, come to terms with his situation, or find renewal within his current life. The joy, for older readers, may be recognizing yourself.
The biggest joy, for me, was the last line of the book. First lines of novels are celebrated and quoted often: “Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderley again.” “I am an invisible man.” “Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.” No matter how masterful the last line of a book, we stay away from quotations because we don’t want to give anything away.
I’m going to give it away. I’m going to show you the last line of By Nightfall, if you want to see it. Just highlight the area below:
He begins to tell her everything that has happened.
It’s a simple sentence, not particularly artful unto itself, but magnificent in the context of this latest wonder from Cunningham.
Okie Bookshelf, Oklahoma Legends
What’s new on the Okie Bookshelf ?
Kate Buford has just written what is being called “the first comprehensive biography” of Jim Thorpe. It’s thick with 479 pages, well 
documented with plenty of footnotes, and getting substantially good reviews. Oklahoma Native American writer, N. Scott Momaday has the following comments on the Thorpe biography, ” As an athlete, Jim Thorpe was a force of nature. His achievements, across the board, remain unsurpassed. For many years we have needed a fair and comprehensive story of his life. Now we have it. Kate Buford’s biography of Thorpe is a first-rate example of the genre. She has written–with clarity, insight, objectivity, and inspiration–a definitive work. Here is an evocation of triumph and tragedy, and a uniquely American story.”
Tweeted Kate and found out that there’s an exhibit at the Muskogee Public Library on Native American sports figures from Oklahoma.
Another woman writing on Oklahoma sports legends is Jane Leavy in her new book The Last Boy: 
Mickey Mantle and the End of America’s Childhood. It just became a finalist for the 2010 CASEY Award for the Best Baseball Book of the Year.
“Meticulously reported and elegantly written, The Last Boy is a baseball tapestry that weaves together episodes from the author’s weekend with The Mick in Atlantic City, where she interviewed her hero in 1983, after he was banned from baseball, with reminiscences from friends and family of the boy from Commerce, Oklahoma, who would lead the Yankees to seven world championships, be voted the American League’s Most Valuable Player three times, win the Triple Crown in 1956, and duel teammate Roger Maris for Babe Ruth’s home run crown in the summer of 1961—the same boy who would never grow up.”—Harper Collins Publisher
Two Oklahoma sports legends who embodied everything that is great in sports, and everything that can be lost. Sports biographers, Buford and Leavy don’t stop with the stats and the accolades, they give us the real people behind the numbers.
A Friday Round-Up
A number of interesting literary items to report as we enter the homestretch to the weekend.
Zombies vs. Unicorns and more Zombies!
First up: A podcast from three Oklahoma young adult librarians that’s just perfect for Halloween. Adrienne, Emily and Karl review the Zombies vs. Unicorns anthology edited by Holly Black and Justine Larbalesiter. We like the quote from the Booklist review on the Amazon.com site:
Can the chatter of the YA nerdosphere launch a successful book? This imaginative collection answers with a resounding yes. Beginning in February 2007, editors Black and Larbalestier debated zombies’ and unicorns’ strengths and weaknesses on Larbalestier’s blog, and the resulting interest roped in stories from a number of impressive authors…”
Only young adult authors and librarians could come up with this kind of stuff, and you have to admit that it’s pretty much beyond kewl!
Speaking of Zombies, AMC launches it’s new series The Walking Dead this Sunday. It’s based on Robert Kirkman‘s monthly comic book series, which is also beyond kewl! Go here for an Interview with Kirkman on the adaptation of his work to the small screen.
Festival of Books for Young People
The Oklahoma Library Association held their biennial Mildred Laughlin Festival of Books for Young People yesterday in Midwest City. More than 100 Oklahoma youth librarians attended the event at the Tom Steed Center at Rose State College. Special guests were children’s author and illustrator Laura Vaccaro Seeger, chilidren’s author Stephen Krensky, and Tamora Pierce, author of fantasy literature for young adults. I have to tell you, I was completely blown away by Seeger’s talent, and I’m going to be getting her Lemons are not Red and One Boy books for my grandniece, Brooklyn. Also loved Krensky’s What Do You See? and I picked up a copy of that. Pierce is a big, popular talent with young people, and two of her teenage fans trekked from southeastern Oklahoma to meet their favorite author. ‘Twas a good day!
Finally…
…we leave you with a slide show from The Huffington Post Blog on Nine Non-Writers Who Influenced Literary History. Who knew? You do now.
