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First Sentences on my Desk Top
First sentences of the books stacked on my desk waiting to be read:
"It was my father who called the city the Mansion on the River." - South of Broad by Pat Conroy
"On the burnt-out end of a July day in Southwest Texas, in a crossroads community whose only economic importance had depended on its relationship to a roach paste factory the EPA had shut down twenty years before, a young man driving a car without window glass stopped by an abandoned blue-and-white stucco filling station that had once sold Pure gas during the Depression and was now home to bats and clusters of tumbleweed." - Rain Gods by James Lee Burke
"The sun sits flat against the blue sky like someone pressed it there with a giant thumb." - Wait Until Twilight by Sang Pak
"At one end of my desk sits a nearly four-hundred-year-old book cloaked in a tan linen sack and a good deal of mystery." - The Man Who Loved Books too Much by Allison Hoover Bartlett
"God has failed too many on this one, thought Detective Bill Wall as he ambled, soaking wet, toward he large home with the brick facade." - A Cold-Blooded Business by Marek Fuchs
"The shovel has to meet certain requirements." - Bad Things Happen - Harry Dolan
"It was summer several years ago when my 88-year-old Dad announced to my husband Marty and me that he and Mom were ready to move in with us." - In My Heart by Ursula Hanks
"Panic has a way of defining an individual." - Doubleback by Libby Fischer Hellman
"In the Antarctic, white sea-spiders sit in shallow blue waters under a thick layer of turquoise ice." - Selling Light by Effie Gray
"Parade coming." - City of Refuge by Tom Piazza
"Piers the Powerful, revered by men and universally desired by women, a legend in his own Armani suit, had waited fifteen minutes outside the fifty-story office block for the chauffeur-driven limousine that was to carry him to the meeting of the shareholders in the financial heartland of he City." - The Profit by John Karter
And, then, I'm reading these four already:
"I think I know who you are." - Glenn Beck's Common Sense by Glenn Beck
"Kate drove them to the station and now, as she and Clem put the bags down on the platform, Kitty looked around for someplace for them to sit." - As Long as He Needs Me by Mary Verdick
"The Church of St. Germain des Pres, at the start of what was supposed to be spring, was a miserable place, made worse by the drabness of a city still in a state of shock, worse still by the little coffin in front of the altar which was my reason for being there, worse again by the aches and pains of my body as I kneeled." - Stones Fall by Ian Pears
"On the wall of my rowing club at Cambridge University is a plaque on which are inscribed the names of every member of the club who perished in the mad chivalric contest that was WWI." - The Sky Rained Heroes by Frederick E. LaCroix
These first sentences pretty much run the gamut from beautifully constructed, complicated sentences all the way down to bare-bones ones. Two of them do jump out at me and would have enticed to me read on for sure. I'll let you guess which two to see if we agree.
Louise Brown Is the Hank Aaron of Library Patrons
One woman in Scotland has set what seems like an unbreakable record for the number of library books checked out in a lifetime - without ever having to pay a late fee.
Louise Brown is 91 years old now and she has been checking out about six books per week since 1946. That comes to somewhere in the neighborhood of 25,000 books and, amazingly, Louise has recently doubled her checkouts to twelve large print books every week.
From Mirror.co.uk comes the details:
She said: "My parents were great readers and I've always loved books.
"I started reading when I was five and have never stopped. I like anything I can get my hands on. I also like Mills & Boon for light reading at night."
Louise is now partially sighted and so mainly opts for large prints books.
But she gets through them so quickly she has almost exhausted the supply at the public library in Stranraer, south west Scotland. Janice Goldie, of Dumfries and Galloway Libraries, said: "We are amazed at Mrs Brown's achievements.
"When she first joined the library service, she was allowed to borrow six books a week. This has now risen to 12 and she always takes her full quota. The staff at Stranraer Library think she's a remarkable lady and look forward to her weekly visits."
Louise's librarians would like to know if anyone can break her record. If you know of someone who has even come close, do let the librarians at the Stranraer Library (Scotland) know about it - but I doubt that they're holding their breaths in anticipation.
(Photo is of Louise's library)
Labels: Libraries, Readers
The Art of Racing in the Rain
Enzo, a lab-terrier mix, is tired of being a dog. He is looking forward, in fact, to the end of his life because of his certainty that, next time around, he will return to consciousness as a man. Enzo just cannot wait to have opposable thumbs and the kind of tongue that will allow him to form all the words he has rattling around in his head.
He knows how lucky he is to have been the one chosen from his litter of pups to live with Denny, a Seattle-based racecar driver and mechanic. Denny treats Enzo more as a friend than a pet and Enzo is smart enough to know the difference. He is not sure at first what to think when Denny falls in love with Eve and brings her home to live with them but, when a daughter is born to the happy couple, all is well again in Enzo's world.
Enzo learns about life by listening to Denny talk about his car racing philosophy, a philosophy filled with observations that work just as well in real life as they work on the racetrack. He fills, what would otherwise be lonely days alone, watching television documentaries and The Weather Channel and, in the process, becomes more and more convinced that he is, indeed, prepared to take on human form in his next life. His evenings are so often spent along side Denny on the couch watching tapes of Denny's past races that he even becomes somewhat of an racetrack expert.
When things take a turn for the worse for Denny and those closest to him, Enzo is there to suffer right along side him, and even manages to keep Denny from making a bad decision or two that might have cost him everything he loves most. Enzo is what we want to believe our own dogs are like. He is patient, loving, and totally aware of his place in the world but he remains capable of protecting us from ourselves and others.
And therein lies my problem with The Art of Racing in the Rain.
I could never suspend my disbelief to the degree required to lose myself in the book and, without that suspension of disbelief, I was unable to appreciate Garth Stein's fable the way so many others have appreciated it. Enzo is the smartest guy in the room and, since the book is told from his point-of-view, he is almost always in the room. He understands Denny, his friends, his wife, and those who mean to harm him better than Denny ever will. All those hours spent in front of a television have provided Enzo with the equivalent of a college education, it seems. He not only understands everything he sees and hears, he is generally one step ahead of the humans around him.
I understand the appeal of The Art of Racing in the Rain. Denny's race strategy and driving techniques easily translate into a coherent philosophical approach to life itself. It is a classic tale of courage, perseverance, love, and compassion, though, ultimately, it so closely follows the classic form that it holds few surprises. As in the case of many good books, however, the fun comes from the journey itself and not from the final destination. I dare say that most people who read The Art of Racing in the Rain are likely to enjoy it more than I enjoyed it, but I am not sorry that I spent a few hours with Enzo.
Barnes & Noble Announces Free WiFi at All Stores
Good news for those who are not already getting free WiFi via their personal AT&T contracts at the 777 Barnes & Noble bookstores across the country:
Barnes & Noble said on Tuesday that it had signed a strategic agreement with AT&T to provide free Wi-Fi to all customers in its stores.
Steve Riggio, chief executive of Barnes & Noble, said the company promoted its stores as "community centers" with cafes, comfortable seating and on-site events like book signings.
"It's a gathering place and Wi-Fi access is increasingly becoming something that customers expect in public places," said Mr. Riggio, adding that many airports now offered a similar service. "We've always considered our stores as quasi-public settings and public gathering places and thought this was the perfect opportunity to provide our customers with free access."
As this New York Times article goes on to say, free WiFi in retail locations is the wave of the future, a sure way to attract customers and have them hang around to spend money for hours at a time. I suspect that this will become more and more common and that retailers not providing the service are going to suffer a loss of business to those that do.
Friends Like These: My Worldwide Quest to Find My Best Childhood Friends, Knock on Their Doors, and Ask Them to Come Out and Play
(Photo: Danny Wallace, on left, and three of the childhood friends with whom he reconnected)
Danny Wallace, U.K. television personality and writer, is best known in this country for Yes Man, the book on which a recent Jim Carey movie was based. Unlike the movie, however, Wallace's book purports to be non-fiction. He claims to have actually said "yes" to every invitation or opportunity put to him over a six-month period and seems to have largely benefitted from the experience. I mention this to emphasize the kind of wacky personality Danny Wallace seems to have and because Friends Like These is another of Wallace's off-center memoirs.
