Collected Miscellany

Anther round of random books last night. Came away with Pastoralia: Stories by George Saunders. Looks interesting, I will report back when I get a chance to read it.

My reading has been sporadic and restless of late. I jump around from book to book never really getting started. Nothing has really grabbed me and forced me to keep reading. I hope that will change now that I am reading this new book on James Burnham.

Burnham was one of the three intellectuals I worte my thesis on (the other two being George F. Kennan and Walter Lippmann). I really could have used this biography in graduate school. Or if I wasn’t such a dufus I should have written the darn thing myself! Oh well, I will review the book instead.

*this post has been edited (why? because I can!)*
Madison Slade (aka Moxie) has a review of Ann coulter’s latest book posted at Blogcritics: Sorority Girls Can be Lawyers & Writers Too. Moxie takes a unique look at Coulter and her writing style so check it out.

This post has inspired me to offer the following proposal:

Once a month I will purchase a book for a someone to review. The only requirement is that you post a review within 30 days to blogcritics or your own site. If you don’t have a site but want to compete and review a book I can post the review. I will choose based on requests to me and on what I find interesting and useful.

So if you want me to buy you a book so you can review it let me know (in the comments or via email) what the book is and why you want to read/review it. I will pick the first one this month.

As I mentioned previously, I am a sucker for nicely packaged and well illustrated books. Recently, I was slightly burned out from reading “serious” works and decided I need a lighter touch. I was tempted by a children’s series of all things. Largely because of their packaging and illustrations. The series was the awkwardly titled The Series of Unfortunate Events Series. A series about the three Baudelaire children who are orphaned by a house fire. The fire begins a series of unfortunate events (hence the title) for the children. The books have a sort of tongue in cheek macabre tone. Supposedly dark and cruel but not too much as they are written for children ten and up.

The first book, The Bad Beginning, lays out the story line and covers their first adventure. This adventure involves being adopted by their Uncle, Count Olaf, who treats them very poorly and who is scheming to get his hands on their fortune. I won’t spoil the plot any further for those of you who want to read the series.

It is difficult to judge a book like this, as I do not have any children nor am I particularly familiar with books written for children. Perhaps, parents and their children would approach the books differently and thus come to a different conclusion. To me the book seemed rather light and flat for the most part. It certainly has none of the depth and interest of Harry Potter or The Chronicles of Narnia. I suspect that the author did not intend anything but a light hearted story in the guise of a dark one. After all the books are short, easy to read, and relatively inexpensive.

The one unique feature in the books are the author’s use of explanations for the bigger words used in the book. Here is an example:

The three Baudelaire children lived in an enormous mansion at the heart of a dirty and busy city, and occasionally their parents gave them permission to take a rickety trolley – the word “rickety,” you probably know, here means “unsteady” or “likely to collapse” – alone to the seashore where they would spend the day as a sort of vacation as long as they were home for dinner.

I found these explanations tiresome and disruptive but perhaps parents and children might find them useful.

The characters are interesting but rather one dimensional. They seem more caricatures rather than real characters you could sympathise with or root for and against. The story was not so much predictable as plodding. I didn’t feel compelled to keep reading.

Overall, I must say I found the package neater than the content. The books are nicely designed beautifully illustrated. They seem like a fun idea but they come across just a tad too flat for me. If I were a parent I might check them out at the library rather than buy them new. That way you can see if you or your children are interested without investing anything more than time.

Things have been a little quite here at Addicted to Books and for that I appologize. I have been busy with other things and have just not been reading very heavily. Every so often I get so I can’t seem to process the more serious fiction and non-fiction works on my reading list. I will start a book and not finish it or I will restlessly look through my library or the book store hoping for something to “grab me.” I am in this phase now.

So much so that I have stooped to reading kids books! Just kidding, I actually enjoy reading books aimed at a younger audience. Remeber when I posted about being attracted to a book simply because of its aesthetic? This is the case here. The book I picked up was The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket. It is part one in a “A Series of Unfortunate Events.” If you are unfamiliar with series they descibe the rather unpleasant events suurrounding the lives of the Baudelaire children, whose parents die in a horrible fire. In the first book they are adopted by their distant Uncle Boris – a horrible man who treats them horribly.

I thought a bit of light reading would be just the thing for end of August reading. I will let you know how it goes.

Update: The Guardian has the goods on Daniel Handler, the manbehind Lemony Snicket. Via Bookslut.

What to do if you suspect your child is becoming an English major:
1. Talk to your child in a loving way. Show your concern. Let her know you won’t abandon her but that you aren’t spending a hundred grand to put her through Stanford so she can clerk at Waldenbooks either. But remember that she may not be able to make a decision without help; perhaps she has just finished Madame Bovary and is dying of arsenic poisoning.
2. Face the issue. Tell her what you know, and how: “I found this book in your purse. How long has this been going on?” Ask the hard question: Who is this Count Vronsky?
3. Show her another way. Move the television set into her room. Introduce her to frat boys.
4. Do what you have to do. Tear up her library card. Make her stop signing her letters as “Emma.” Force her to take a math class or minor in Spanish. Transfer her to a Florida college. You may be dealing with a life-threatening problem if one or more of the following applies:
* She can tell you how and when Thomas Chatterton died.
* She names one or more of her cats after a Romantic poet.
* Next to her bed is a picture of Lord Byron, Virginia Woolf, William Faulkner, or any scene from the Lake District. Most importantly, remember, you are not alone; seek help for yourself or someone you love, contact the nearest chapter of the American Literature Abuse Society, or look under ALAS in your local phone directory.

OR you could do what I do … Ignore the problem and READ! :-)