libraries

The Truths of Fiction

April 6, 2012 by rurugby 1 Comment

I used to be someone that read a lot more non-fiction then fiction. Like someone I know at work, I tried to read more literature and what was good for me. I think I did this in my 20s to some extent.

It’s funny though, I really grew up just reading what was around, which was a ton of books in my house, many of which were excellent. Grew up with parents who LOVED books, which is a gift to any child.

But, I have been realizing more and more that there are truths in fiction. You are able to reach depths, try ideas of the future, talk about loss, love, etc. far easier in fiction then truth.

In non-fiction you can be bound to footnotes, research, style of your field (ie History, Philosophy, Literary Criticism, Biography, Sociology, etc.) And sometimes ideas that are best in a 10-20 page article become rather boring 500 page books. Francis Fukuyama’s “The End of History” is a brilliant “Foreign Affairs” article but a boring book, for example.

In fiction, your characters can go as far as your imagination. Limitless places, new worlds, new futures. If David Simpson wants to create a Post-Humanity that has robots that make humans, super human, why not? If Colleen Hoover wants to create an amazing if problematic romance in “Slammed” she can. If Hugh Howey’s wants to have dystopian world in a silo in the “Wool Omnibus” he can. If Mark Twain wants to explore racism on the Mississippi River he can in “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” Fiction is limitless, which gives it a truth fiction can’t match.

From the muckracking of Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle”, to tales of class in “The Great Gatsby”, seeing the world from a teenager that everyone is phony in “Catcher in the Rye”, and the racism of the South in “To Kill a Mockingbird; fiction can take you anywhere. So I challenge those who don’t think the need to read fiction to look again and see the wonder.

Books this week:

Finished: The Sons of Liberty (Vol. 1) ***1/2 (yesterday’s post.)

Signal to Noise: Story: Neil Gaiman, Artwork and Design: Dave McKean: Very cool, very surreal graphic novel. Definitely has the noise of an artist seeing the end of life. Trippy and fun. *** (4 GR/Minerva)

The Sons of Liberty by Felix Sutton: Well done juvenile history, got it because had same name as the Lagos Brothers graphic novel. **1/2 (3 GR/Minerva)

What Work Is by Philip Levine: Excellent poetry of working class America. Really enjoyed this and planning to pass it around the Portland poetry community. May have less ownership since was part of a $3 bag of books at the Walker Library sale. ***1/2 (4 GR)

Who You Are by Nancy Henry: Featured in last week’s #FridayReads column, brave book about those thrown out by society. Excellent. **** (5 GR/Minerva)

Wool 3 by Hugh Howey: Slowed down and left this back on my Kindle and then rushed through it again in a few days. Beautiful, heartbreaking end. In Wool 4 now. One of the best science fiction series I have ever read. **** (5 GR) (Kindle)

Checked out this week:

Duncan the Wonder Dog by Adam Hines: Seth Hahne of the “Good Ok Bad” Graphic Novel rating site has this as his all time favorite graphic novel. Fascinating stuff. Just scratched the surface. pg 58 of 390 (Minerva/Lithgow PL)

Daytripper by Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba: Seth Hahne’s #2 Graphic Novel of all time. Went to Minerva site while looking at Hahne’s blog. (Minerva/ Lewiston Library)

Diving Into the Wreck: Poems 1971-1972: Got with Adrienne Rich’s death. Solid, but not hitting my soul. *** (3 GR) pg 20 of 62. (Walker/Still reserved through Minerva, since only 1 copy)

The Sons of Liberty #1 (discussed earlier). (Minerva/Gardiner PL)

Jimmy Corrigan or The Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware: Keep hearing this is Ware’s fundamental book. Since I did a whole blogpost on him, I guess I should read it. (Minerva/Rice PL) Just started.

Books purchased:

Bringing Down the House by Ben Mezrich: I really enjoyed Mezrich’s “Sex on the Moon” and curious about this tale of MIT math geeks and blackjack. A book that was on my list.

The Paris Review: Beat Writers at Work (ed. George Plimpton): Interviews, articles with the beats from the Paris Review. The Beats is one of my favorite literary periods. Looking forward to geeking out.

And for a third time: The Sons of Liberty #1 by the Lagos Brothers. This may earn a fifth Goodreads star yet.

Books reading:

Readings for Remembrance: A Collection for Funerals and Memorial Services selected by Eleanor Munro: Got this while Walter was sick. Not bad, would like to like more. Not grabbing me. Too scattered. **1/2 (3 GR)

Words I Wish I Wrote by Garrison Keillor: Been going through this a little at time. Nice little book. Will have to finish it before Wednesday. May read some this weekend. pg 92 of 221. *** (4 GR)

Quiet by Susan Cain: Enjoying this, slower read. Due back Wednesday as well. Unlikely to be renewable since it is new and in demand. pg. 162 of 270. Finding this really interesting. May need to do a lot of reading on Sunday before the Haiku slam. ***1/2 (4 GR)

And Kindle Updates:

Seems like sometimes my Kindle books I read a little at a time at work. Reading some great stuff right now.