Fast approaching thirty years of age in 2006, the calendar-age Danny Wallace considers the start of adulthood, Wallace finds that he has no desire to become an adult. In fact, the very idea of becoming an adult terrifies him. So when an old address book he hasn't seen in years turns up, it seems only natural to him that he should look up his twelve best childhood friends. After all, they, too, are on the verge of turning thirty years old.
Wallace's task is made a bit more difficult than it might have otherwise been by the fact that he spent some of his childhood years in Scotland, some in Germany, and some in England. Nevertheless, blessed with what seems to be a saint of a wife who encourages him to do it, he confidently embarks on a personal quest to "update his address book" before the birthday that will magically turn him into "a man." How, he wonders, are his friends handling their own personal traumas of becoming adults with adult responsibilities?
On the whole, it appears that they are handling their thirtieths a bit more successfully than Danny is handling his. Despite having been warned that he would find all his old friends working in IT, Danny actually finds them filling a variety of roles. Among his personal Top 12, are a research doctor, a hip-hop rapper, a restaurant manager, a newspaperman, and one old friend who actually does work in the IT department of a major bank. Danny's search, equal amounts adventure and misadventure, will ultimately take him across the world and require stops in the United States, Australia and Japan. Best of all for Danny, is that, for the first time in his life, he will come away from a project with the sense that he has finished something he started – a goal he never achieved as a kid.
Danny Wallace is a funny man, and a clever writer, and he fills Friends Like These with numerous incidents that will make the reader wonder how such a hapless adventurer could possibly accomplish so much. After all, a man who manages to wedge himself so tightly into a tiny Japanese toilet stall (Danny is a big man and he was wearing a backpack at the time) that he has to cry for help before sheer panic sets in does little to inspire confidence, does he?
Friends Like These is more than slapstick comedy. Wallace has a way with words that allows him to pepper the reader with little one-line zingers almost at will, one-liners that always produce at least a smile, and sometimes much more. No matter the situation, he maintains his sense-of-humor and laughs at himself as much as his readers will laugh at him. At 400 pages, however, some of Wallace's efforts and friend descriptions begin to become repetitious and hard to distinguish from one another, a flaw that will have some readers wishing that he would just get on with it.
This is a funny book but it does prove the point that sometimes "less is more."
Pat Conroy Coming to My TBR List Next Week
I remember what it was like a few years ago when I struggled to keep one book on my TBR list at a time. You know, the days before the internet and the big box book stores moved into towns all across the country. I would actually start to panic if I reached the last 50 pages of a book without having another one in-house ready to grab. And that happened a lot.
Times have certainly changed for the better since then. Now, my TBR list of in-house books is usually in the dozens and I struggle to make even a dent in it. Even a "good thing," like having too many books to read, can become a little stressful, but I'll take today's TBR list over yesterday's any time.
For example, on my "short list" (books I've either started or promised to consider for review) right now are these books:
1. As Long as He Needs Me by Mary Verdick - novel
2. The Sky Rained Heroes by Frederick E. LaCroix - nonfiction account of his father's WWII experiences fighting Japan
3. The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein - novel through the eyes of a dog
4. Wait Until Twilight by Sang Park - a horror novel, of sorts
5. The Man Who Loved Books too Much by Allison Hoover Bartlett - nonfiction account of a major book thief and the book detective determined to catch him
6. Selling Light by Effie Gray - one of the novellas in the "Great Little Reads" series
7. A Cold Blooded Business by Marek Fuchs - a "true crime thriller"
8. Bad Things Happen by Harry Dolan - fictional thriller
9. In My Heart by Ursula Hanks - memoir
10. Doubleback by Libby Fischer Hellmann - suspense novel
11. The Complete Fairy Tales by Charles Perrault - a new translation by Christopher Betts
12. The Profit by John Karter - another novella in the "Great Little Reads" series
13. Photographing Democracy by Joseph Sohm - a huge, 7-pound book of pictures and essays on Mr. Sohm's project to take pictures that represent each of the 50 states - over a 30-year period
I'm also reading these two books:
14. Stone's Fall by Ian Pears - an almost 600-page historical mystery that I finally got from the library Friday - as recommended by my friend the Class Factotum who comments here every so often
15. Glenn Beck's Common Sense by Glenn Beck - bought this one at B&N yesterday and I'm intrigued (and bothered) by what Beck has to say
So there you have it - 15 books on the list that will be getting my attention in the next few weeks.
If things were static, the list would not be all that intimidating and could be handled in about seven weeks. But the list is alive, folks, and it is multiplying. I got some great news Thursday that I have snagged review copies of the latest novels of two of my favorite writers, James Lee Burke and (or you ready for this?) Pat Conroy. I should have both books around July 31 and I'm sure that I will be able to resist neither of them, requiring me to adjust my reading schedule again because I cannot wait to get my hands on those two, especially the Conroy novel after a 14-year wait between new ones.
And, of course, the rest of my TBR list, consisting of at least 200 books is waiting out there, too. Ah, but life is good!
(Speaking of life, I just want to mention that my 10-year-old granddaughter broke her shoulder yesterday. She's the one whose picture I used to illustrate a post here a week or so ago (her on a lounger, pencil in hand). She decided it would be fun to "surf" down a 10-foot plastic slide while her brother and cousin sprayed water on it...not so much. Now she has six weeks of almost no activity ahead of her because the break is not in a place that a cast is easily placed. Thank goodness she's a reader. She is in a fancy sling that requires her to keep the arm protected and immobile while it heals. Lesson learned - I hope.)
Amazon to Embed "Smart Ads" in Kindle E-Books?
Tell me it isn't so, Jeff. Is Amazon about to take another misstep in the marketing of its Kindle e-book reader? There has been speculation for a while now that Amazon is looking into the idea of adding "smart ads" to the e-books it sells to its Kindle customers, the kind of ad that Google seems to be placing everywhere one surfs the net these days. The Google adds were a bit irritating at first but, since I don't pay for the content on which the ads appear, I trained myself to ignore them. I wonder, in fact, just who it is that clicks on those things.
It would be a much different story, though, if I were paying for the pages on which those dozens and dozens of ads appear every day - and finding an ad embedded inside an e-book I've purchased would be especially irritating. Now maybe, just maybe, I could learn to tolerate the ads if Amazon were to share the ad revenue with me by cutting the high price of its e-books. Will this happen? I won't be holding my breath.
From The Business Insider comes this:
Books are among the last bastions of ad-free content. But they won't be so forever if Amazon has its way.
The online retail giant has been nurturing a growing e-reader market with its Kindle device; analysts estimate more than a million have been sold since its 2007 debut. And the idea of serving ads in e-books has been a subject of chatter for a while. But Amazon appears to have taken the next concrete step in that direction. Recent reports indicate the online retail giant has filed patent applications to stuff digital books with contextual advertising.
"There's a movement in the industry to offset book prices through various ways," said consultant Chris Andrews, who's writing an e-book about the advent of e-books. "There's more revenue per book with those ads and they allow publishers to sell the book less expensively. It also gives advertisers this cool market of people who spend hours with content. The relationship is longer than any other media -- and it's deeper."
Others view in-book advertising as just one stop along a continuum of possibilities.
"They're just exploring all the multiple ways you can monetize content, so you can offer a customer a full-priced book at $9.99 or you can offer them a half-priced book that's partially underwritten by advertisers," said Mark Coker, founder of e-book seller Smashwords.
With publishers already complaining that Amazon is selling e-books too cheaply, I suspect there would be some resistance to any talk about lowering e-book prices that contained ads unless the ad revenue was also split with the publishers. It is fun to watch the marketing for a new product like electronic books evolve over the months. Where we end up is anyone's guess, but I will say that a book containing ads is a distraction that cheapens the whole product for me. I do not like the idea at all - and I wonder why Amazon seems so determined to shoot itself in the marketing foot these last few weeks.
(There is much more to the linked article, so please take a look at it and let me know what you think is going to happen and whether or not advertising in books will bother you.)
