Just finished listening to Lev Grossman's The Magicians and can't help but take a sec to reflect on it here. To say Magicians is fantasy is so not enough. More like meta-fantasy. More like socio-meta-fantasy with a tinge of horror. Is that a genre?
Clearly Grossman did some thinking about what the world would be like if it really had a magical element. Okay -- that sounds a little like saying Brooks' World War Z is grounded in scientific fact except for the zombie part. But hang in there a minute.
What if a brilliant young man -- someone smart enough to spend a life frustrated by not being able to acknowledge that there really is something more to his fancy card tricks than hours of practice -- suddenly discovered magic existed after all? That alone, really, would have to put even the most grounded of us a little on edge. I'd like to think we'd all handle it as well as Harry did, but really -- wouldn't closeted magicians need a bit of therapy?
Unfortunately Quentin Coldwater barely readjusts before he's plunged into five years of grueling training that make Hogwarts look like an all-inclusive island vacation. Grossman's magical world is imaginative and creative and loaded with lots of fantastic bits, but it never feels safe. It's edgy and downright terrifying at times -- and really, wouldn't a world where physics and the like no longer applied feel a little out there? Especially in the hands of outwardly cocky but inwardly unsure 19 year olds?
And so what do full trained and graduated magicians actually do? And once they've done it, then what? What do they do with all of it? Like in their heads? Really, if you really had to face down He Who Must Not Be Named one day, wouldn't that just wreck your plans to go to hang out at Starbucks the next day? Life just doesn't march cheerily on, really?
I love that Grossman tackles these questions and tells a great, heart-pounding story too. The novel is loaded with lots of nods to Lewis, Rowling, Tolkien, White, Baum and the rest, but Grossman takes things to a whole new level. Adults who loved those classics might think themselves ready to handle magic without the safety net -- but expect to be chilled to the bone!
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Friday, February 12, 2010
Fascinating NYT article: Do School Libraries Need Books?
Here's a great article that puts the digital/print discussion in context of students and learning. Bravo to the Times for collecting a nice variety of commentary on this. Also, the posted reactions are just as enlightening as the article.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Just finished Oscar Wao --- Wow!
Saw Junot Diaz's The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao on several lists, but it wasn't until two people -- folks who score very high on my they-know-a-good-book-when-they-read-one meter -- told me they deemed it the most important book they'd read lately that I sought it out. I think one of them used the word "tranformative."
I rarely buy books anymore (it's a librarian thing) but made a beeline to the bookstore when I discovered the reserve lists were too long at not one, two but three local libraries. It's one thing for some one to tell you X is a good book. It's quite another to have them say it's "important" and quite another thing again to hear it from two people. Not too far into it someone noticed the title on my email signature line and wrote back to echo the first two recommenders. Need I mention that none of these folks knew about each other? By then, I was very grateful I had it in my hand and rearranged my schedule yesterday to put in some time with it. I was not disappointed.
Oscar Wao is down right hypnotic. The narration pulled me through from page one without let up until the very end. Diaz's use of the second person point of view kind grabs you around the throat and he has no problem sustaining the level of intensity. Feels like something really important will happen on every very next page. And he does this while sliding fluidly between generations and settings. Felt like he could have easily kept going for another 300 pages.
Besides a great story, great characters and slick narrative structure, Diaz's book is brilliant this way, too:
Being a middle-age white girl from the suburbs of Buffalo (my husband calls it the Midwest), I couldn't help but feel a little left out of Diaz's story. My Spanish barely sufficed to wrap my head around the frequent injection of Dominican idiom and I'm sure I missed much. I was grateful for his employment of footnotes (which allow him to extend narrative tangents) to provide me with the historical and cultural context I needed. Diaz brilliantly, I think, included plenty of the universal to carry me through and make me wish I was more aware of the experience of families like the de Leons and the Cabrals. I, too, will be telling people this is an important book.
For younger readers and anyone who has lived a life anything like Oscar's or Oscar's family, Diaz's novel must read like the story that's being waiting too long to be told. It will speak directly to them. Literature is important because it reflects back our own culture, in all it's beauty and horror, and makes us better for it. Thank you, Junot Diaz, for writing this book.
Near the end of the novel, Diaz's narrator Yunior makes a passing reference to lovers of good books enjoying literary epiphanies. It seems to me Diaz wrote one.
