Books Bought May

Well here's something you don't see every month: No (That's one zero.) books purchased in the month of May. Not one. Zip. Nada. Don't ask me why. Don't ask me how. It just happened. I think Cindy is popping a champagne cork...

But I did trade for three new books at the used bookstore. So here they are:



Making Movies (NF 1995) - Sidney Lumet

I haven't seen all of Lumet's films, but the ones I have are stellar. Anytime I can read something by someone who's very successful, particularly someone who's been successful for as long as Lumet has, I'm all over it.



Hide and Seek (1990) - Ian Rankin

The second book in the Inspector Rebus series set in Scotland.



Nosferatu in Love (1998) - Jim Shepard

Hard-to-find novel by one of my favorite short story writers, Jim Shepard. A fictional account of the life of the German film-maker, F.W. Murnau, director of the silent classic Nosferatu.

Total Expenditures for May = $0

The Great Short-Story Collection Purge, Part 3

Collected Stories - Saul Bellow

I read the first story in this collection, "By the St. Lawrence," and am not sure at what point my mouth dropped open. It's a story of a man very near the end of his life as he reflects on his family and the things that he thought were important. Plot-wise not a lot happens, but the way Bellow paints this character as so out-of-time and out-of-place is amazing. I'm astonished at his sentence structure, his pacing, just about everything. And this was originally an unpublished story.

The Verdict = Keep It.

The Great Short-Story Collection Purge, Part 2

Where You'll Find Me and Other Stories (1986) - Ann Beattie

I'm not sure if all the stories in this collection (or in Beattie's work as a whole) center around middle-class suburbanites trying to find normalcy in a world full of pain and disappointment (or maybe disillusionment), but these first two stories, "In the White Night" and "Snow" certainly do. Both stories (both well-written) originally appeared in 1983, which seems a lifetime ago, and while a bit dated, are still effective.

The Verdict = I'll keep it, but will probably pass it on when I'm finished.

The Great Short-Story Collection Purge, Part 1

Sixty Stories - Donald Barthelme

I started my Great Short-Story Collection Purge (see yesterday's entry) with Barthelme, reading the first two stories, "Margins" and "A Shower of Gold." Unusual. Wacky. Funny. Twisted. I have a feeling that no two of these sixty stories are alike, but are all quirky, humorous snapshots of the culture. This from the back of the cover wrap:

With these audacious and murderously witty stories, Donald Barthelme threw the preoccupations of our time into the literary equivalent of a Cuisinart and served up a gorgeous salad of American culture, high and low. Here are urban upheavals reimagined as frontier myth; travelogues through countries that might have been created by Kafka; cryptic dialogues that bore down to the bedrock of our longings, dreams, and angsts. Like all of Donald Barthelme's work, the sixty stories collected in this volume are triumphs of language and perception, at once unsettling and irresistible.

And then some.

The Verdict = Keep it.

Collection Mania

Okay, it's seriously time to do something. My short story collections are out of control. Last night I went through my books picking only the collections that I have read nothing from. I only made it from A to C. Here are the collections I own, collections I haven't read a single story from:

60 Stories - Donald Barthelme

Where You'll Find Me - Ann Beattie

Collected Stories - Saul Bellow

Virtual Unrealities - Alfred Bester

Greetings - Terry Bisson

Best Ghost Stories - Algernon Blackwood

In for a Penny - James Blaylock

From These Ashes - Fredric Brown

Patterns - Pat Cadigan

Ghosts of Yesterday - Jack Cady

Where I'm Calling From - Raymond Carver

Werewolves in Their Youth - Michael Chabon

Fancies and Goodnights - John Collier

The Haunted Hotel and Other Stories - Wilkie Collins


Now granted, I didn't spend a lot for most of these books. Most of them were thrift store finds or library discards. Still, that's a lot of unread stuff sitting on the shelves.

So here's my project: I'll read at least the first story from each collection (probably the first two) and decide if it's something I want to keep. It seems most collections begin with the strongest story, so that seems a safe bet. I hate to see what D to Z looks like....

