Reading Copy Book Blog

It’s ridiculous, I admit. But when something gets a whole lot of hype, I stubbornly and perversely refuse to try it out myself. For this reason I will never watch Dances With Wolves or drink bubble tea, drive a Prius or play Dance Dance Revolution. So when I started seeing glowing reviews of Andrew Davidson’s The Gargoyle all over the place, I subconsciously made some bizarre pact with myself to avoid it as long as possible.

Then one of my coworkers put it on my desk.

And now I can’t put it down.

What an engaging read. It’s casually written without sounding slangy or annoying, and fantastical enough that while one has to suspend their disbelief, one does - at least in my case - with an immediate shrug of surrender. The main character has very little redeeming quality to him so far, but I like him anyway.

Other books I have grudgingly loved against my will after swearing not to:

Harry Potter
Bridget Jones’ Diary
The Lovely Bones
Bel Canto

But in my defense, I recently gave in and read The Pilot’s Wife by Anita Shreve after it was recommended to me and kept popping up in conversation - and I think it made me stupider. What a cloying, simpering, undecided disaster of a book. It couldn’t decide whether it was a mystery, a tragedy, or a run-of-the-mill romance, so it ended up being all three, and none of the three, at the same time. It made me mad. And yet, I lack the ability to give up on a book - really any book - once I’ve begun, and finished it anyway. Curses.

But don’t take my word for it. Maybe you’ll love it. After all, I’ve never seen Dances with Wolves. What do I know?

Before my recent reading of Unless, I’d never read much Carol Shields, and some of her best-known titles (Larry’s Party, The Box Garden, The Stone Diaries etc.) are still on my ‘To Read’ list (in the smallest font, it would still be taller than I am), and getting closer to the top as I realize how very much I love Shields’ writing.

I first read Happenstance a few years ago, after picking up a used copy on this little web site I know… *ahem*, and was instantly struck by how effective the writing, particularly in regard to people, was. I loved the book and couldn’t get over how well Shields wrote people.

Having just finished Unless, I’m convinced. It wasn’t just a fluke. Unless is the story of 44-year-old-Reta Winters (born Reta Summers, a fact that fast bonded her to her husband, Tom): writer, wife, mother, and basically blessed person. She has really never questioned her overall contentedness - her financial comfort, her marriage (still going strong, even the sex!), her three daughters, even her dog - until something happens to her eldest daughter.

Norah, 19, has left her boyfriend, left university, and spends her days sitting on a busy downtown Toronto street corner, wearing a sign she has hand-printed with the simple entreaty: GOODNESS. She has historically been stable, if sensitive, loving, rational, bright, intuitive, and above all, present. Norah’s vanishing, both physically and mentally, sends Reta’s entire world into doubt. It creates an awareness of vulnerability, where before there was comfort taken for granted, if not complacency. As Reta becomes alert to the dangers around herself and Norah, she becomes angry at a world she feels has let them down.

The writing is basic, simple, and absolutely heartbreaking. I am not a parent, but the grief, terror and all-encompassing need to take care of a child is portrayed exquisitely throughout the pages of Unless. Many times I could barely see to read, for tears blurring my vision. It is heartfelt and sincere without being sentimental, honest and basic without being stark, and tremendously affecting, particularly toward the end. I’ll read this again, one day.

Review of Portnoy’s Complaint – Philip Roth

I had never read any Philip Roth, and since he is widely regarded as an iconic American author, and was first published in 1959, I figured I should. After doing so, I intended, in my review of Portnoy’s Complaint, to write about how much I hated it.

The protagonist, Alexander Portnoy, spends all 289 pages whining, complaining, lamenting, and generally loathing himself and those around him, as hard as he can. His mother is the frighteningly overbearing stereotype of a Jewish mother: she’s controlling, long-suffering, as nosy as the nosiest busybody, and wields guilt like her own custom-made weapon. His father is equally cartoonish, with his entire life seeming to revolve around the operation (or lack thereof) of his bowels, and the many ways in which his son disappoints, despite having all the advantages he himself never did.