I rarely buy books anymore (it's a librarian thing) but made a beeline to the bookstore when I discovered the reserve lists were too long at not one, two but three local libraries. It's one thing for some one to tell you X is a good book. It's quite another to have them say it's "important" and quite another thing again to hear it from two people. Not too far into it someone noticed the title on my email signature line and wrote back to echo the first two recommenders. Need I mention that none of these folks knew about each other? By then, I was very grateful I had it in my hand and rearranged my schedule yesterday to put in some time with it. I was not disappointed.
Oscar Wao is down right hypnotic. The narration pulled me through from page one without let up until the very end. Diaz's use of the second person point of view kind grabs you around the throat and he has no problem sustaining the level of intensity. Feels like something really important will happen on every very next page. And he does this while sliding fluidly between generations and settings. Felt like he could have easily kept going for another 300 pages.
Besides a great story, great characters and slick narrative structure, Diaz's book is brilliant this way, too:
Being a middle-age white girl from the suburbs of Buffalo (my husband calls it the Midwest), I couldn't help but feel a little left out of Diaz's story. My Spanish barely sufficed to wrap my head around the frequent injection of Dominican idiom and I'm sure I missed much. I was grateful for his employment of footnotes (which allow him to extend narrative tangents) to provide me with the historical and cultural context I needed. Diaz brilliantly, I think, included plenty of the universal to carry me through and make me wish I was more aware of the experience of families like the de Leons and the Cabrals. I, too, will be telling people this is an important book.
For younger readers and anyone who has lived a life anything like Oscar's or Oscar's family, Diaz's novel must read like the story that's being waiting too long to be told. It will speak directly to them. Literature is important because it reflects back our own culture, in all it's beauty and horror, and makes us better for it. Thank you, Junot Diaz, for writing this book.
Near the end of the novel, Diaz's narrator Yunior makes a passing reference to lovers of good books enjoying literary epiphanies. It seems to me Diaz wrote one.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Teens Like to Read if you let them Read what they Like
Last spring the school which employs me as a librarian, let me radically redesign our summer reading program. It took a bit of doing, but the basic design was -- and continues to be -- founded on the premise that teens will like to read if you let them read what they like. Teachers volunteered to sponsor titles and students were allowed to sign up for whichever teacher/title they wished. If they wanted to not decide -- and read any book they hadn't read before -- they signed up for a group in which everyone had read a different book. Armed with loads of discussion questions, teachers facilitated conversation about the variety of books.
Anyway, it was a resounding success! Sure we had some duds who didn't read anything, but most did. And they read great stuff, too! Here's the list of titles that were selected by teachers, sometimes at the suggestions of some of their students, sometimes based on their own individual book passion.
1984 by George Orwell
Anathem by Neal Stephenson
The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Vol. 1: The Pox Party by M.T. Anderson
The Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson
Between a Rock and a Hard Place by Aron Ralston
Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan
Bringing Down the House by Ben Mezrich
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
The Elfish Gene: Dungeons and Dragons and Growing Up Strange by Mark Barrowcliffe
The Endurance by Alfred Lansing
Godel's Proof by Ernest Nagel
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Hooked by Matt Richtel
The Hot Zone by Richard Preston
I Love You, Beth Cooper by Larry Doyle
In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan
The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch
Maus I by Art Spiegelman
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult
The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Paper Towns by John Green
Petey by Ben Mikaelsen
The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria
The Red Pony by John Steinbeck
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Stardust by Neil Gaiman
The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff
The Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer
I am in the process of making a suggestion list for this year. No one has to stick to it, but providing an annotated list of titles proved very helpful last year. I would welcome any suggestions.
Anyway, it was a resounding success! Sure we had some duds who didn't read anything, but most did. And they read great stuff, too! Here's the list of titles that were selected by teachers, sometimes at the suggestions of some of their students, sometimes based on their own individual book passion.