How Does It Feel?

That's right, it's Bob Dylan's birthday today. Believe it or not, he's made it to age 68, which means he's been in the public eye for close to 50 years since the release of his first album Bob Dylan in 1962. Just last month, Bob released his 46th album, Together Through Life.

I've seen Dylan live six times and while I don't own every album (some of them you don't want to own), I've got quite a few, plus several books on Bob and his music. I've been a fan for, oh, about 30 years. But I really don't know that much about him. Probably few do. And I think that's the way Bob likes it. Happy Birthday, Bob!

I Blame Terry Gross

I'm crazy about Terry Gross and her show Fresh Air on NPR. Yesterday I heard her talking to John Doe about his new album with The Sadies called Country Club. Previously I knew nothing about John Doe or The Sadies, but after Gross played a couple of cuts from the album, I knew I wanted to hear more. So I used part of my birthday credit on iTunes and got it.

Here's a conversation stopper: When people ask if you like Country Music, tell 'em, "Yeah, I like anything before 1970." (It's like telling anyone north of the Mason-Dixon line that you're from Mississippi. Silence reigns.) I really do like "classic" country and with Country Club, Doe and The Sadies pay homage to that era. Most of these songs are covers, but with a contemporary feel. I know that's no real description, but I've only listened to the album once thus far, so you'll either have to take my word for it or buy it yourself.

These songs, unlike most country I hear today, are brutally honest. They aren't cute, they're about bad things happening to bad people and bad things happening to good people. Many of these songs are songs you've heard before: "I Still Miss Someone," "Take These Chains from My Heart," "Detroit City," "Help Me Make It Through the Night" and others. Normally when I hear a cover, it makes me want to forget the current incarnation and pick up the original. That's not happening here. As I said, there's an obvious homage to the original, but also an exploration into something new. Definitely worth your time, especially if you're fed up with current "country" music.

So Terry Gross has done it to me again....

Sometimes Things Get Put on Hold

I had to put Adler's How to Read a Book (which I read years ago) down in favor of a book I traded for at the used bookstore yesterday, Sidney Lumet's Making Movies. Lumet is one of my favorite film directors, responsible for such classics as 12 Angry Men, Dog Day Afternoon, Network, The Verdict and many others. Anytime I can read something by someone successful whom I really admire, I'll drop everything to read it. Such is the case here. I brought it home from the bookstore and before I knew what was happening, 50 pages had gone by. There are plenty of other books I need to finish soon, but I'm afraid that Lumet will receive all of my attention until I've turned the last page.

So what types of books immediately get moved to the top of your reading stacks?

The Problem with Audiobooks

Although I've still got Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children under "Listening To," I had to give up listening to it. Maybe I'll come back to it someday. I think this is one case in which it would be better to read the book than listen to it. The novel is widely recognized as a modern masterpiece, yet it difficult to listen to commuting to and from work. It's a complex novel that requires your full concentration and schlepping up and down I-97 just isn't going to cut it.

My current audiobook in the car, The Turn of the Screw, is much shorter and easier to focus on. (Plus I've read it before.) Although narrator Flo Gibson's voice irritates me to no end, I think I can endure it. But I'd rather just re-read the book.

I'm finding that the only audiobooks I can really listen to while commuting or running are non-fiction or fiction for kids or young adults. This morning I started reading Bleak House by Charles Dickens. There's no way I could pick up all the subtleties of the novel in an audiobook. For one thing, I often go back and re-read several sentences to see just what and how Dickens crafts his story, paints his pictures. You just can't do that with an audiobook. (I guess you can, but it's not recommended while driving or running.)

So for now it seems my audiobook experiences will consist of J-Fiction, YA or non-fiction. At least until I become a more proficient listener...

The Grifters (1963) - Jim Thompson

On the surface, The Grifters (1963) is a crime novel about a young con-man named Roy, his mother Lilly (also a con artist), his lover Moira (who cons in her own way) and a nurse named Carol. All of them are victims, all of them are guilty of something, all of them are caught up in relationships that have the potential of ending very, very badly.