Two Cases of Too Little, Too Late
I sat down to write a quick note about Amazon's apology for its misguided decision to delete certain books directly from the Kindles of some of its customers without first bothering to explain why it was happening - or at least warning them. And then a television news break came on and I am suddenly looking at President Obama (yet again) and listening to him apologize for saying last night that the Cambridge Police Department acted "stupidly" in arresting Professor Gates at his home a few days ago.
My reaction to both apologies is that they are both "too little, too late." The damage has been done. Amazon's image took a hit and the company probably lost more than a few potential Kindle customers this week, me included. I was already concerned about the limitations on my personal usage of e-books bought for the Kindle, so being reminded just how easily those books can be stolen back from me by their seller ended my fascination with the Kindle. The price of the reader and the restricted value of the books convinces me that the Kindle is not the way to go. Bad move, Mr. Bezos.
The President's image has also taken a hit. He played the "race card" last night on behalf of a personal friend of his. That was cheap and it is very disturbing. My personal respect for President Obama took a huge hit because of his eagerness to defame the Cambridge police on the behalf of a personal friend whose behavior helped spark a police incident about which the President apparently had heard only one side of the story. How stupid was it for him to allow a local Chicago issue to overwhelm the message he wanted to send about his healthcare legislation? Very stupid. The President acted more "stupidly" than he accused the police of acting. His apology, if that's what this statement was supposed to be, was very necessary but it only came after he made matters worse by trying to defend his original statement earlier this morning.
I should mention, too, that my respect for Professor Gates is gone. I've seen the man on Book TV a couple of times and was impressed with him. Now, reading the police report (none of which Gates has denied) and seeing how Gates taunted the policeman and escalated the whole incident with his mouth and attitude, it will be difficult for me to take the man seriously again. He is obviously a hypocrite.
At least Jeff Bezos admitted that he and Amazon were 100% wrong, as can be seen from this quote from his blog entry:
"Our 'solution' to the problem was stupid, thoughtless and painfully out of line with our principles," Bezos wrote. "It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism we've received. We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission."
He signed his missive with the comment, "With deep apology to our customers."
See this Computer World article for reaction to the Amazon apology.
How can so many supposedly brilliant people do such stupid things? Maybe someone should write a book called When Stupid Things Happen to Smart People.
Labels: Bookstores, Opinion
1997 Frank McCourt Interview to Be Shown on Book TV Saturday, July 25
Word comes via email from Book TV that its 1997 Booknotes interview with Frank McCourt about his Angela's Ashes will be rerun this weekend:
Frank McCourt, Encore Booknotes: Angela's Ashes: A Memoir
From 1997, Author Frank McCourt was a guest on Booknotes to talk about Angela's Ashes: A Memoir. The book chronicles the author's life growing up in an impoverished section of Limerick, Ireland, as well as his childhood spent in New York City. His father was an alcoholic who at times spent the majority of his paycheck on alcohol, leaving his family hungry. Mr. McCourt writes about this as well as seeing three siblings die prematurely because of starvation or disease. The author also talks about the gift of storytelling that his father gave him which resulted in a career spent teaching and writing. Mr. McCourt died on July 19, 2009.
(Saturday 6 PM ET)
This is "Don't Miss TV" for fans of McCourt and his groundbreaking memoir.
Labels: Authors
Meeting Jimmie Rodgers: How America's Original Roots Music Hero Changed the Pop Sounds of a Century
I just met Jimmie Rodgers, and I was duly impressed with the man. It's not like I didn't already know Jimmie - after all, I've read Nolan Porterfield's definitive 1979 Rodgers biography twice and the sugarcoated biography written by his wife once. I've listened to his music for the better part of four decades and I own most of his catalog plus several tribute albums done on his behalf by other artists. But as I found out by reading Barry Mazor's exhaustively researched Meeting Jimmie Rodgers, I just thought I knew Jimmie.
Meeting Jimmie Rodgers is the perfect companion piece to Poterfield's Jimmie Rodgers: The Life and Times of America's Blue Yodeler. Where Porterfield provides the details of Jimmie's short but influential life, Mazor emphasizes the influence that Jimmie Rodgers had on the music of the rest of the twentieth century. Porterfield focused on the man, Mazor more on the music.
Jimmie Rodgers, according to Mazor, was a "connector" and, as such, he heavily influenced each of the most popular genres of American music. Many of the kingpins of country music, jazz, western swing, rock and roll, bluegrass, folk, blues and punk either grew up on the music of Jimmie Rodgers or were enthralled by the man and his music when they discovered it years after his death. Mazor's impressive research shows how directly and how greatly Rogers influenced the music, for instance, of Elvis Presley, B.B. King, Bob Dylan, Merle Haggard, Arlo Guthrie, Ernest Tubb, Gene Autry, Hank Snow, Hank Williams, the Beatles, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis, Rick Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Hank Williams Jr., Lynyrd Skynyrd, Steve Earle, Jerry Garcia and numerous others.
As impressive as the title is, Jimmie Rodgers is much more than just "the father of country music." That title is limiting to a man of his overall influence. Yes, he was one of the very first members enshrined in the Country Music Hall of Fame when it opened its doors, but he is equally cherished as a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. His "rough and rowdy ways" opened the door for others in several genres to openly sing songs about sex, murder, drink and drugs, and a rambling lifestyle in which almost anything goes.
Rodgers was, first and foremost, a performer, a man with several well developed personas that he could switch to and from to fit his audience. Be it hard working railroad man, Hollywood cowboy or dapper lady's man, Jimmie was equally at home in the role. His look may have changed from town to town but his music was still the most recognizable and influential music of his day, and though he may have been most famous for his development and use of the "blue yodel," many of those who cite his influence in their own music also praise his seemingly simple guitar licks, his voice, and his way with a lyric.
Barry Mazor has packed so many ideas and so much detail into Meeting Jimmie Rodgers that it is not a book that can be rushed through if the reader is going to gain its full benefit. It admittedly requires a considerable amount of reading time and patience, but I highly suggest that readers slow down and enjoy it. Read it with Jimmie's music playing in the background, pen or marker in hand, and pay particular attention to the "Select Soundtracks" at the end of most of the book's chapters. Those "soundtracks" make it possible to create a first rate Jimmie Rodgers musical library of your own.
Big Brother Zaps 1984 from Kindles Everywhere
This story is getting old. Amazon has zapped more paid-for books directly from the Kindles of owners who believed they actually own the e-books they purchase from Amazon. Now don't get me wrong - in this case, Amazon had a strong case for remotely deleting the illegal copies of Orwell's 1984 mistakenly sold by the company. But do you remember an earlier case of one Amazon customer who "returned" so many e-books that Amazon got irritated with him enough to delete all the books he had left on his Kindle and lock him out of the system - making his Kindle a useless hunk of plastic?
This whole thing makes me uneasy. If I buy an e-book from Amazon, am I only going to be allowed to keep it as long as Amazon wants me to have it? What about the censorship issue? If someone or some group with enough clout convinces Amazon that portions of a Kindle e-book should be altered, or even deleted, what is to stop them from sneaking the changes into already-sold copies of the book? Would the owner even notice?
I see this week that Barnes & Noble is downloading software that will allow B&N e-books to be read on the iPhone and Blackberry platforms - with many more phones to be enabled in the coming few weeks. I see this as excellent timing...competition for a company that can't seem to get e-books right despite its dominance of the current market.
I do have to laugh, though, at the irony of 1984 being the book involved in this controversy. If there is a heaven, Mr. Orwell must be laughing out loud right about now.
As for me, I'm sticking with real books because I doubt that Barnes & Noble will ever ring my doorbell to confiscate a book I bought there - and I've lost enough music purchased in the mp3 format to know that I'm just as likely to lose whole books that I forget to backup after purchase.
Amazon is failing Marketing 101, something I never thought I would see.
Saffron Dreams
The murders of September 11, 2001 were the shock of a generation, a morning forever etched into the memories of those who watched the events unfold in person or on live television. In a world seemingly gone mad, some celebrated the deaths of 3,000 innocents while others yearned for revenge against those responsible for the senseless murders. Lines seemed to be clearly drawn.
