Collected Miscellany

As anyone who has tried it can tell you, writing book reviews is hard. It is one thing to read a book and post a couple of sentences on why you liked it, another thing to capture in more detailed and insightful ways the books strengths and weaknesses; to communicate to a reader why they should or shouldn’t pick it up or help someone who has already read it understand it better.

I often ruminate on the challenge of writing reviews as a way to put off actually writing them! But I also think about it because, despite my love of reading, I rarely feel like I can produce something insightful or interesting about the books I read. Of course I take on this challenge regularly in this space. Whether I succeed or not I will leave up to the reader.

Why the longwinded rumination? Because Gilead by Marilynne Robinson presents a rather large challenge along these lines. How does one communicate the power of this work? How to both describe the book and attempt to illuminate its meaning? I feel like I need to read the book a couple more times before I could really capture its beauty and power. So I have decided to cheat a little and use other reviews to communicate what my reaction was to this unique work.

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Mental Multivitamin has named Collected Miscellany as one of her favorite blogs; she called the writing here ‘smart and worthwhile.’ Kevin and Phil…way to go. Kevin recently posted a list of books he’s going to review; I’m looking forward to reading his thoughts on all of them.

Hunter Thompson’s Amazon ratings are soaring, to be expected. My edition of FEAR AND LOATHING has all but disintegrated. Maude Newton has a discussion with Natalie Collins whose novel WIVES AND SISTERS was reviewed here not long ago.

Despite the encroaching Spring Training and the hilarity of Jose Canseco posing as an author, the focus remains on books. Okay, I thought it might be funny if the steroid scandal spread to novelists and John Updike admitted his Canseco like physique wasn’t just from typing. Steroids are good for you, according to Jose. He offers himself as proof of his thesis…

I’m reading Chris Haslam’s TWELVE STEP FANDANGO an Edgar nominated debut that I’ll review over the weekend. We should have interviews with Raelynn Hillhouse, Rebecca Pawel and Elizabeth Crane coming up…darn, I forgot to ask Jose to stop by. He and Pamela Anderson are redefining literature in much the same way that your freezer will affect the shape of a soda can. Writers have been getting away with ordinary looks for decades and that’s got to stop.

Earlier this week, OGIC revealed her secret identity. She’s Elastigirl. Of course, she goes by Laura in most places, but that’s understandable. How can a journalist go by a cool name like Elastigirl and be taken seriously?

Some are disappointed about this revelation. They say the mystery is gone, that the magic has left the relationship. I don’t understand that thought at all. I suppose if I lived in Chicago and had ran the risk of seeing her on the street, I might feel differently; but on the Internet, one name is as good as another. I don’t know her any better now as Laura than I did as OGIC, and as she explains, I can identify her reviews in the Sun and Tribune. Now, I know that the superhero who blogs at About Last Night is the same one who writes book reviews.

Speaking of the reviews, she points out an interesting one on Nani Power’s The Sea of Tears. “Power’s wide-eyed optimism about the human heart seems like it could be just the thing,” she writes, “a refreshing antidote to the steady cultural diet we’re fed of dysfunctional couples and terrible marriages. By the end of this squishy novel, however, you may find yourself craving more than a soupcon of sulfur, a la Cassavetes, perhaps, or Albee.”

I wonder if this kind of story is having its day in the sun for a while. Sentimentalism seems to be everywhere. Is it a product of shallow thinking? Are we, the American people, swimming toward the kid’s side of the pool?

To quote that often-used Dave Barry line, I am not making this up. Comedian and speaker Anita Renfroe has written a book, released this month, entitled, The Purse-driven Life: It Really Is All About Me. If you haven’t cracked open a copy of the almost ubiquitous book by a similiar name, you may not know that Purse-driven’s subtitle is a contradiction of the other book’s first line. Yes, it’s meant to be funny. It goes one with topics, such as “You’ve Got Male, trying to understand husbands,” “Minor Adjustments, mammograms and their fallout,” and “Mother Superior, hoping our kids don’t end up on the Jerry Springer show.” Anita helps women understand their “purse-onality” and “the art of doing nothing.”