Wool 4 by Hugh Howey: Fascinating book, the world keeps getting richer. Really, really curious where this is going. **** (5 GR) (approx 50% — reading with Wool Omnibus, better text size then for Wool 4).

Devil in the Kitchen by Marco Pierre White: Fascinating tales of becoming a chef in London. One of Anthony Bourdain’s heroes. ***1/2 (4 GR) (31%)

The Mind Tree by Tito Mukhopadhyay: Disbelieving these stories could be written by any 8 or 11 year old child, let alone written by a non-speaking autistic child. Reminds me a lot of one of my favorite books “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.” Gives me an idea of how it be to be autistic. Think of how hard some new things can be for you and make that ANY change in your life. This book may make a blog post. Heck this short review is already longer than some of my blog posts. (12%) **** (yes, already) (5 GR)

The City Game: Basketball from the Garden to the Playgrounds by Pete Axthelm: Very cool book that compares the tales of the legendary 1971-72 Knicks team to the playground heroes of NYC. Pretty cool, think will chip at for a while. *** (3 GR)

That’s almost 1100 words for the night, and over 2,000 including tomorrow’s post I have written since I have been home. I love writing these. I hope you like reading them. It’s my favorite post of the week.

Edmund

I love public libraries

February 1, 2012 by rurugby Leave a Comment

I just want to say I love public libraries.

Books are amazing, as our librarians who can recommend books and help you find things in the library or online.

I love that I can use Minerva to find books all over the state.

I love I can find graphic novels there.

I love giving out comic books, and hoping the kids who take them like them.

I love finding new fiction.

I love talking to the librarians.

Libraries make me happy.

And if you haven’t been to one in a while come back, they miss you. And if you ask you can get a library card, and some amazing books, or CDs, or audiobooks or DVDs. And if you don’t see what you are looking for just ask and use those magicians of information, librarians.

BOTW: Pyongyang

January 20, 2012 by rurugby 1 Comment

It’s Friday.

Time for my list of books I have been reading. My Goodreads/FridayReads post.

Books Checked out: (less this week)

Just 2 graphic novels.

1st is “The Professor’s Daughter” by Joann Sfar and Emmanuel Guibert — intrigued by the cover and generally go through graphic novels pretty fast. Feeling like I have too many books checked out right now.

2nd is “Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic” by Alison Bechdel — one I hadn’t noticed before, looked interesting.

Graphic novels have wonderful immediacy.

Books read this week:

“Slammed” by Colleen Hoover .. I loved this book, devoured it on two days on Friday and Saturday. And also really enjoying talking to @colleenhoover on Twitter, and introducing her to Twitter, and some of my favorite slam poets. Excellent story and highly recommended. Part of my blog post on Tuesday. (5 stars (loved) -Goodreads – Kindle). http://ed2dq.com/2012/01/17/slammed/

“A Coney Island of the Mind” by Lawrence Ferlinghetti – Read it for a 2nd time this week .. completely blown away by the main poem with 29 verses “Coney Island of the Mind.” Read 2 of my favorite excerpts to @lannalee and she was completely meh about it. Poetry is easily the most individual of mediums. But, I adored this poem, just like Carl Sandburg it feels immediate to me. http://ed2dq.com/2012/01/13/botw-dirty-minds-a-coney-island-of-the-mind/ (5-GR – library)

“Pyongyang” by Guy Delisle — I really want to say more about this work. One of my favorite graphic novels. Delisle works as an animation supervisor in Pyongyang, North Korea. He is French-Canadian and sarcastic, and really captures the bizarre world that is “Juche” (ironically meaning self-reliance) in North Korea. I am curious how Kim Jong-Un changes North Korea. To me the best result would be some openness and industry like China, I find it unlikely to see the Koreas merge anytime soon.

I am skeptical that there will be any change at all. I think it will still stay isolated. Still create a cold around Kim Jong Il and Kim Il Sung and now Kim Jong-Un. There will still be a huge museum with it’s own road for museums for the great leaders. Still huge construction projects with no need. Still starvation where elites sip cognac and the masses are hungry. Still will require people to have a button of one of the Kim’s at all times, and probably now 3 portraits of the leaders at all institutions.