Some few people, however, had a foot on both sides of that line and Shaila Abdullah tells the story of one such woman in her novel, Saffron Dreams. Arissa Illahi, a Pakistani Muslim pregnant with her first child and living in New York City, has her own world shattered on that tragic morning when her husband is killed as the Twin Towers collapse. Not only is her husband, Faizan, suddenly snatched from her forever, Arissa is left alone to cope with the birth of her child in an environment in which many see her obvious Muslim faith as the only proof they need that her sympathies are with those responsible for what happened that day.
Arissa is helped through her initial shock by family members who rush to her side, but noticeably absent is her mother, a woman who had abandoned Arissa's family years earlier. Her in-laws stay behind when everyone else leaves to make certain that Arissa will be able to cope with her loss and her new life, themselves quietly grieving while they help Arissa through the worst of what she has to face.
And cope, Arissa does. Showing remarkable strength, and determined to ensure her husband's legacy, she prepares for the birth of her son despite the multiple handicaps with which he is expected to enter the world so recently left by his father. At the urging of her mother-in-law, Arissa also eventually agrees to complete the unfinished novel left behind by Faizan as another way of marking his place in the world. Her new world is bounded by her son, her writing and her job, but especially by the unique bond she forms with the son who needs her so much.
Because Arissa Illahi is not the typical 9-11 widow, Saffron Dreams is much more than a novel about coping with the sudden loss of a loved one. The book deals effectively with racism, religious prejudice, fanaticism and hatred on both sides of the divide, the difficulties and rewards of raising a handicapped child, and the slow healing that finally allows a survivor to get on with the rest of her life. Despite the senselessness of what happened in New York City that morning eight years ago, Saffron Dreams is filled with strength and hope for the future. It is a reminder that the world is what we make it, one little piece at a time.
Frank McCourt Dead at 78
Comes word from the New York Times and others that author Frank McCourt, most famous for the story of his Depression-era Irish childhood, Angela's Ashes, died this afternoon of cancer. McCourt, who was in his mid-sixties when Angela's Ashes was published, was recently treated for melanoma, according to the Times and had, in addition, contracted a serious case of meningitis. The death was announced by McCourt's brother, Malachy, who is also a writer.
Described in Newsweek as "the publishing industry's Cinderella story of the decade," "Angela's Ashes" rose to No. 1 on bestseller lists, was translated into more than 20 languages and sold more than 4 million copies worldwide.
It also won the Pulitzer for biography and the National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction and was turned into a movie in 1999.
In the process, "Angela's Ashes" propelled its author from obscurity to fame and fortune.
The white-haired publishing sensation made the rounds of the talk shows, was the subject of a "60 Minutes" profile and was in constant demand as a speaker because, as Newsweek pointed out in 1999, "he's witty, articulate and he's got the perfect Irish brogue: lyrical but penetrable."
"At 66, you're supposed to die or get hemorrhoids," McCourt told the Hartford Courant in 2003. "I just wrote the book and was amazed and astounded that it became a bestseller and won the Pulitzer Prize. It still hasn't sunk in."
I remember very well how taken I was with the book and the fact that it had been written by a man already retired from a lifetime's work. I think I found that fact more inspirational than anything in the book itself, although I did love that book. I've never gone back to reread it - and I wonder if it would work so well for me today. I may just have to find out.
The Cloverleaf Development
London's Roastbooks Ltd. was kind enough to send me three of their books last month for review consideration. At the time, I knew nothing about the company or its books but I was intrigued by the concept of a novella collection called "Great Little Reads." According to the company's Faye Dayan, "These are little books for the modern lifestyle, designed to be read in one or two sittings."
That is exactly what I needed this weekend, something relatively short but so well-written that I could lose myself in it for an hour or two at a time, and I was lucky enough to throw The Cloverleaf Development into my luggage at the last second Friday afternoon before I left for a quick out-of-town trip.
The Cloverleaf Development, written by Keith Scales, is a tongue-in-cheek novella of 130 pages that kept me thoroughly entertained and intrigued for the two or so hours of reading time it requires. Mr. Scales has created a surrealistic little world in which an isolated rural area is about to have its world rocked by a new housing development, complete with major changes to the roads in the area, being built just a short distance away.
The residents of Overlook City are proud of their little community and very much against anything that might change the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed. There are few secrets in Overlook (at least that's what the locals like to believe) and everyone seems to know most everything about everyone else. But when the long abandoned Malarky Mansion is demolished to make room for the new development and human bone fragments, including most of a skull, are found, those same locals are in for a shock. Everything they thought they knew about the old mansion and its former residents just might turn out to be wrong.
Following the supremely self-important Sheriff Wilmot around as he constantly revises his theory on what happened in Malarky Mansion some two decades earlier is half the fun. Wilmot is the kind of sheriff who decides what must have happened and then works furiously to find only the facts he needs to prove his case. That no one in town agrees with any of his theories hardly slows him down as he stumbles from one colorful town character to another in his quest to prove himself correct.
The rest of the fun comes from being fooled along with everyone else in town as to what really happened in the mansion and how the bones got there. Good novellas and short stories, in my estimation, are probably more difficult to write than novels since the author has so few pages to create multiple characters and to flesh out a plot. This is one of the good ones. Keith Scales has packed more into his 130 pages than many a novelist manages with a 300-page canvas. It is filled with quirky characters, humor and observations about small town life, and it is definitely a "great little read."
Readers will note, also, that the back cover of each of the Roast Books novellas includes a list of the book's "ingredients." In the case of The Cloverleaf Development, those indgredients are: Circumstantial Evidence, Cattledrive Eatery and Saloon Banter, Discovery of Body Parts, Out of Town Developers." Just how perfect that little recipe is will become obvious to anyone who reads The Cloverleaf Development.
Two Shocks in Two Days
I've been away from the computer for the last couple of days due to completely unexpected circumstances. I left work early yesterday in order to drive to my old hometown for a funeral that took place at 9:30 this morning during which I said my goodbyes to one of the oldest friends I had. I met Bill during the summer between our seventh and eighth grades, some 48 years ago, if you can imagine.
Over the years we lost touch with each other for long periods of time as I moved out of the country and he changed addresses, but when I thought of home I always thought about my old friend and often tried to find him with no success. In March of this year, after one of those long breaks, I heard from Bill's daughter via Facebook. She was trying to help her dad renew contact again and wondered if I was the person she was looking for -I was. As things turned out, though, I learned that Bill had been suffering from cancer for over two years and that things were getting a bit "iffy" for him. I had a sense that things were getting much worse, much more quickly than anyone expected, but I was shocked to learn that my old friend died early on Wednesday morning.
His family and great number of friends said goodbye to him this morning.
As I was preparing to leave Houston, I received another email, this one from a friend who lives in London. She told me that a mutual friend of ours, an American I've known and worked with for about 15 years had been caught up in the hotel bombings in Jakarta yesterday morning (Houston time). Gary, who now works in Jakarta, was attending an event in one of the bombed hotels and he has apparently suffered very severe burns and other injuries. He has been flown to Singapore for treatment and the good news is that he has survived what is likely to have been the most critical period of his injuries. I haven't heard any news for the last 12 hours or so, but I'm taking that as a good sign.
Life is short, folks, something we tend to forget. And for some of us, it is even shorter than we expected it to be. Take a moment to appreciate what you have and those who love you. Take nothing for granted; make the most of the time God gives you and leave some good memories for those who loved you while you were on this earth. It is too easy to let everyday events get in the way of really living your precious life. Don't let that happen to you.
OK, enough preaching. I know that's not why you're here and, honestly, I wrote this as much for myself as for anyone else who happens to read it.
Roastbeef's Promise: When Your Dad's Dying Wish Is to Have His Ashes Sprinkled in Each State, What's a Son to Do?
As long as I can remember, road trip books have been among my favorites. Something about that kind of mini-adventure particularly appeals to me, and reading books about hitting the road has led me to several memorable road trips of my own. Up to this point, though, all of my favorite road trip books have been nonfiction, whether they involved cross-country walks, hitchhiking, driving or even boating.
Now comes Roastbeef's Promise, David Jerome's first novel, a classic road trip adventure that I plan to place on the shelves alongside my nonfiction road trip favorites for eventual rereading. It is that good.