Below the surface, Thompson (1906-1977) delves deep into twisted family relationships (with a bit of Oedipus thrown in), the hunger for redemption, the inevitability of crime begetting crime, and the consequences of actions born both of greed and survival, which often seem inseparable.

As the novel opens, Roy is suffering internal bleeding, the result of a small con gone wrong when the mark discovers Roy’s game and hits him in the gut with a baseball bat. We get the sense that Roy isn’t very good at what he does, but he really is. His mother is better, however, operating a much bigger, longer-running con on her boss. If he ever finds out what she’s up to, Lilly is going to have a very unpleasant life, what little she survives to tell anyone about.

The exploration of the mother/son dynamic alone is worth the price of the book. Is Lilly a completely amoral character with no feelings for her son? Does Roy have any shot at redemption from a life of small-time cons? Their scenes together are filled with tension, electricity and depth, with the potential for destruction always lurking beneath the surface of every conversation.

Jim Thompson did not write about nice people. Thompson’s world, like ours, is a fallen one, full of con artists, greed, murder and perversity. But he knew his characters, knew their motivations and desires. I’m not sure if Thompson expects us to gain a sort of Greek tragedy type of pleasure from all this, thanking God that we’re not like these characters, but maybe that’s indeed his point.

A lot of times people ask me how I can read such things as a Christian, how I can look at the ugliness in the world and say that I am “entertained” by such works. I suppose one reason is that I’ve always been fascinated by the criminal mind (not that I plan to incorporate one). Why would anyone in their right mind (and perhaps that’s the key) live a life of crime? Environment? Upbringing? Survival?

Another reason is I think I’m always looking for what Flannery O’Connor calls “moments of grace.” In a collection of lectures and essays entitled Mystery and Manners, O’Connor states:

...I have found that violence is strangely capable of returning my characters to reality and preparing them to accept their moment of grace. Their heads are so hard that almost nothing else will do the work. This idea, that reality is something to which we must be returned at considerable cost, is one which is seldom understood by the casual reader, but it is one which is implicit in the Christian view of the world. (p. 112)

There are several moments of grace (or potential ones) in The Grifters, moments that lift the novel from typical genre fare to something greater, something that makes you stop and examine those moments that are important and pivotal, moments that must be confronted, moments that scream out that something important is at stake and you’d better pay attention.

Books Read April

Not a bad month of reading. A few disappointments, a few surprises. Here we go.....


Ubik (1969) - Philip K. Dick

This is the book I most want to re-read from this month's list. Trying to describe it would be an exercise in futility, but if you've read Philip K. Dick, you know what you're getting into: an examination of what is or isn't reality, confused perceptions, drugs and more. Ubik can be confusing, thus demanding (at least) a second read.


Hooked: New Science on How Casual Sex is Affecting Our Children (NF 2008) - Joe S. McIlhaney, Jr., MD and Freda McKissic Bush, MD

A fascinating look at new scientific evidence of what happens in the brain during and after sex. It seems that pregnancy and STDs aren't the only dangers involved in casual sex. A short book, a bit on the technical side, but fascinating.


Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters (2008) - John Langan

Langan likes his stories long (only five stories in the entire collection) and often in the "Old School" M.R. James vein. I was captivated by the first two stories (which are somewhat in homage to James), but not as taken with the remaining ones. Still a very good collection.


The Manual of Detection (2009) - Jedediah Berry

I think this one deserves another shot. I listened to it on audio, which in this case, may be a mistake. I'll bet I listened to the first couple of chapters at least four times, trying to decide whether the novel was a hard-boiled detective story, a spoof, a pastiche, an allegory... Plenty of people I highly respect seem to really like it, so I probably should give it another shot. In print.


Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else (NF 2008) - Colvin Geoff

Something of a companion piece to Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers, but going into more depth. Geoff takes more of a business slant than Gladwell, but offers some fascinating food for thought in the study of just what makes people successful.


