Citizen Reader

Are blogs over?

Lately I've been hearing from many people whose taste and advice I trust that blogs are somewhat "over."

My question(s) for you are: Are you still reading blogs? If blogs are over, what has taken their place on our wasting-time-on-the-Internet agenda? Shopping? Are you spending more time on Twitter or Tumblr? I only ask because, frankly, other than BBC productions I have already seen and SHOULD NOT BE WATCHING AGAIN on YouTube, I really don't find all that much I have to look at on the Internet, other than the blogs I read and love (and which you can find in my sidebar--pretty much all favorites of mine).

Except for John Green giving a commencement address. I only watched a few minutes, but gosh, John Green is cute. It was worth wasting the time. And I'm so touched he told grads not to worry about their lawns. This makes me feel better, as my front lawn is a wasteland after last year's drought and like-living-on-the-surface-of-the-sun temperatures, and I just can't get myself to worry about it.

History that left me cold.

The Year Without Summer: 1816 and the Volcano That Darkened the World and Changed History
by William K. Klingaman and Nicholas P. Klingaman

There are many shortcomings in my nonfiction reading (and in me personally, frankly!), and one of them is that I don't read enough straightforward history books. For the most part, I like to get my history more contextually--I love it when historical bits come up in investigative writing, for instance, and I really enjoy reading historical biographies. But for some reason I don't often read or love more stereotypical history books.

The latest such history to leave me cold (pun intended) was William K. Klingaman's and Nicholas P. Klingaman's The Year Without Summer: 1816 and the Volcano That Darkened the World and Changed History. I first saw it reviewed over at RickLibrarian, and thought it sounded interesting.

Unfortunately, it was more interesting to read about than it was to read.

This is not to say it was a bad book. The authors actually do quite a good job of putting together a bunch of disparate story lines: in the aftermath of a huge volcanic explosion in Indonesia in 1815, people across the globe had to react to an almost immediate (and quite severe) change in the climate. The authors relate stories of how agriculture in particular was disrupted in Indonesia, the United States, in Switzerland, in Great Britain, and across Europe, and how those climate and agricultural changes affected and shaped culture and historical events. Of course, I found the British and Irish history most interesting--how rising food prices led to riots among workers in Great Britain, in particular--but really, the writing's solid enough.

I'd have to say I skimmed this one more than read it, and I wasn't the only one: Mr. CR reported having the same reaction. For a better review of the book from someone who gave it a closer read than I did, try this one from Maclean's.

*Rick does a much better job than me of reading and describing history books.

Genreflecting 7 is here!

It feels like it's been a long time coming, but the newest (7th) edition of Genreflecting: A Guide to Popular Reading Interests is finally here!

For those of you not familiar with Genreflecting as a reference book, it's the mother volume in the series, including information and title lists for a ton of genres: Historical Fiction, Mystery, Thrillers, Westerns, Romance, Women's Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, Science Fiction, Mainstream Fiction, Christian Fiction, Urban Fiction, Graphic Novels, and...for the first time ever...TA-DA...a chapter on NONFICTION!*

You may wonder what a chapter on nonfiction is doing in a book on genre fictions, but I say, it's about time. If we truly want to consider all the genres or types of books that people read, particularly for recreation, then I think we have to consider nonfiction. I was very honored to ask to be included, and I look forward to using the other chapters to expand my own genre title and author knowledge.

Of particular note in this volume are editor Cindy Orr's** fantastic introductory chapters. She provides information on reading as a social activity, a "toolbox" for expanding your readers' advisory knowledge, solid tips for providing good RA service, and much more. In my favorite segment, she even describes "Difficult Situations, Difficult People," which includes tips on how to help patrons who don't communicate well ("the Clam"); people who are looking for books for someone else ("the Proxy"); picky readers ("the Fuss-Budget"); and my personal favorite, parents who won't let their teens talk with you alone about what they want to read ("the Double Whammy"). And of course, because she's Cindy, she describes all these situations with gentle and understanding humor, and then provides concrete and practical solutions.

It's a gorgeous volume, chock-full of chapters by library staff and experts much more knowledgeable in their genres than I am (although I gave it my best shot, as always). Do check it out.

*Written by yours truly!