Roastbeef Hume, although he knew it was coming, is somewhat shocked when the nursing home calls to tell him that his father is dead. The elder Mr. Hume, at the time of his death suffering from Alzheimer's, believed himself to be Franklin Roosevelt and that his son was one of his presidential aides. When his father, in the guise of President Roosevelt, directed him to spread his ashes, when the time came, over the 48 states he had governed, Roastbeef played along and promised to get it done.
Thus begins the road trip of a lifetime for young Roastbeef Hume who, with some relief, drops out of college and hits the road on what will turn out to be a 15-month adventure to scatter the 3/5 of his father's ashes the rest of the Hume family agrees to let him have. Armed with loads of good intentions, very little cash, a beat up old Hyundai automobile, and no idea of what he is getting himself into, Roastbeef begins a series of adventures that will at times see him penniless, on foot, a crime victim, a beneficiary of the kindness of strangers, and enjoying every minute of his quest to honor his father's last wish.
Along the way he will meet some of the nicest, but quirkiest, citizens the United States has to offer. He will visit Mount Rushmore, Graceland, Indianapolis Speedway, Key West, Las Vegas, and numerous little out-of-the-way places known to very few outsiders where he will use his imagination to decide how best to leave some of his dad's ashes behind. Among others, he will meet a van full of frat brothers and a convertible full of sorority sisters, a lesbian college softball coach, a young man who uses his wedding-crashing skills to eat better than he can afford to eat on his own, an expectant couple rushing to Las Vegas to be married, and a crop-duster pilot.
Roastbeef, as will the reader, learns a lot about human nature and the basic goodness of most people and, despite his setbacks, he comes to realize that "getting there" is the most important part of any journey. Roastbeef's Promise had me laughing out loud more than once and I believe it to be a book that will appeal to road warriors and wanna-be road warriors of both sexes. This one is real fun.
"Scottsboro" Winner Announced
The drawing for my copy of Scottsboro attracted 13 entries and I've used the random number generator shown in my sidebar to choose a winner. (Anyone wanting a random number generator of their own, by the way, can go to the website noted on mine and get a widget for their own blog page. It does come in handy for this kind of giveaway.)
Anyway, the winner picked by that bit of software is: Megan!
Megan, please send me your mailing details and I'll get the book out to you - hope you enjoy it.
Book Giveaway Reminder - One More Day
Just a quick note this afternoon to remind everyone that you have about 24 hours to throw your name into the hat for a chance at a free copy of Scottsboro by Ellen Feldman. You can leave a comment here or at the original thread if you want to enter. About this time tomorrow afternoon, I'll use my handy, dandy random number generator to choose a winner. As of right now, there are only ten entries, so anyone entering will have a very good chance at winning the book.
For a quick look at the book itself, see the review posted directly below the original post I referenced above.
Photo: Ellen Feldman, author of Scottsboro
Killer Summer
Although I have been a fan of Ridley Pearson's work for a long time, Killer Summer was my introduction to his Sheriff Walt Fleming series. Now, having read this third novel in the series, I plan to go back to the first two books to get a better understanding of how Walt Fleming came to be the man he is.
Walt is the sheriff of Sun Valley, Idaho, and although he does not have to contend with a lot of violent crime, being sheriff of an enclave of some of the wealthiest people in the country comes with its own special problems. At times, Walt feels more like a combination baby sitter/politician than he does a peace officer. So when a large group of wealthy wine connoisseurs gathers in Sun Valley for an event culminating in the auctioning of three bottles of wine believed to have been gifted to John Adams by Thomas Jefferson, it is pretty much business-as-usual for the sheriff.
True, Walt's personal life is not what it could be. The father of twin daughters, he now has to contend with the fact that his soon-to-be-ex-wife is living with one of his own deputies. As if that embarrassment were not enough, Walt, who barely has the time to be with his daughters, knows that he also needs to find time for his seventeen-year-old nephew, Kevin. The sudden death of Kevin's father has left the boy without a male role model in his life and Walt's sister looks to him to fill that gap.
Things begin to get complicated when the private security agent hired to bring the three John Adams bottles of wine to Sun Valley becomes the victim of a heist-gone-bad. Walt Fleming and his small group of deputies are left with the unenviable task of solving the attempted theft of the valuable wine while simultaneously guarding that same wine until it can be delivered to the winning bidder later in the week.
Walt soon begins to suspect that not all is what it seems to be regarding the bottles of wine and their current owner. Just when things start making a bit of sense to the sheriff, however, the situation careens out-of-control and he finds himself searching frantically for a hijacked airplane that may have fallen from the sky and the two teens, one his own nephew, feared to have been taken hostage by the hijackers at take-off.
Killer Summer is a quick-paced, but rather complicated, thriller that requires a little extra attention from the reader if the crime at its heart is to be completely understood as Pearson reveals it layer-by-layer. Readers might be tempted to rush to the book's cliffhanger ending, but that would be a mistake. They should, instead, take a deep breath and make sure not to speed past any of the story's important details. They will be happy that they did.
Galveston's Rosenberg Library Re-Opens Two Floors to Patrons
It is still painful to look around Galveston and remember what the city was like before Hurricane Ike devastated it in September 2008. Such massive destruction of property makes for a very slow recovery, but Galveston is making great progress in getting things as close to "normal" as they ever will be again.
This week comes the good news that the city's Rosenberg Library, housed in a 105-year-old building, is ready to open two floors to patrons. Details are from the Houston Chronicle:
Almost 10 months after Hurricane Ike flooded its ground floor with more than seven feet of water and dealt a knockout punch to its electrical system, Galveston's venerable Rosenberg Library will take a big step toward normality today when it reopens its second floor and mezzanine.
The areas house the bulk of the library's collections and a 45-unit computer lab. For the first time since the September storm, library patrons will be able to check out books without 24-hours advance notice.
The Rosenberg, now 105 years old, was inundated by saltwater, which destroyed ground-floor air conditioning, telephone and electrical equipment. Executive Director John Augelli estimated repairs cost about $4 million.
The first floor, which previously housed the children's collection and the Wortham Auditorium, likely will remain closed for at least a year, he said.
Augelli said the library had too much money invested in real estate to consider abandoning the historic structure. In years before the hurricane, the library installed a new roof and launched a multimillion-dollar project to reinforce tons of decorative stonework in jeopardy of crumbling from the building's exterior.
Augelli said about $2.5 million of the repair cost will be covered by insurance; the rest by grants, donations and payments from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Having struggled with my own insurance company for four months after Ike over how much the company owed me for a new roof, I can imagine the hassle that must be going on with the insurers of the Rosenberg Library. That makes their progress especially nice to see.
Mid-Year Report (Two Weeks Late)
Well, I've been back from Kentucky for almost two weeks but I'm still finding it difficult to get back into all my old routines. I'm not reading nearly my usual number of pages per day, nor am I posting to Book Chase quite as regularly as I like to do. There's just something about having the old routine broken up for a week that's making it difficult for me to get back on track.
Part of the problem, I'm sure, is that I upgraded to one of the new "smart phones" last weekend and I'm more wired in than ever before in my life. It allows me to be more in touch with friends and my two blogs, but it sure tends to cut down on reading time. Gotta fix that.
As of this week, I've read 70 books and have reviewed 69 of them, so I'm close to being where I hoped to be at mid-year (maybe 5 books or two weeks behind what I hoped for at this point). I do find it interesting that 41 of the 70 books I've read in 2009 are review copies. Normally, that might concern me, but not this year. I've been careful to accept only review books that I know I would have chosen to read anyway if I had seen them in a bookstore or a library. My only concern is that, by picking up the pace with review copies, my nonfiction reading seems to be suffering since most of what I'm offered is fiction.
I find that limiting myself to books that interest me works better for all concerned because it keeps me excited about my reading and doesn't result in me giving a bad review to the work of a first-time author or one who has gone to the expense of self-publishing a book. At the same time, though, I'm finding that my average rating has gone down a bit because I'm giving far fewer "fives" than I have in past years. I'm not sure why that is, honestly.
It's been a fun first half of the year but now I need to get back on pace for a good second half. I love to set reading goals and targets - keeps me from getting lazy.