1984 by George Orwell
Anathem by Neal Stephenson
The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Vol. 1: The Pox Party by M.T. Anderson
The Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson
Between a Rock and a Hard Place by Aron Ralston
Black Swan Green by David Mitchell
The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan
Bringing Down the House by Ben Mezrich
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
The Elfish Gene: Dungeons and Dragons and Growing Up Strange by Mark Barrowcliffe
The Endurance by Alfred Lansing
Godel's Proof by Ernest Nagel
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
Hooked by Matt Richtel
The Hot Zone by Richard Preston
I Love You, Beth Cooper by Larry Doyle
In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan
The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch
Maus I by Art Spiegelman
The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult
The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Paper Towns by John Green
Petey by Ben Mikaelsen
The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria
The Red Pony by John Steinbeck
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Stardust by Neil Gaiman
The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff
The Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer
I am in the process of making a suggestion list for this year. No one has to stick to it, but providing an annotated list of titles proved very helpful last year. I would welcome any suggestions.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
My short speech to 600 teens about reading
I had the opportunity to put a plug in for my reading club at the weekly meeting at the high school where I am blissfully employed as a librarian. I started with a plug for reading in general. Here's what I said:
When I was in college I spent my summers working as an aide in the offices of the Buffalo Courier Express -- at the time, a major morning paper in a city of over a million people. Even though I spent my time taking dictation from reporters, sorting mail and pouring coffee, it was all very exciting. It was my first job in a professional setting. I strived to make a good impression. And for the most part, I did. I worked hard and felt pretty good about how I was doing.
One night, the fatherly reporter who sat across the desk from me attempted to make friendly conversation. I think he was mostly trying to humor the new kid.
"So what are you reading?" asks he. I sighed and admitted I really wished I had time to read, but I didn't. He looked at me aghast. "No!" he said. "You have to make time to read." He mumbled the same thing a few times and that was pretty much the end of the conversation. So much for my professionalism. What I learned is that professsionals don't just talk the talk, they walk the walk.
He was right, of course, and ever since that night, I have made an effort to have something to read around. I don't always get to it, but I try. I discovered how easily reading floated back into my life -- a life I was convinced had no spare hours for reading for fun.
Read something, anything that's purely for your own enjoyment, every night before sleep. Even if it's just 5 minutes -- you'll be better for it. Even if you fall asleep before the end of the first paragraph for 2 or 3 nights running, by the end of the week you'll probably have hit lift off with an interesting article or a great book. And that will be a wonderful thing. You will have become a reader.
When I was in college I spent my summers working as an aide in the offices of the Buffalo Courier Express -- at the time, a major morning paper in a city of over a million people. Even though I spent my time taking dictation from reporters, sorting mail and pouring coffee, it was all very exciting. It was my first job in a professional setting. I strived to make a good impression. And for the most part, I did. I worked hard and felt pretty good about how I was doing.
One night, the fatherly reporter who sat across the desk from me attempted to make friendly conversation. I think he was mostly trying to humor the new kid.
"So what are you reading?" asks he. I sighed and admitted I really wished I had time to read, but I didn't. He looked at me aghast. "No!" he said. "You have to make time to read." He mumbled the same thing a few times and that was pretty much the end of the conversation. So much for my professionalism. What I learned is that professsionals don't just talk the talk, they walk the walk.
He was right, of course, and ever since that night, I have made an effort to have something to read around. I don't always get to it, but I try. I discovered how easily reading floated back into my life -- a life I was convinced had no spare hours for reading for fun.
Read something, anything that's purely for your own enjoyment, every night before sleep. Even if it's just 5 minutes -- you'll be better for it. Even if you fall asleep before the end of the first paragraph for 2 or 3 nights running, by the end of the week you'll probably have hit lift off with an interesting article or a great book. And that will be a wonderful thing. You will have become a reader.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
2010 ALA Awards Announced!
In case you missed it, the American Library Association announced their annual slew of awards at its mid-winter meeting in Boston this month. Check out the ALA Award Winners!
Yikes! Has it really been a month?
Where did the time go? My family has already left and returned from our holiday travels. The last thing I remember is my husband saying, "How many books are you bringing?" as he tottered on the scales with the suitcases. I had a very hard time making the short list of titles much shorter than my previous post. The good new is, I really committed myself to getting lots of reading done, so here's the round up:
Columbine by Dave Cullen
Powerful book! Anyone interested in learning about contemporary American culture should read this title. An amazing amount of research compiled in a well executed revisit of that fateful day. Cullen's look back is as much about the event (and the personalities that created and were touched by it) as it is about the media swirl that swallowed it (and perpetuated myths about it).