**Yes, the same Cindy Orr who edits the Reader's Advisor Online blog (among many other jobs and talents). There's nothing she can't do!

Fiction Interlude: Crocodile on the Sandbank

Crocodile on the Sandbank
by Elizabeth Peters

It seemed only fitting, after posting about mystery author extraordinaire Agatha Christie, that I talk about another mystery that I just read (during my period of floundering to find good nonfiction).

If I'm going to read fiction, largely, I prefer it to be of the mainstream-y, Anne Tyler-ish variety. Not quite literary fiction, but not quite women's fiction a la Jodi Picoult, either. But every now and then I will make forays further afield, into genre, and if I do, that genre tends to be mystery. Although I do not currently work in a library, it's always in the back of my mind that I should develop better knowledge of some genres and their authors, so when I read mysteries, at least I can feel that I am somehow "keeping up with my profession." If that makes any sense.

One author I'd always wanted to try was Elizabeth Peters, best known for her Amelia Peabody mysteries. I read the first one in the series, Crocodile on the Sandbank, which was published in 1975 (while the nineteenth book in the series, Tomb of the Golden Bird, was published in 2006). One lovely thing about any kind of historical fiction is that the publication date doesn't seem to matter as much. Set in the late Victorian period, the book features the feisty heroine Amelia Peabody, who, at 32, is considered to be an old maid--but she doesn't let that stop her, once she inherits her father's fortune, from going off to see the world. She ends up in Egypt, traveling with a new friend, and embroiled in an archaeological mystery (which just happens to include a stubborn bachelor archaeologist--gee, what happens?). I suppose I could describe the plot further, but I don't think the plot is the point, really. If you like feisty heroines, and have any interest whatsoever in Egyptology, then you might enjoy this:

"I was left, then, to be the prop of my father's declining years. As I have said, the life suited me. It allowed me to develop my talents for scholarship. But let not the Gentle Reader suppose that I was ill equipped for the practical necessities of life...

It came as no surprise to anyone to discover that he [the father] had left his property to me, the aforesaid prop, and the only one of his children who had not an income of its own. My brothers accepted this tolerantly, as they had accepted my devoted service to Papa. They did not explode until they learned that the property was not a paltry sum, but a forture of half a million pounds. They had made a common mistake in assuming that an absentminded scholar is necessarily a fool..." (p. 3.)

So yeah, I liked old Amelia. And I enjoyed the book. I don't know that I need to read eighteen more of them, and I don't think she's up to the caliber of Agatha Christie, but you could do a lot worse if you're looking for a historical mystery with an exotic setting and just a dash of romance.

Who doesn't enjoy Dame Agatha Christie?

The Grand Tour: Around the World with the Queen of Mystery
by Agatha Christie

No one, that's who.

Recently I plowed through the travel diary The Grand Tour: Around the World with the Queen of Mystery, in which Christie's grandson Matthew Prichard has gathered together her travel diary entries, letters, photographs, and snippets from her autobiography in order to re-create her 1922 world tour. Then a mother of a young toddler (Rosalind, who stayed home with Christie's mother), Christie and her first husband, Archie Christie, were invited to "join a trade mission to promote the British Empire Exhibition."

Even after reading the book, I'm not really sure what the deal was with the British Empire Exhibition. Don't you just love the early twentieth century? Trade missions! Empire Exhibitions! World's Fairs! Sure they didn't yet have antibiotics, but it sure seemed like people in those times knew how to enjoy themselves.

Anyhoo, the long and short of the matter is that Agatha got to accompany her husband on an around-the-world tour to various locations in the British Empire (South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada among them, with time for a side trip vacation to Hawaii), along with various other British dignitary/bureacrat types, in order to finish planning for the British Empire Exhibition. And the lively accounts she gives of her travels, both in her letters and in her autobiography, should not disappoint fans of Christie's mysteries. In fact, particularly while in Africa, you can see how she was already honing her descriptive style of her surroundings, which is a facet of her mysteries I think I always underestimated. And the chapter on Hawaii, when she's obsessed with surfing? Awesome:

"First you have to recognize the proper wave when it comes, and secondly, even more important, you have to know the wrong wave when it comes, because if that catches you and forces you down to the bottom. Heaven help you!" (p. 266.)