(Photo is of my granddaughter who is, I'm happy to report, a real reader.)
Amazon Drops Price of Kindle
In a move lifted right out of the Marketing 101 textbook, Amazon announced yesterday that it is dropping the price of its basic model Kindle to $299. The company seems to have caught up with demand to the degree that it has inventory to spare and is willing to bet that its bottom line will increase more by selling more units at the new, lower price than by selling fewer units at a higher price.
According to Information Week, the price change was announced very quietly:
The price change was made quietly too -- the company posted an ad for the Kindle 2, at the new price, on its home page.
The stock market didn't react much to the change; Amazon shares rose Thursday by 74 cents to close at $78.10, up less than 1 percent.
Amazon launched its first version of the Kindle in November of 2007 for $399 and later dropped the price to $359. The Kindle 2 -- which has longer battery life, more storage, and turns pages faster -- was introduced in February.
Prices for the Kindle DX, which has a 9.7-inch screen instead of a 6-inch screen, remain unchanged at $489.
Book publishers are concerned that Amazon might use the lower price to squeeze their profits because the Kindle is so dominant. Amazon could also raise book prices for users.
I'm kind of waiting for that other shoe to drop, too. It would be probably be risky for Amazon to raise e-book prices just when the company drops the price of its reader - but if any company would try to pull that one off, it just might be Amazon.
Book Giveaway - Scottsboro: A Novel
As I mentioned before leaving for Kentucky on June 23, I made my 1000th Book Chase post a few days ago (this is post 1,012 in way of context). Book Chase had been in existence for almost exactly 29 months when I reached the milestone. Anyway, as promised, I would like to give away the last book I reviewed in order to mark the occasion.
Take a look directly below for my thoughts on Scottsboro: A Novel and, if you think you might enjoy the book, send me a comment saying so. One week from today, I will use a random number selector to choose the winner. This one is easy - just throw your name in the hat.
I appreciate you guys.
Scottsboro: A Novel
When, in 1931, nine young black men were pulled off a train in rural Alabama and accused of raping two young white women who happened to be on that same train, no one could have imagined the ultimate outcome. Earlier, the young men had drawn attention to themselves by tossing some white boys off the moving train and, subsequently, the train was halted by a group of vigilantes seeking revenge for that insult. The two white women aboard the train were just a bonus to the mob, an excuse for a quick lynching that the young black men would barely escape.
Ellen Feldman recounts this real life event largely through the eyes of Ruby Bates, one of the young women who falsely accused the young black men of raping her and her friend Victoria Price. Feldman alternates between the first person accounts of the real life Ruby and fictional reporter Alice Whittier in order to explain the events of the fifty years following the original arrest of the nine Scottsboro boys. Interestingly, and very effectively, the Scottsboro boys themselves remain largely in the background – as they did for most of the lawyers, reporters, judges, Communist Party members, NAACP members, and others who were happy enough to exploit the plight of the boys for their own gain.
It was, of course, impossible for any of the nine accused rapists to receive a fair trial in Jim Crow era Alabama. Even after Ruby Bates recanted her original testimony and a new trial was granted to one of the defendants, a new jury returned the same guilty verdict and death sentence. No matter how many juries or courtrooms heard the evidence against any of the nine, the result was invariably the same because, as Feldman makes clear in the novel, no white person could vote anything other than guilty if he wanted to live in the state of Alabama after the trial.
Feldman uses the relationship between reporter Alice Whittier and accuser Ruby Bates to get at the heart of how this kind of thing happens. Ruby, an impoverished part-time mill worker whose family barely sustained itself during the Great Depression, was desperate for cash money. She and the more aggressive Victoria Price were part-time prostitutes who enjoyed the men and attention as well as the extra cash they received from selling themselves. Ruby was a follower, directed by Victoria to give false testimony, but she was no fool. She gained fame by changing her testimony to favor the defense and, for a while, was able to turn that fame into a new life in New York City supported by those seeking freedom for the Scottsboro boys.
Scottsboro is a clear snapshot of an era of American history during which racial minorities had few rights in the South, a time when poor whites, economically no better off than their black neighbors, marked their own place in society by demonstrating to those neighbors that they were racially superior to them. By telling her story through the eyes of one of these desperately poor whites, Ellen Feldman makes what happened, in the context of its times, almost understandable.
What happened in Scottsboro makes for sad reading, a story without a happy ending, but sometimes it takes a novel like this to remind one that it all happened to real people, people with simple hopes and dreams, people who were victims of their times, accused and accuser, alike.
Ripped: How the Wired Generation Revolutionized Music
Greg Kot's "Ripped" offers a clear look at how the old school recording industry, primarily the major record labels, committed group suicide by allowing the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) to attack the customers who put money into its various corporate pockets. The dinosaurs managing the major labels failed to recognize the multitude of potential benefits offered by the new digital technology of the internet, insisting instead that it was to be business as usual for them. Very few big labels or their CEOs survived the mass suicide, and the misguided fools at the RIAA are steadily wiping out the few survivors.
Ready or not, and the labels were certainly not ready, "a new generation of bands and fans empowered by personal computers and broadband Internet connections…forged a new world of music distribution that seized control from once all-powerful music and radio conglomerates." Suddenly, even the most obscure regional bands could find a market for their music, and just as suddenly, that music was largely available on the internet free of charge. Rather than embracing the new technology, however, and offering its back catalogs and new music for sale in the new mp3 format at a reasonable price, the industry panicked and decided to have the RIAA try to kill song downloading through lawsuits and other nasty intimidation methods.
The labels, of course, were trying to protect CD sales, a goldmine format in which it resold its back catalog to longtime music fans for the third or fourth times. Many consumers had purchased the same music in multiple formats over the years already, vinyl albums, 8-track tapes, cassette tapes, and CDs, and when the opportunity to get music at little or no cost presented itself, they jumped all over it. Most downloaders felt little guilt about "stealing" music from the labels and, instead, saw the opportunity as a kind of payback from the label for all the money already wasted on overpriced CDs. It did not help the labels that so many of the new CDs being marketed contain only one or two decent tracks and ten "fillers." Now the consumer was doing the "ripping" rather than being "ripped off" by the labels.
The music industry is hardly recognizable today and that is not necessarily a bad thing. Independent labels and even independent artists are doing better on their own today than when they were dependent on the major record labels and radio conglomerates to give them any exposure. The industry may not like it, but radio stations, record labels, and television channels such as MTV and CMT do not move many recordings these days. Much more important to this generation is word-of-mouth, internet buzz, music blogs, and bands and singers that market themselves through the new technology.
It has never been better for independent and regional bands willing and able to do it for themselves. No longer are they tied to record company contracts from which 90% never made a dime, in the first place. No longer is their future in the hands of business types who care little about the music and see it all as some interchangeable product whose artistic value is purely coincidental.
"Ripped" explains well how it all happened and where the industry may be heading. The second half of the book does focus, however, a bit too much on individual bands that either have fought or embraced the new world in which they find themselves. This portion of the book becomes overly repetitive at times, and offers more detail about some of the bands than most readers will care to wade through, but anyone interested in the music business as it works today will do well to add "Ripped" to his library.
The Winter Vault
The Winter Vault is a complex, passionate novel about loneliness, destruction, replication, personal loss, and memories of one's roots, and it requires high levels of patience and concentration if one is to absorb everything that Anne Michaels is trying to say. It is neither a plot-driven nor a character-driven novel and, in fact, those are its weakest elements. Rather, it is a philosophical novel filled with rambling monologues, lessons, and meditations that often have little to do with plot. Further, the book's main characters, although they can be memorable, often have more the feel of actors being brought on stage simply to make an author's points than the feel of real, breathing people.
It is 1964 and Avery Escher is in Egypt to save Abu Simbel's Great Temple from the floodwaters soon to be released by the new Aswan Dam. He is there to oversee the dismantling of the centuries-old Temple so that it can be reconstructed some sixty feet higher in a cliff where it will be safe from the flooding. His wife, Jean, who witnessed a similar event in Canada when ten villages were sacrificed to the waters of the new St. Lawrence Seaway, is in Egypt with Avery, whom she met when he worked the Seaway project.