National Book Award Winner to Speak at OSU Stillwater
The H. Louise & H.E. “Ed” Cobb Speaker Series is the largest fundraising event for the Friends of the OSU Library. On Nov. 5, Dr. Charles Johnson headlines the annual dinner, lecture and book signing.
Johnson has written 18 books, including Middle Passage which won the 1990 National Book Award for fiction. He has also worked as an editor, cartoonist and journalist, and until his 2009 retirement after 33 years of teaching, was a very popular professor at the University of Washington.
His work focuses on the most philosophical issues of our time, and he regularly challenges readers’ beliefs. His ultimate goal is articulating the broader view of the human experience that transcends race.
This year’s H. Louise & H.E. “Ed” Cobb Speaker Series will be held Nov. 5 in the OSU Library. The welcome reception begins at 6 p.m., with the dinner and lecture at 6:45 p.m. A book signing will follow at 8:30 p.m., where selections of Johnson’s work are available for purchase.
Individual tickets are $100; half is a tax-deductible gift to the Friends of the OSU Library. (That’s a good deal!) Sponsorship opportunities are also available. All proceeds from the event directly benefit the OSU Libraries.
For more information or to make reservation call 405-7901 or visit www.library.okstate.edu/friends/.
I’ve been to the Cobb Speaker Series before, and it was a nice, intimate evening with the guest author.
Lordy! God and Football
Young Bill Young here, back from a short vacation. Thanks to Kitty for keeping the blog rolling with great posts on her lack of power, Joss Whedon’s latest, and a call-out to Carolyn Leonard, certainly one of the best friends of writers and genealogists in our great state.
Occasionally, I come across a book that I have no intention of reading, but one that I think would make the perfect Okie Read. Such is the case with Chad Gibbs‘ work God and Football: Faith and Fanaticism in the SEC.
OK, before you go all Big 12 on me, think about it: Oklahoma is a religious state, and Okies love their football more than the best sliced bread ever baked. I’m sure we can compete with the best of the SEC when it comes to the number of folks who alternate their weekend worship between the football field and local church pew.
And Gibbs is really on to something here. In writing the book, he wanted to talk to fanatical football fans who were also Christians to find out how they balance these two areas of interest. Count how many Oklahomans you know who spend their weekends with football and God. Right. You don’t have enough hands, do you?
It’s possible the SEC folk are little more fantatical than the Big 12 folk. I base this on how fans of the two conferences show their disdain for the opposing teams. For example, OU Sooner fans offer up an upside down Hook ‘em Horns sign to show their dislike of the Texas Longhorns, while SEC fans regularly yell “Go to Hell Ole Miss, Go to Hell!” when their teams take on the University of Mississippi.
The level of football fanaticism aside, I suspect there is much relatable fodder here for many Okies.
So, why am I not reading this book? I’ll tell you a brief and painless story. I used to follow the University of Oklahoma Sooners. OU is my alma mater, and my father has followed the team since the glory days of Bud Wilkinson. But there was a big problem: if the Sooners lost their Saturday match-up, my weekend was ruined. A funk descended upon me, and Sunday didn’t seem as bright as it should. At some point in my twenties, I decided not to have the perceived success of my weekend dependent on the outcome of a gridiron game.
But many of my friends continue to follow their Cowboys or Sooners, basking in the glory of the gridiron. And then, the next day, they put on their Sunday best, pick up their Bible, and bask in the glory of God.
There be more…
Chad Gibbs has a small group study guide for God and Football.
Here’s Chad’s blog where you can also connect to him via Twitter or Facebook.
More on Chad and from Chad courtesy of beliefnet.
Power, or powerless; Slayer; and Columbus Day
Lately I’ve been feeling less than powerful in the workplace, so as I walked by the new bookshelf, POWER: Why some People Have It–And Others Don’t by Jeffrey Pfeffer practically leapt off the shelf into my hand. The bad part is that by page 4, I already understood why I don’t have any. Now I’m afraid to continue, it can only get worst. Saved by an Interlibrary Library Loan request for the book and I gave it up for another reader.
Finished Fray by Joss Whedon, 
and it’s good to know we’re going to be saved from demons in the future by another Slayer. Whedon uses the same snarky dialogue to move Melaka Fray through her initiation into slayerhood. Karl Moline is the gifted artist giving us a flatter chested, kick butt female heroine. I found her definitely likeable.
I don’t know about you but this whole Columbus Day thing isn’t very exciting when you’re at work. Give the Huffington Post a read about why we shouldn’t give Old Christopher the day anyway.