Foreigners will not be trusted, and be in seperate hotels, walled away or an island away from the city. They will still work 6 days, and volunteer a 7th day. Basically if you wonder what North Korea is like read this book, it’s fantastic. (5-GR – own)

“Horns” by Joe Hill — this is a book I first started around Independence Day last year and got back into about a week ago. It is very dark but fascinating. Basically it starts with the main character, Ig Perrish growing horns. It is told non sequentially told, and a crazy headtrip of a book. One that @lannalee loved and I enjoyed, don’t want to say too much more, but it is worth a read. (4-GR (really liked) – Kindle)

“We are All Weird” by Seth Godin — I wanted to like this book more. His thesis that the average is getting smaller and the weird increasing is fascinating. Wanted this to be a richer book. Get a feeling that Seth Godin is someone who gets ideas out there for others to flesh out. (3-GR (liked) – Kindle)

Reading:

Mile 81 by Stephen King — Rest stops are creepy even when they are open, and even creepier when they are closed. I know this place the old, abandoned rest stop on mile 81 north of Lewiston and it is really, really creepy. Great topic for a book, got to the 3rd section and got to be too perilous. (4-GR) 30% through this Kindle short. Make that 36% read one more story.

Let Us Build Us a City: Eleven Lost Towns by Donald Harrington — one thing I like about the Kindle is being able to sample books. (Usually 5% of the book) and see what seems interesting enough to buy. This was an example of that, a story about 11 ghost towns in Arkansas. Fascinating stuff. (4-GR) 5%

“Cornhuskers” by Carl Sandburg — I love Carl Sandburg’s words. I wish they weren’t as badly formatted as this version. Terrible spacing (often missing returns) or even spaces between sentences. Wonderful words, ruined by formatting (4 – GR) .. Going to try other version on Kindle. (82%)

“Love is a Dog From Hell” by Charles Bukowski — As much as I love Bukowski, I usually like it in small doses. This has been a slow collection to read 3-4 poems at a time. 71% (4-GR – Kindle)

“City Lights Pocket Poets Anthology” — edited by Lawrence Ferlinghetti — Again finding this a slow read. But, enjoying the poems .. Nothing as much as “Coney Island of the Mind”(Auburn Library/Minerva) pg. 44 of 259

“The Seventh Octave: The early writings of Saul Williams” — Something I saw Lanna had in her office, enjoyable; not as rich as his later stuff. (4-GR) pg. 30 of 60

And 2 more library books I have been enjoying a few chapters at a time.

“I Was a Potato Oligarch” by John Mole — crazy stories about trying to work in a consultancy and run a British style baked potato/jacket restaurant in Russia in the Yelstin years. Good crazy, fun. *** (4-GR) pg 92 of 298 (from Scarborough Public Library/Minerva)

“Sex on the Moon” by Ben Mezrich — One that @jchristie really liked in his “Books and Brews” website. This a tale of hubris. A very promising and intelligent young man who was part of the co-op program at NASA/Johnson Space Center throws his potential career away to sell of moon rocks already used in experiments. Fascinating stuff, now curious to read Mezrich’s “The Accidental Billionaires” about the dawning of Facebook that was made into “The Social Network” movie ***1/2 (4-GR) pg. 161 of 308. Josh Christie’s review on his website: http://brewsandbooks.com/index.php/2011/12/december-is-for-recommendations-127/

So quite a week or reading, centered on poetry. Curious what the next week in reading will be.

Would love to hear your comments on this post, I really enjoy making it.

Walker Library and Minerva

December 7, 2011 by rurugby 1 Comment

My favorite place in Westbrook, Maine is the Walker Memorial Library on Main Street.

When I first got here 6 years ago there was actually two libraries in our small city of 17,494. The Warren library was a mile down the street, started by the SD Warren mill but that was lost due to endowment losses, so it’s just one. Walker library is a block away, and one of my weekly rituals is to go over and both return and get books.

Walker library has a gorgeous older section, that under renovation, but I mainly use the newer section and have been taking a lot from the juvenile and young adult sections, including graphic novels the last few months including Roald Dahl and Shel Silverstein.

One of my other favorite things about Walker Library is the Minerva system at http://minerva.maine.edu that lets me get books throughout the state at participating libraries. Through it I have gotten the complete Dark Knight, as sorts of graphic novels, and lots of books of interest that Walker Library doesn’t have. Currently this includes several books by Toure including “Who’s Afraid of Post-Blackness” and Colin Woodward’s “American Nations”; two of the more interesting books I have out. And it makes what I can get from Walker library so much more vast.

For instance I have “Four Novels by Philip K. Dick” (includes Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?) and “Between hope and history : meeting America’s challenges for the 21st century” by Bill Clinton. I love reading and being able to get all sorts of amazing books from my local library has made my ability to get books much more vast. I have used Minerva easily 20+ times this year, and it has been one of my favorite things of 2011.

I would also love funding so this can go to every library in the state, especially the small town libraries of Maine that could use books from larger libraries like Walker, Portland, Bangor, etc.

How do you use the library?

—- Edmund