Jean is saddened by what she sees in Egypt, the displacement of the Nubian people whose government is happy enough to sacrifice them for the greater good of the country. As trainload after trainload of these people are relocated and their ancestral villages are destroyed and flooded, Jean realizes that she and Avery are part of something destructive rather than something positive. When a personal tragedy forces her to return to Canada, she finds that her feelings about her life and marriage have changed and she decides to live alone.
The second half of the book sees Avery largely fading into the background while Jean tries to put her life back together with the help of her new friend, Lucjan, a Polish immigrant who, as a boy, survived the World War II destruction of Warsaw. In Jean, Lucjan has finally found a woman with whom he can share his detailed memories of those days, including how disoriented he was when he first walked the streets of the uncannily accurate replication of the old city completed after the war.
The two halves of The Winter Vault share a common theme but their plots and characters are so different that they read like two novels under one cover. Anne Michaels has published several poetry collections and the prose of The Winter Vault, only her second novel, is often as striking as her poetry. Unfortunately, however, some of her extended passages continue to be vague and distracting no matter how much attention and time a reader gives them. It should also be noted that the decision not to use quotation marks or chapter breaks in this 336-page novel may tempt some readers to abandon it well short of its final page. Those who persevere will, however, have much to think about when they finish The Winter Vault.
Michael Jackson: Book Lover
I have paid very little attention to the hoopla about Michael Jackson's death. I was out of town the week he died, and didn't turn on a television set for the six days I was away from home, so I managed to miss the worst of the media blitz about his tragic end. Frankly, though, I found the man to be kind of creepy and not too many years after his "Thriller" period I began to ignore him. So the last thing I thought I would be posting about today was something relating to Michael Jackson.
What caught my attention was the comment from Jackson's lawyer, Bob Sanger, about Jackson's reading habits and personal library.
"He loved to read. He had over 10,000 books at his house."
"And there were places that he liked to sit, and you could see the books with his bookmarks in it, with notes and everything in it where he liked to sit and read. And I can tell you from talking to him that he had a very - especially for someone who was self-taught, as it were, and had his own reading list - he was very well-read. And I don't want to say that I'm well-read, but I've certainly read a lot, let's put it that way, and I enjoy philosophy and history and everything myself, and it was very nice to talk to him, because he was very intellectual, and he liked to talk about those things. But he didn't flaunt it, and it was very seldom that he would initiate the conversation like that, but if you got into a conversation like that with him, he was there."
The complete column at Seattlepi.com recounts some of Jackson's bookstore visits and how he was known to bring a van full of kids to bookstores and let them buy whatever they wanted. I love the fact that Michael Jackson was a reader and that he saw giving books to children as something positive but my lasting impression of the man will be that of one who lived a sad and somewhat twisted existence right up to the day of his death...just another wasted life.
Labels: Readers
Photo Tour: Rosine, KY, and Bill Monroe Home Place
Rosine, KY, the birthplace of bluegrass music is about a 40-minute drive from Owensboro and the International Bluegrass Music Museum. Despite my attendance at the ROMP festival for the last four years, I have found it difficult to make it to Rosine. ROMP ends late on a Saturday night and the Bill Monroe home in Rosine does not open its doors to the public before 1:00 p.m. on Sundays - timing that does not work out for someone who has over 900 miles of driving to do that day.
This year, however, it was so hot in Owensboro that three of us decided to make the drive to Rosine one morning, opting to hit Yellow Creek Park a little later in the day when things might be a bit cooler (fat chance, that, as it turned out).
The Rosine Barn Jamboree is sure to catch your eye as you drive into town. The barn is right next door to a little general store and cafe that should not be missed either. The store is a great place to get directions to the Bill Monroe Home Place and something cold to drink on your way out to the house. The cemetery in which Bill and much of the Monroe family is buried is just a few hundred yards from the interesection in which the store and Barn sit.
This is a close-up of the circular plaque on the left side of the Rosine Barn Jamboree building:
Just a couple of miles from the general store is this sign marking the way to the old Monroe home, my favorite "dangerous curve" sign of all time:
A few hundred feet down the winding road pictured on the sign will bring you to the Bill Monroe Home Place, the house Bill lived in for much of his life. Monroe was born in a log cabin on the site of this home but the cabin burned to the ground when he was five years old and by 1918 the family was living in this "Cumberland home." The home was fully restored in 2001, by salvaging about 80% of its original wood, and it contains personal furniture, pictures, and other items that belonged to the Monroe family.
The home includes a living room, kitchen, three bedrooms and a back porch on which the family took many of its meals. Bill had the smallest bedroom to himself, his five brothers shared a larger bedroom, his parents had one to themselves, and his three sisters slept in the living room.
This is the scene just off the back porch of the home:
Photos from the Rosine cemetery, including the burial spot of Bill Monroe and much of his family:
And there you have it. Rosine, KY, the birthplace of Bill Monroe and bluegrass music is simply not to be missed. It took me four years to finally get to Rosine but I plan to go back again next year for a more "informed" look around the home place and cemetery. Now that I know what's there and what to expect, a second visit will probably be even better than the first one.
One side note about a nice surprise we got in the general store - Bill Monroe's daughter sitting at a table in the little cafe part of the store, and along side her were the legendary Tom Gray and his wife.
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Step by Step: A Pedestrian Memoir

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


You can still make a difference in 2016 with charitable gifts.
As 2016 draws to a close and we look back over the year we can see our successes as a company, but we realize once again that nothing we do means more to us than giving back to our local community. So we wanted to present you with an opportunity to join us in making a difference before this year comes to an end.
R&B Used Books is a local bookstore that has meant a lot to the Spud Software family. They support Lucky Day Animal Rescue with in-store adoption events. They provide sponsorship for local businesses and charities. And one of our employees even got engaged there. In order to keep the business open and growing for our community, they've set a goal of selling 20,000 books in the month of December. As of this morning they've sold just shy of 10,000 books. R&B Used Books continues to give to their community and support other local businesses and charities and we want to encourage you to stop in and help them reach their goal. You can find out more on their Facebook page or stop in at 12830 S Saginaw St in Grand Blanc.
While we like to encourage giving back to your local community, there are many great charitable organizations out there to donate to at the end of the year. You can give hope to those in need by supporting the American Red Cross or you can help the sick children at St. Jude's. You can support our veterans through Wounded Warriors or relieve hunger by Feeding America.
However you choose to give back, we encourage everyone to end your year by thinking of others and finding ways to make a difference.
Having fun for the holidays.
It has been a great year at Spud Software. We owe so much of our success to the amazing employees who give their best every day to our projects and clients. So this past weekend, we hosted a Christmas party here at our office.
Spud employees and their families were treated to a catered meal in our fun and festive game room and were entertained by sleight of hand artist, Mike Davis.
Davis, who performs regularly at Motor City Casino and other major venues throughout metro Detroit, wowed our staff with tricks that left everyone guessing how he did it.
We made the event fun for the whole family, including a craft corner where kids could decorate their own Christmas ornaments.
Diana Bertapelle, one of our hard-working project managers said, "I had a great time socializing with coworkers, enjoying good food and fun times. The party made it possible to see everyone laughing and enjoying the party with their families outside of the day to day work environment."
Go: The season is hectic for everyone, but whenever you get the chance, go be a part of the fun.
Eat what you want: There's time enough for dieting in the new year. Splurge a little and enjoy the many tastes of Christmas.
Don't chug the egg nog: In the age of cell phone videos going viral, nobody wants to be famous for drunken Christmas karaoke.
Have fun: Above all, remember to relax and enjoy yourself. Make new friends, catch up with old ones, and share in the fun of the Christmas spirit.
Whatever your plans are this holiday season, Spud Software wishes you a safe and very Merry Christmas.
Stay safe when you shop online.
For some people, the thrill of hitting the mall with its brightly lit decorations, never-ending Christmas music and 75% off banners is the highlight of the season. But for the rest of us, nothing brings out the Bah-Humbug quite like being forced to brave the seasonal crowds and fight for that last Tickle-me-Elmo (or whatever's in style this year). And that's why we love online shopping. We have the world of gift giving at our fingertips, and most retailers offer free or discounted shipping. Merry Christmas to us!