Castle (2009) - J. Robert Lennon

The most powerful book I read in April. Since reading it, I've seen many negative reviews. Ignore them. Eric Loesch buys a large piece of land in his upper New York state hometown. He wonders if the locals remember him, as their welcomes seem not-so-welcome. Loesch discovers one small part of his land that is actually owned by someone else, yet the owner's name is blackened out on all the legal documents. An extremely potent look at power, memory, culture and the 21st century world we live in. Highly recommended.


Feathers (J-Fic 2007) - Jacqueline Woodson

Although I really enjoyed hearing Woodson speak (and read from this book) at a recent library conference, Feathers never quite came together into a coherent whole for me.


Knots and Crosses (1987) - Ian Rankin

My first experience with Rankin and his Scottish detective John Rebus. Good, solid (if somewhat dark) detective fiction.


My Teacher is an Alien (J-Fic 1989) - Bruce Coville

I know, I said I was going to lay off J and Y fiction for awhile and here I am with two of them in one month. But I'll justify it by stating that I'm always looking for good reluctant reader books for boys and this one will probably satisfy most 8-12-year-old guys.


An Open Book: Coming of Age in the Heartland (NF 2003) - Michael Dirda

I love anything by Dirda and this autobiography with books was both highly readable and highly entertaining. Any booklover will enjoy it.

April Books Bought

No two ways about it: April was Book Insanity Month. Good gracious, look at all the books I bought. I blame one of the usual suspects, Daedalus Books and a new tempter, Re-Reads, the new used bookstore in Crofton. Of course here I am writing with over 48 hours left in the month! Who knows what might happen? So now, before I get even more out of control....

APRIL BOOKS BOUGHT

(For some reason, the images are not uploading. Use your imagination.)

McTeague (1899) - Frank Norris

I've wanted to read this ever since I saw the silent classic Greed (based on the novel) many years ago. I finally found it at a good price.
Trade Paperback; Price = $1.00

Always Looking Up (NF 2009) - Michael J. Fox

I bought Michael J. Fox's memoir of his battle with Parkinson's Disease for my mom, who also struggles with PD.
Hardcover; Price = $15.49

Speak, Memory (NF 1951) - Vladimir Nabokov

Any look into the mind of a writer of Nabokov's stature is certainly worth this price.
Trade Paperback; Price = $4.00

Ghost Story (1979) - Peter Straub

Can you believe I've never read it? Now I have no excuse.
Mass Market Paperback; Price = $2.00

The Short Stories - Ernest Hemingway

Okay, I had a big, bulky hardcover edition of this that's just...well, too big and bulky. This trade paperback is much easier to deal with (and probably easier to make pencil notes in the margins).
Trade Paperback; Price = $5.98

The Ethics of Star Trek (NF 2000) - Judith Barad, Ph.D. and Ed Robertson

Okay, go ahead and laugh. But I've heard lots of good things about this from people who are not only into Trek, but also philosophy and theology. (So there!)
Trade Paperback; Price = $4.98

The Yiddish Policemen's Union (2007) - Michael Chabon

I thought this novel was absolutely brilliant when I read it two years ago. I just didn't own it. Until now.
Trade Paperback; Price = $1.00

Garnethill (1998) - Denise Mina

This Scottish crime novel has been praised for years. Thought I'd finally try it.
Trade Paperback; Price = $4.50

The Long Goodbye (1953) - Raymond Chandler

This guy's the master. I'm always in awe of Chandler.
Trade Paperback; Price = $3.98

Martha Peake (2000) - Patrick McGrath

I was actually looking for McGrath's Dr. Haggard's Disease, but couldn't find it. I settled for this novel of the American Revolution because it looked intriguing and is signed by the author.
Trade Paperback; Price = $4.98

The Woman in the Dunes (1964) - Kobo Abe

I loved the film version of this novel. I also remembered that my good friend and Clarion alum. Rebecca Rowe is a big fan of Abe.
Trade Paperback; Price = $4.98

Mothers & Other Monsters: Stories (2005) - Maureen F. McHugh

What I'm sure is another stellar collection from Small Beer Press.
Trade Paperback; Price = $3.98

The Grifters (1963) - Jim Thompson

Gritty. Brutal. Depressing. Gotta love Jim Thompson.
Trade Paperback; Price = $3.50

Love and Hydrogen: New and Selected Stories (2003) - Jim Shepard

I was crazy about Shepard's last collection Like You'd Understand, Anyway, so I knew this would be money well spent.
Trade Paperback; Price = $4.00

Fire, Burn! (1957) - John Dickson Carr

Highly recommended by my friend and former co-worker T.
Mass Market Paperback; Price = $2.00

The Writing Life: Writers on How They Think and Work (NF 2003) - Marie Arana, ed.