King of Heists by J. North Conway
Honestly, a big disappointment. Conway spends more time leading up to the big event than he does recounting it. Terribly anti-climatic. I felt compelled to finish because I hauled it along, but it wasn't suitcase-worthy.
Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork
Stork's novel tops my holiday fiction reading. Reminscent of The Curious Incident of the Dog at Nighttime, Marcelo is narrated by a troubled young misfit trying to find his place in the world. It has the hallmarks of many great books: beautifully simple on one level and intensely complex at the same time. Adults and teens who enjoy tackling big philosophical questions will love this!
Wherever Nina Lies by Lynn Weingarten
I heard about this one on NPR, so had to pick it up. Excellent story. Great characters and even a mystery, too. After I closed the back cover I thought it was all a bit outlandish -- but had to admit that I was completely taken in -- and loved every minute. I hope Weingarten is busy writing her next one.
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart
I don't know if Lockhart is writing another novel featuring Frankie, but I sure hope so. She's easily one of the most engaging fictional characters in any recent book -- teen or adult. Creative, funny, and a bit devlish.
Liar by Justine Larbalestier
A solid read. The review I read compared this to Disreputable History, and while it's certainly a good book, I don't think they're quite in the same category. Larbalestier is definitely on an upward trajectory with her writing, however, so I'll be looking for her next book.
Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson
Horses, was one of those books that came at me from about a half dozen directions: reviews, friends, best of lists, that it became impossible to ignore. Lovely writing. Absolutely hypnotic prose. Great story. Lush scene setting.
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Did I say Marcelo, was my favorite holiday fiction? Can I take it back? Okay, since I actually finished Cloud Atlas after I got home, possibly I can count it as a different category? My favorite post-holiday fiction! Mitchell is just amazing. I loved, loved, loved Black Swan Green which sent me looking for this. It took a bit of patience to hit lift-off, but it was well worth the effort. Mitchell could have made these disparate stories completely different books, but somehow weaves them all together.
Columbine by Dave Cullen
Powerful book! Anyone interested in learning about contemporary American culture should read this title. An amazing amount of research compiled in a well executed revisit of that fateful day. Cullen's look back is as much about the event (and the personalities that created and were touched by it) as it is about the media swirl that swallowed it (and perpetuated myths about it).
King of Heists by J. North Conway
Honestly, a big disappointment. Conway spends more time leading up to the big event than he does recounting it. Terribly anti-climatic. I felt compelled to finish because I hauled it along, but it wasn't suitcase-worthy.
Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork
Stork's novel tops my holiday fiction reading. Reminscent of The Curious Incident of the Dog at Nighttime, Marcelo is narrated by a troubled young misfit trying to find his place in the world. It has the hallmarks of many great books: beautifully simple on one level and intensely complex at the same time. Adults and teens who enjoy tackling big philosophical questions will love this!
Wherever Nina Lies by Lynn Weingarten
I heard about this one on NPR, so had to pick it up. Excellent story. Great characters and even a mystery, too. After I closed the back cover I thought it was all a bit outlandish -- but had to admit that I was completely taken in -- and loved every minute. I hope Weingarten is busy writing her next one.
The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart
I don't know if Lockhart is writing another novel featuring Frankie, but I sure hope so. She's easily one of the most engaging fictional characters in any recent book -- teen or adult. Creative, funny, and a bit devlish.
Liar by Justine Larbalestier
A solid read. The review I read compared this to Disreputable History, and while it's certainly a good book, I don't think they're quite in the same category. Larbalestier is definitely on an upward trajectory with her writing, however, so I'll be looking for her next book.
Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson
Horses, was one of those books that came at me from about a half dozen directions: reviews, friends, best of lists, that it became impossible to ignore. Lovely writing. Absolutely hypnotic prose. Great story. Lush scene setting.
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Did I say Marcelo, was my favorite holiday fiction? Can I take it back? Okay, since I actually finished Cloud Atlas after I got home, possibly I can count it as a different category? My favorite post-holiday fiction! Mitchell is just amazing. I loved, loved, loved Black Swan Green which sent me looking for this. It took a bit of patience to hit lift-off, but it was well worth the effort. Mitchell could have made these disparate stories completely different books, but somehow weaves them all together.
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