Portnoy’s relationships with women, with sex, are fraught with neuroses and obsessive, relentless self-examination. The misogyny, the misanthropy, the fear, mistrust and dislike of both his own sorry self and everything else in Portnoy are exhausting.

I should hate this book – but I have come to realize I don’t. I even sort of like it. Despite the frustration the reader feels at these people ceaselessly nitpicking at each other, Roth wrote the book so impeccably that it’s impossible to not enjoy it, and have humour, even affection, for its bumbling, well-meaning characters. I claimed to hate it, but it never once occurred to me to put it down. Hell, like a relative you love deep-down, but can only tolerate in small doses, I’ll probably revisit Portnoy’s Complaint in a year or so, when I’ve cooled off. Philip Roth’s 29^th book, Indignation, was released six weeks ago. Roth’s next release, The Humbling, is due out in 2009.

… was Hemingway’s story in six words.

Now you can read a collection of six-word memoirs. The book is called Not Quite What I Was Planning.

Carlin Romano reviews the book in The Philladelphia Inquirer

I find the picks smart, funny.
Some bristle with honesty:
“After Harvard, had baby with crackhead.”
Some put their candor on wry:
“Seventy years, few tears, hairy ears.”
Some sound bitter:
“Not pretty enough, so now unemployed.”
And this lady:
“So devastated. No babies for me.”
Some exult:
“Sweet wife, good sons - I’m rich.”
Others preen:
“Became more like myself every year.”
Then come the wise guys:
“Macular degeneration. Didn’t see that coming.”
And the mock snob:
“No words can describe my life.”
Imagine how he’d impress this cynic:
“Batteries are cheap. Who needs men?”
Not Quite includes famous folk too.
For instance, heavy thinker Steven Pinker:
“Struggled with how the mind works.”
And po-mo Russian novelist Victor Pelevin:
“This Tolstoy gets no Oprah promotion.”
Writers, of course, excel at this.
Listen to nonfiction whiz Sebastian Junger:
“I asked. They answered. I wrote.”
And journalist Po Bronson:
“Stole wife. Lost friends. Now happy.”
My winner? Tres clever Iris Page:
“Semicolons; I use them to excess.”
Some contributors actually dispense wisdom.
For instance, Jennifer Shreve:
“Blogging is easy, writing is hard.”
The self-knowledge comes in taut packages:
“I answer to the word Mom.”
And: “Used to add. Now I subtract.”
But the book’s canniest insight?
Why, from Nora Ephron, of course:
“Secret of life: marry an Italian.”
My conclusion?
Six words are worth 1,000 pictures.
All told, they made me twitter.

While other folks were reading McCarthy, Roth, or Rushdie over the weekend, I read a book called Stuff White People Like by Christian Lander. It’s another blog that became a book. As a middle class 40-year-old white person, I found Stuff White People Like very enjoyable. It has 150 mini-chapters (or blog postings if you wish) and I found myself ticking off the ones that applied to me.

Organic food - check
Renovations - check
Hardwood floors - check
Rugby - check
Threatening to move to Canada - check (except I actually did it)
Recycling - check
Making children learn a foreign language - check

I can think of many white people who should read specific chapters from this book. The sections on Apple products, DJs and Asian girls were very funny indeed.

I’m going to interview the author, Christian Lander, on Thursday so we should have something on the site by Friday.

Booklovers in Canada are concerned after the Globe and Mail’s book section was absent without leave from last Saturday’s edition.

The LA Times has just issued a review on the Flat Belly Diet, the book is still only available though select outlets but some of our booksellers have copies well below list price.

Their mantra is mufas (or, more appropriately, MUFAs). These delightful substances are the healthy fats found in almonds, peanut butter, olive oil and avocados among other things, and they’re fairly satiating. The eating plan (based on the good ol’ Mediterranean diet) says you should have some with every meal. That’s one of its three rules.