I stood around a thrift store deciding whether or not I needed another book on the writing life. Now you know what I decided.
Trade Paperback; Price = $1.41

I think that's gonna do it for April. I sure hope so.

Total Book Expenditures for April = $67.78

Flannery O'Connor, Writing and Running

I've been marveling at Flannery O'Connor's collection of essays/lectures Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose. Marveling and tearing my hair out, that is.

Here's a quote from one of O'Connor's essays on her own work:

I often ask myself what makes a story work, and what makes it hold up as a story, and I have decided that it is probably some action, some gesture of a character that is unlike any other in the story, one which indicates where the real heart of the story lies. This would have to be an action or a gesture which was both totally right and totally unexpected; it would have to be one that was both in character and beyond character; it would have to suggest both the world and eternity. The action or gesture I'm talking about would have to be on the anagogical level, that is, the level which has to do with the Divine life and our participation in it. It would be a gesture that transcended any neat allegory that might have been intended or any pat moral categories a reader could make. It would be a gesture which somehow made contact with mystery.

O'Connor goes on to show where such a gesture occurs in "A Good Man is Hard to Find," when the Grandmother faces the Misfit near the end of the story. What she says and does is the story. Without it, you have no story.

Maybe that's why it's taking me so long to finish the two short stories I'm currently working on. Either I don't know where the real heart of the stories lie or I don't know how to show it. I suspect the first problem with both stories, but even when I figure that out, I'm not sure how to conquer the second problem. Frustrating. But I believe O'Connor is right.

Last week's writing total was not huge, 12 hours. This week will be far less, mostly because of the problems mentioned above. But you keep on plugging away. (Some John Gardner exercises are helping me produce some pretty good potential first drafts.)

But I must say my running is going well. 10 miles yesterday on the B&A Trail. Not fast, not pretty, but 10 miles is 10 miles. My goal for next week is 11 miles. And to finish at least one of the two stories.

Yea! There's a New Bookstore in Town!

Cindy and I were over at Rita's Italian Ice (where they were once again out of my favorite flavor, strawberry) last night when I saw my two favorite words on a nearby sign: Used Books.

We soon discovered Re-Reads: A Used Bookstore at 2133 Defense Hwy, Suite 4, in Crofton, MD. It's a great looking place, filled with floor-to-(almost) ceiling bookshelves, but these are nice bookshelves, not the typical used-bookstore ratty-looking units that look like high school wood shop rejects. And the books themselves were the best looking used books I'd ever seen. The guy running the place must have extremely high standards. None of the books I saw had wrinkled spines. None. Every book looked as if it had been handled maybe once or twice. Only when I pulled down a couple did I see any signs of edge wear, and even then not much.

All of the mass market paperbacks went for $2, but again, they all looked pristine. I bought one trade paperback (Jim Thompson's The Grifters) for $3.50, a couple of others for $4 and one for $5.

The guy behind the counter (also the owner) said he's been there since December. I never knew it, but then again I hardly ever go on that side of town. I really hope this store makes it. If you're in the neighborhood, drop in.

(The store's bookmarks carry this quote from Andrew Ross: "The smallest bookstore still contains more ideas of worth than have been presented in the entire history of television.")