I’m sure there’s a market for this type of book. NavPress is a smart publisher, and Anita has performed many times over the years, so I’m sure she has received good feedback from her target audience. And I’m sure it won’t matter that my sweet wife thinks many women will like the book even though she hates the look of it. Not her type of humor, I guess, but her distaste for it may come from its perceived similiarity to other books she’s read, those silly women’s books from Christian publishers which seem to assume a level of shallow faith or materialism in their readership.

This a review of FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS. It was released thirty three years ago but I suspect that Hunter Thompson’s most famous work will be re-released at some point if the legal issues can be dealt with. My edition’s pages are no longer in consecutive order; like kids in homeroom when they have a substitute, they’ve rearranged themselves with furtive glee. ROLLING STONE first published the pieces submitted by ‘Raoul Duke’ in 1971. The book cost forty pence under the old British monetary system, brought out in the UK by Grenada Publishing Ltd. To introduce a larger context to the book’s release date, everyone dressed like Austin Powers and the book’s dedication singles out Bob Dylan for MISTER TAMBOURINE MAN.

“Let’s get right to the heart of this thing. You see, twenty four hours ago we were sitting in the Polo Lounge, in the patio section, of course, when this uniformed dwarf holding a pink telephone came up to me and said, “this must be the call you’ve been waiting for all this time, sir.”

Raoul and Dr. Gonzo are off to Vegas in search of the American dream. As in all quests there are obstacles to overcome, but FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS presents some unique ones, including the search for the Vincent Black Shadow, and the compounding effects of hallucinogenic drugs when mixed with Vegas’ own version of reality. Things are bad when you fire a .357 Magnum at invisible lizards, find yourself in the middle of DA’s convention before setting fire to your hotel room after parking your rental car on the sidewalk in front of the Dunes. Projectile vomiting and trying to strangle the maid, even if you think it’s self-defense, are bound to attract the sort of attention most hotel guests take pains to avoid; and, yes, you can make a really big pina colada if you fill the bathtub with tequila.

The job was to cover the Mint 400; the job was to deliver a thousand words on the race and not blow the expense money at the slots. But the quest overpowered the job while the context devoured the quest; an editor’s note reveals that Dr. Duke broke down completely somewhere along Paradise Boulevard in the Great White Whale. “I felt like a monster reincarnation of Horatio Alger…A Man on the Move…and just sick enough to be totally confident.”

Last week I reviewed Hugh Hewitt’s Blog: Understanding the Information Reformation That’s Changing Your World. I was disappointed by the rather thin argument and choppy nature of the book. I felt like the book was rushed and disjointed; like it read like a blog instead of a book. But I confess my disappointment could have largely stemmed from my having an insiders knowledge of blogging and the center-right political blogosphere Hugh focuses on. There was very little new information in Blog and not much insightful thinking in my mind, while perhaps a reader with little or no knowledge of the subject might find it educational and interesting.

Trying to get a different perspective on this subject I turned to Dan Gillmor’s We the Media. Gillmor has a background in mainstream journalism:

From 1994-2004, Dan was a columnist at the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley’s daily newspaper, and wrote a weblog for SiliconValley.com. He joined the Mercury News after six years with the Detroit Free Press. Before that, he was with the Kansas City Times and several newspapers in Vermont.

Gillmor has a unique perspective as a journalist yet early adopter of blogging and other personal communication tools. His job as a reporter, as well as his personal interest, kept him on the front lines of technology and the personal communication revolution. We the Media is both an argument about how we should move forward and a first cut at the history of this fascinating development. While Hewitt’s work was aimed directly at blogs, We the Media is more about the general phenomena of open source journalism or the intersection of personal communication online and the public interest.

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