The other two rules: Stick to 400 calories per meal. And never go more than four hours without eating. Snacks, carefully controlled, are fine — as long as you don’t eat more than 1,600 calories a day.

I read Larry McMurtry’s new book, Books: A Memoir, last week and a review is now on the AbeBooks.com homepage. If you are a bookseller, a book collector or just a bibliophile then I’ll think you will enjoy it. The memoir barely touches on McMurtry’s writing (Lonesome Dove, Last Picture Show, Terms of Endearment etc) and simply concerns his life as a used bookseller. He’s been a book scout, a used bookstore employee, and a used bookstore owner. He’s got to know almost everyone in the used book business, crossed the Atlantic looking for books, and is still handling the incoming books at his Archer City bookstore in Texas. It’s an excellent read.

Jonathan Franzen says the New York Times’ lead fiction reviewer is the stupidest person in the Big Apple. Excellent - I love a good fight.

Today’s recommendation for Christmas giving is….. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, which is a translation of the French memoir Le scaphandre et le papillon by Jean-Dominique Bauby. This book is getting plenty of attention at the moment because an American movie version has been released.

The book describes Bauby’s life after he suffered a stroke that left him with a condition called locked-in syndrome. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly was written by Bauby blinking his left eyelid. He used a frequency-ordered alphabet and he had to blink multiple times to select each letter. The book took about 200,000 blinks to complete and each word took approximately two minutes. Bauby died two days after the book was published in France.

This is no ordinary book - if you want to humble and inspire someone, give them this book.

The Guardian reviews The Long Embrace: Raymond Chandler and the Woman He Loved by Judith Freeman - the latest biography of the noir fiction crime writer.

A new movie set during the time of the collapse of the Western Roman Empire opened this weekend to damning orations from reviewers.  The Last Legion is based on the novel of the same title by Valerio Massimo Manfredi.  Manfredi has seen huge success with his Alexander trilogy and has written numerous historical novels including one called Spartan.  Perhaps it was thought that The Last Legion would draw on Manfredi’s literary popularity and the success of the movies Alexander and Frank Miller’s, The 300. 

Saying that, Alexander and The 300 also met with mixed reviews but did make decent amounts of money at the box office.  (I personally like The 300 but that might have a lot to do with the shirtless Gerard Butler!) Perhaps The Last Legion will experience the same – I have seen comments of praise blogged by Average Joe Public.  Either way, Manfredi’s books seem well worth a read – his Alexander series garnered him the Man of the Year award from the American Biographical Institute in 1999. 

Read the Reuter’s movie review.Read a review of the book The Last Legion.

This Sunday’s New York Times book review takes a look at On The Road: The Original Scroll - the unedited version of this classic book. It’s an interesting review, discussing how the book was edited and altered before finally appearing in 1957.

Dave Itzkoff reviews Four Novels from the 1960s, a Phillip K Dick anthology, in the New York Times’ monthly excursion into science fiction.

Hello Reading Copy readers,

My name is Hillary Samson and I am the new manager of Interactive Marketing at AbeBooks. The IM team gathers and posts the content for the site and is also responsible for email marketing. I have been with AbeBooks for close to 5 years, (which is a long time for an ecommerce company) working in the Bookseller Community for a year and then Product Management for 3 years. I have recently returned to AbeBooks after a one-year maternity leave (little Annie just had her birthday) and love working with the folks in Marketing.

Right now in Interactive Marketing we are working on our textbook and summer reading campaigns. We have some fun contests, so check back over the next couple of weeks to get involved.

Life is always interesting at AbeBooks. This morning we are all excited about The Highfield Mole books posted on our site (see Richard’s post below).

My own reading interests were piqued by a Globe & Mail article about the production of a film based on the novel Blindness by Noble Prize winning author Jose Saramago. It is a Canadian production starring some of my favourite actors including Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo and Sandra Oh. Although I have been aware of this novel for a few years, I have yet to read it. I won’t go see a movie based on a novel until I read the book, so I’ll be picking up one of the 200+ copies on our site and diving in this week.

Happy reading,
Hillary