The 400 Words

Lately I've been working on studying stories I admire, trying to determine what each sentence does. Good sentences do more than one thing, which is always a goal of mine, so seeing how other writers are able to pull that off helps me tremendously. After working on that exercise, I'm trying to determine what my sentences do. Sometimes it seems like they just sit there, which is not a good thing. This morning I spent about an hour and a half working on just a few paragraphs (about 400 words) of a story, determining exactly how each sentence functions, why it's there, if it's in the wrong place or shouldn't be there at all. I found that several sentences either served no purpose or basically reiterated the previous sentence. Yeah, I spent an hour and a half on 400 words, but I feel that those 400 words are pretty good now.

Repentance (1984)

Georgian director Tengiz Abuladze's film Repentance is one of the most amazing, fascinating and disturbing films I've seen in years. (I have to give credit to Cindy for discovering it, mentioned in a book by Philip Yancey.) I'm sending it back to Netflix today, wishing I didn't have to.

After burying his father (the former mayor of a small Georgian town), Abel Aravidze settles into his large estate for what he hopes will be a night of much needed rest. It is far from restful. Aravidze awakens to his wife's screams. She's looking at something outside their bedroom window. That something is Aravidze's father's corpse, leaning against a tree.

The man is reburied. The next day, he's back again. And buried again. And back again.

The situation would almost seem comic, yet we know it's not. Mostly from flashbacks, we learn that Aravidze's father was not only the mayor of their small town, he was a tyrannical mayor, for all practical purposes a ruthless dictator. And someone refuses to let the man's earthly remains rest even for one night.

I won't tell you any more of the plot; you'll have to see it for yourself. What I will tell you is to expect a challenging, thought-provoking and utterly unique film experience with Repentance. Director Abuladze uses many surreal touches, non-linear storytelling and black humor in telling this amazing story. The film was apparently banned in the Soviet Union for three years, first appearing at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival, where it unanimously won the Grand Prize of the Jury. Rightfully so. Repentance is a film not to be missed.

Another Job-Related Distraction

One of the best (and somewhat dangerous) aspects of working at the library is in seeing what's new. I was checking in new books on Saturday when I noticed J. Robert Lennon's new novel Castle. I'd read someone's blog about this book, but can't for the life of me remember where. I read the jacket flap and decided that I'd have to put John Crowley's Four Freedoms (good as it is) on hold for a few days.

Eric Loesch, a man in his 50s, returns to the upstate New York town he grew up in and buys some land. Quite a bit of land - over 600 acres. He hasn't been home in quite awhile, so many of the locals don't recognize him. Very soon you start getting a weird feeling, almost one of foreboding. Something's going to happen, but you're not sure what. Nothing overtly weird is going on, but a few things that are mildly unsettling.

Then Loesch discovers something odd. There's a small parcel of land in the middle of his woods that belongs to someone else. The problem is that in all of the legal papers concerning that plot of land, the owner's name has been blackened out.

I'm only about 45 pages into Castle, but it's creeping me out in a very subtle way. I've never read J. Robert Lennon before, so I hope this is an author I can return to. I'll keep you posted.

Enough Already! Gimme Grown-Up Fiction!

Okay, I love YA fiction, but after preparing for Great Books (for kids) for the past eight weeks or so, I need some adult fiction. The problem (as always) is What's Next?





There's always the Best American series, which you can chip away at here and there. (I'm already a few stories into the mystery volume.) Always a good choice.



Then there's Roberto Bolano's final doorstopper of a novel weighing in at nearly 3 pounds. I've been wanting to read this one for awhile (and I finally own it - thanks again, Heather!), but just don't know if I'm in the mood for a long haul right now.



The same can be said for Mr. Dickens.



And I've heard nothing but great things about Guy Gavriel Kay's World Fantasy Award winner Ysabel, which continues to call out to me.



My good friend Joy loaned me this collection of stories set in Africa after Cindy and I watched Hotel Rwanda with Joy and her husband, so this one's calling to me as well.



And then here's an advance reader's copy of John Crowley's new novel that came in the mail the other day. (I'd completely forgotten I'd requested it. Oops.)

Decisions, decisions....