Of course she goes on to describe how she once caught the wrong wave. Scrappy gal.

The pictures of Christie herself are a lot of fun, particularly in her surfing get-ups, but most of the other snapshots are of people (mostly other bureaucrats and ex-pats) she met along the way, and are not that exciting. It's a fun book, if you're looking for something a little different in the travel line. (And if you're looking for something a little different in the review line, consider RickLibrarian's.)

A quick word of thanks.

As we head into another weekend (and I'm so glad that weekend will not include a foot of snow for me, as it already has for my neighbors to the north), I thought I'd take a quick moment to say THANK YOU.

It's now been a little more than six months that I have been an Amazon associate, and a bit more than two and a half years that I have been a Powell's bookstore associate. In that time, many of you have made some of your book and other purchases through this site (my Powell's link is at right and all of the book titles here link there as well; my "Shop Amazon" link is also at the right, as the Amazon graphic which leads you right to them). When you do that, I get a small kickback from your purchases. Your generosity and willingness to stop here first while shopping has made it possible for me to continue hosting on this domain and using the TypePad service, and I really, REALLY appreciate it. Thank you, so much.

That is all. Now go enjoy your weekend, and hopefully it doesn't involve any more winter.

What my book choices say about me I don't know.

I still continue to feel as though I am not finding much reading that is setting me on fire, but as I sat down to consider the nonfiction titles I've read in the past few weeks, I'm seeing a pattern emerge.

First I read Charlie LeDuff's Detroit: An American Autopsy, which was fantastic but not exactly cheerful. Just lately I've also read books titled The Business of Baby: What Doctors Don't Tell You, What Corporations Try to Sell You, and How to Put Your Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Baby Before Their Bottom Line and Down the Up Escalator: How the 99 Percent Live in the Great Recession (reviews to come) both of which were interesting, but again, not exactly light. And then today I stopped by the library and there was only one title waiting for me, which I didn't even remember placing on hold: Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam.*

It was totally inappropriate but I actually laughed when I saw that title, particularly in light of the other downer books I've been reading. It just goes to show that I clearly must be drawn to the dark and the depressing (as I find the majority of my nonfiction, when you get right down to it, simply by trolling the "new nonfiction" lists in my library's catalog, and picking most things based on their titles).

But just now perhaps I could use something a tad less, shall we say, "depressing as hell"? Any suggestions for good, thoughtful** nonfiction that also doesn't make me want to crawl under a rock and cry? Many thanks in advance.

*It looks like a good book, actually, but so help me, I just don't know if I can handle it right now.

**Please nothing that includes the words "inspirational" or "sentimental" on the cover or in reviews. To quote the wonderful author Jim Knipfel: "when I hear the word 'spiritual,' I reach for my revolver."

A dance with Jane Austen.

It is a truth pretty much universally acknowledged that I am a sucker for all things Jane Austen.

A Dance with Jane Austen: How a Novelist and Her Characters Went to the Ball
by Susannah Fullerton

In addition to having read her books, re-watched most film adaptations of her books way more often than is good for me (damn you, YouTube, time-waster extraordinaire), and reading any modern-day adaptations of her novels that I can find, I also pick up any nonfiction titles about her that I see pop up in my local library catalog. My latest such find was Susannah Fullerton's A Dance with Jane Austen: How a Novelist and Her Characters Went to the Ball.

It literally is just that: a book about dancing in Jane Austen's day, with extensive quoting from her novels to see how Austen incorporated balls and dancing into her fiction and plotlines. There is also a ton of good basic historical information, such as which dances were popular when, how people in that era learned dancing, what kind of music was played at balls, and how many different types of balls there were (as well as many more topics). At first I couldn't really get into this book; I just read bits of it here and there, but then over the course of two nights I got really interested and read most of it straight through. I particularly enjoyed the information on how suppers were held along with balls (I never really understood that when reading the books) and the different types of balls that were held and how people got invited to them.

But my very favorite part of the book was learning about Jane Austen's own personal experiences of ball-going and dancing:

"Jane Austen enjoyed these [Assembly] balls so much that she was disappointed if she had to miss one. If she was away from home, then she placed her 'spies' so as to get all the news. Catherine Bigg could be relied on to share gossip about who had danced with whom, who had too much to drink, which lady had opened the dance, and all the other juicy titbits of news the evening could provide." (p. 52.)