Books Read March

Me, the Missing and the Dead (YA 2008) - Jenny Valentine




The Adoration of Jenna Fox (YA 2008) - Mary E. Pearson




The Little Sleep (2009) - Paul Tremblay



Faceless Killers (1991/2003) - Henning Mankell



Outliers: The Story of Success (NF 2008) - Malcolm Gladwell



The Castle (1922) - Franz Kafka



Francis Schaeffer: An Authentic Life (NF 2008) - Colin Duriez



The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment (NF 2007) - Tim Challies



Newes from the Dead (YA 2008) - Mary Hooper



Snow Falling in Spring: Coming of Age in China During the Cultural Revolution (YA NF 2008) - Moying Li



No Choirboy: Murder, Violence, and Teenagers on Death Row (YA NF 2008) - Susan Kuklin

Coming Soon to a Bookstore Near You...Or Maybe Not...

Just a few days ago someone placed three catalogs on my desk, catalogs from small press publishers. I didn't know if someone wanted me to order some of these books or just have a laugh. But I thought some of them were.... well, different.



I'm really interested in the over 100 ways my horse and I can save the planet. I wonder if Mr. Ed did his part back in the day? "Hey Willllllbur! Don't dump that toxic waste in the back yard!!!"



No, this is not the French translation of William P. Young's The Shack. But I wonder how many people might think it is? C'est dommage.



I don't know if they come from the same guy that produced this book Little People in the City, but Jeffrey Ford sometimes has similar interesting miniature figures on his blog 14theditch. This book actually looks pretty fun.



I just love this cover....



At first I thought Within These Walls: Memoirs of a Death House Chaplain smacked of exploitation, but after reading the Amazon blurbs, it might be a pretty interesting look at capital punishment. This must be a re-issue since the Amazon publication date is 2003 and used copies start at $49.96.

Great Books Celebration 2009

I certainly enjoyed my first Great Books (for kids) Celebration yesterday in Baltimore County. It was a well-organized, well-run event that in my mind went off without a hitch. The event was my first Great Books, but from what one of the introductory speakers said, it may be the last Great Books Celebration, at least of this magnitude. I hope not. That would be a real shame. I told another librarian from my system that even if we only have half a dozen people sitting at a picnic table next year, we should still try to have some type of Great Books discussion. We shall see.

Anyway, Great Books is a two-day event (You only attend one day. The second day is the same as the first, only with different participants.) that allows librarians to discuss the best children's books published during the past year. Three committees read at least 100 books in each of the following categories: Picture Books, J-Books (fiction and NF) and Teen Books (fiction and NF). From that list, they narrow it down to several categories of four books each (five books each in the Picture Book category). You sign up for three groups/categories, which you can mix or match.

I chose all Teen Books, which meant I had to read twelve YA books. So you have two sessions, followed by lunch and a guest speaker (in this case children's author Jacqueline Woodson, who was excellent), followed by the third and final session.

The sessions I signed up for consisted of anywhere from six to eight people with two facilitators who were on the committee for that category. The first group was full of lively discussions of the "Survival" books: The Hunger Games, No Choirboy, Living Dead Girl and The Adoration of Jenna Fox. Some great discussions here, especially with Living Dead Girl, the most controversial book of the lot. The conversations were so interesting, I could easily have stayed in that group for another hour.

The second group - the Dead group (Generation Dead, Newes from the Dead, Me, the Missing and the Dead and Deadville) - was not nearly as lively (maybe because they were dead books? :), but there were still some good discussions. I sat next to a guy from one of the Enoch Pratt branches that had some really great comments, but I think the lady next to me was comatose.

The final group - the Freedom group (Sunrise over Fallujah, Snow Falling in Spring, Little Brother and Bog Child) - must've felt like pulling teeth for the facilitators. I definitely did most of the talking to start things off. Nobody else would! I wonder if many of them either didn't read the books or didn't get much out of them. So I talked a lot. Hey, I got my money's worth. If you're going to have a book discussion and want people to talk, I'm your man. Otherwise why would you come? (Don't get me started....)

The verdict? A very enjoyable day, well worth the money. Will they have Great Books again in some format? I sure hope so. If not, you're all invited to my house for a discussion of the best books from 2009 next March.