I enjoyed picturing ol' Jane dancing and placing her spies. I enjoyed that a lot.

I heart George Saunders.

If you'll remember, I am a huge fan of George Saunders's essays. He's better known for his fiction, but his fiction is often satirical, and I've never really had the intelligence or patience to enjoy satire. (Unless, of course, it's Anthony Trollope.)

Anyway. Saunders was just named one of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People, and he's got a new piece in the Guardian about how he's consciously had to stop blowing so much time on computers, email, and the Internet. I am aware of the irony of posting against wasting time on the Internet, on a blog, but there you have it. Enjoy!

One way out of a reading slump.

Detroit: An American Autopsy
by Charlie Leduff

As the Great Reading Slump of 2013 continues, I find the only thing that pulls me out of it, even temporarily, is to read books on subjects which are fascinating to me. And I don't mean merely "fascinating"--I find a lot of things fascinating, which is why I usually plow through a lot of nonfiction (and fiction) on a lot of different subjects. I mean fascinating in the sense that I literally cannot look away from a book's subject, much like some people cannot look away from car accidents.

This was the case with the last such really fascinating book I read, David Quammen's Spillover. Learning about viruses and pandemics and monkeys and bats was really, really fascinating. And it happened again last week when I read Charlie LeDuff's new book Detroit: An American Autopsy.

Geographically, I am not all that far from Detroit. But sociologically, I just cannot wrap my mind around Detroit. I read every book I can find on the subject, and for the most part I have found them all unputdownable. So you're telling me there's this huge American city where grass and wildlife are just taking back whole blocks? There's this huge formerly industrial powerhouse where factories have just been left to stand rot, some for fifty years or more? And 700,000 people still live in the middle of all of that? How is it possible?

There must also be something about having Detroit as a hometown that really affects you, because LeDuff is a Detroit native who, after a very successful stint working for the New York Times, returned to the city with his wife and daughter to work for the failing Detroit News. This book, in addition to being a somewhat personal investigation of the city (where much of his family still lives), is primarily a collection of stories that he first told as newspaper articles--the dead man frozen in several feet of ice in the bottom of an elevator shaft in an abandoned building; numerous run-ins with the city's corrupt politicians, including mayor Kwame Kilpatrick; city police detectives and firefighters who keep going to work in hopeless situations; and relentless crime and poverty of all types. It's a lot to take in...and yet, once you start reading, you can't stop. Mr. CR blew through it in a couple of nights, and I did the same over the following week.

LeDuff is not a particularly subtle author, but there is something forthright about him and his writing that I enjoy. I also really enjoyed his personal take on the subject, as in an early chapter when he talks about his generation's parents working in factories, and how his generation thought they could make a quicker buck somewhere else (while still thinking, in the backs of their minds, the factories would always be there for them): 

"Still, we had all gotten a taste of it, summer jobs sweeping the floor or working the press. It was horrible. The yellow lights, the stink of grease and oil and acid. The unblinking time clock. You walked in the door and the first thing you're trying to figure out is how to get out. If you don't know that about factory work, you don't know anything.

What our generation failed to learn was the nobility of work. An honest day's labor...Instead of working, we figured we could be hustlers and salesmen and gamblers and partiers. Work was for suckers. If anybody had told us such a thing existed, we probably would have tried to become New York bankers and stockbrokers. And I have no doubt we would have been good at it too." (p. 33.)

And what I love about this book is that you can see the honesty of what he's saying, particularly because he himself does seem like a hustler. At several points in the book he references particular news stories he was tracking as ones that would be good to move copies of the sluggishly selling newspaper for which he worked (which strikes me as a bit of a hustling viewpoint). He seems to move through the city like that, hustling a bit here for access and interviews, getting hustled a little bit there by his interview subjects. It's genius. You'll just have to read it to see what I mean.

I thought it was a great book. I was excited earlier this spring when I saw it was coming out, and, rarity of rarities, I was not disappointed. I'd particularly love to see people use it for reading and book groups--there wasn't a single chapter that Mr. CR and I didn't bring up when we discussed it: "Could you believe that part? What about this part?" I love it when a book does that to you.