But online shopping comes with its own pitfalls. There are Grinches out there looking for ways to exploit our vulnerabilities and steal our Christmas joy. We want to help you ensure your data is secure when you're shopping online.
When you're entering your credit card details on a site, it's important to make sure this data is sent securely. Your browser has a way of showing you that your credit card number will be encrypted so no one monitoring the network traffic can intercept your data. Most browsers use a green padlock icon in the address bar to signify a secure connection.
If you're out and about, it may seem convenient to use a coffee shop or airport's free Wi-Fi, but using these public networks isn't a good idea when you're sending credit card details and personal information. Using free Wi-Fi networks makes you vulnerable to people sniffing the network looking to grab usernames, passwords and credit card numbers. When buying online, it's always best to use your home network or another secured connection like the direct web access on your phone.
If the deal seems too good to be true, it probably is. That goes double for shopping online. If you get an email for 80% off the latest gadget or $5 boots it could be a phishing scam. These links can take you to false sites designed to steal your data. Even if the email comes from a friend or family member, think twice before shopping and, when in doubt, do a simple Google search to check the reliability of the site.
With that in mind, it's always best to go with what you know. While most resellers run honest businesses on the web, there are people looking to take advantage of online shoppers. Consider purchasing from trusted retailers like Amazon or online eCommerce sites for the brick-and-mortar stores you visit most. Even if they cost a few dollars more, you'll have peace of mind knowing your information is secure.
Whether the retailer requires you to use a strong password or not, it's always the wisest course of action - the longer the better. Don't use common words, use capitals, numbers and punctuation marks. Whatever you do, don't fall into the trap of "password1" or "yourname123."
After all your shopping is done, be sure to check your accounts to confirm that the amount withdrawn from your account matches the amount on your receipts and that there aren't any suspicious charges from companies you didn't buy from.
Shopping online can be a great way to avoid the Christmas rush, keep your holiday cheer in tact, and even save extra time and money. Just be sure you're following safe practices when you shop online to avoid turning the Happy Holidays into the Nightmare Before Christmas.
We help you find the best gadgets to get your favorite techie.
We love new technology at Spud Software. We're the guys who get geeked over the latest tablet to hit the market and we want to play with all the new electronic toys. In the spirit of helping you stress less this Christmas, we've put together a list of some of the best tech gifts available this year. Whether you're buying for Dad, your former college roommate or your favorite software developer (wink, wink), these are the gifts that are sure to please any techie.
Whether you're into the Amazon Echo or Google Home, these devices are sure to be a big hit this season. They're designed to take voice commands and help you with everything from playing your favorite music to searching for nearby retailers, reordering detergent or calling an Uber.
For that friend, family member or co-worker who always needs to borrow your charger, this would be the perfect gift. They combine cool looking key chains with cell phone charging capabilities and can be connected to anything with a full USB port.
If you have someone in your life who just can't take enough selfies, or an amateur photographer who's always on the go, this printer is the gift to give. It's small and easily portable and works with Apple and Android devices via a free app, allowing photographers to get physical copies of their favorite mobile photos.
For artists, students or avid note takers, consider this neat gadget that uses regular paper and instantly sends notes or drawings to the user's tablet or smartphone. It even allows users to search for sketched words using a mobile device.
Do you know someone who is always losing their phone? Then this is a must-have gift this season. This credit-card sized device by Tile will help anyone find their phone if it's within Bluetooth range. It's easy to carry and the non-removable battery lasts for a year.
Whether you're waiting for pizza delivery or trying to avoid those door-to-door salesmen (do they exist anymore?) this piece of tech allows you to see who's at your door right on your phone or tablet, before you answer the ring. It's also a great security device if you're away from home for long periods.
Even programmers like to get out and stay healthy, and fitness trackers are an awesome tool for anyone looking to motivate themselves with activity tracking and movement reminders.
This was a great year for technology and what better way to show someone you love them than with a tech device that you know they'll love to use. These recommendations and many more are available online to save you from making that extra trip to the store. You can thank us later.


Intimate Migrations is a research project about sexuality and migration funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. The project explores the experiences of lesbian, gay and bisexual migrants who have moved to Scotland from Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union. It is being carried out by Francesca Stella, Moya Flynn and Anna Gawlewicz from the University of Glasgow and runs from January 2015 to December 2016.


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L&S Electric
July 1, 2012 February 20, 2017 Daniel Vance springfield
Photo: Jeff Silker
Springfield-based company generating excitement with green energy, electricity, and hot pizza.
Years later, a physician said he should have died.
In 1980, then 25-year-old Tim Lipetzky was an electrician working inside a Lakefield hospital when he felt an ache arcing through his stomach. He told a registered nurse about the pain, but would wave it off before leaving that night. At home later, his wife pestered him into visiting a doctor. It hurt.
"I had cancer," said Lipetzsky in a Connect Business Magazine interview from his 23-employee L&S Electric headquarters in Springfield, where he also owns the nation's first stand-alone Hot Stuff Pizza Buffet franchise and Green Energy Products, a solar and wind energy business with a satellite office in Mankato. Almost whispering, Lipetzky went on about his experience: "They did a chest x-ray before surgery and found a tumor on my right lung the size of a softball. It was advanced testicular cancer. The tumors had moved into my stomach and lung. But I felt good. I was 25 and had never been sick a day in life and never missed a day of school or work."
After his first surgery, a nerve-wracking eight-hour affair in Rochester, he couldn't work for more than eleven months. Brutal chemotherapy treatments sapped energy. His wife had just given birth to their first child. Lipetzky tried applying for government assistance, but was rejected due to having $1,500 in savings—even though his medical bills had reached $20,000. He was accepted for food stamps, but was so embarrassed to redeem any he snuck off to grocery shop in Marshall, far from the eyes of neighbors and friends.
"The way we were brought up, you just didn't take handouts," he explained.
When returning to work in July 1981, he pledged to his wife they would never again face another devastating financial hardship. Once was enough. In an effort to make good on his pledge and build a financial cushion, Lipetzky started L&S Electric in early 1984 with about $500 saved up.
The fifth of eleven children born into a close-knit Roman Catholic family, Lipetzky grew up on a family farm ten miles north of Springfield, where he began his first business venture at age 6. While at the Sleepy Eye auction yard, an auctioneer and his father both urged him to buy two scrawny piglets. "And I will never forget when they were sold my father gave me $66 for them," said Lipetzky. "The money was in silver dollars and I could hardly hold the coins because of the weight. After that, I was always doing things with business."
The Lipetzkys often worked and lived as a team, which sometimes involved playing softball, walking the beans or doing kitchen work—and everyone had their turn. He said, "I feel sorry for some of the smaller families today that have just one or two kids. They don't get to build the relationships with their brothers and sisters, especially if there are a lot of years in between."
After Mass each week, Lipetzky's father gave each of his children a nickel to buy candy, which was their only weekly treat. Family reunions usually had up to 40 children playing outdoor games. The entire family grieved when the oldest son died in Vietnam in 1969. Mom worked part-time, and dad was a full-time farmer raising dairy cattle, chickens, hogs, and tending 200 acres. Theirs was a frugal, conservative lifestyle light years away from one experienced by modern American children that thumb cell phones and manipulate Xboxes.
Lipetzky would become an electrician for Brandt Electric and meet Korean-born Hyon at a dance in Sanborn. She had been living with her sister in Minnesota. The couple dated and married in 1979 and right away had a child three months before Lipetzky was diagnosed with cancer. His first surgery, which lasted more than eight hours, left a Zorro-like scar across his stomach from one side of his body to the other. He went on chemotherapy, which back then was a physically exhausting seven-day ordeal every six weeks. The day he drove to his scheduled lung surgery at St. Mary's in Rochester was the same day deranged John Hinckley shot at President Reagan. By then, Lipetzky weighed just 114 pounds and would lose the upper right lobe of his lung in surgery that day. At least two doctors over time would say he shouldn't have survived the ordeal.
"And every day since, the first thing I say after waking up is, 'Thank you, Lord, for another day," he said. "I sometimes wonder why I had a second chance. Some people don't."
After an 11-month recovery and several more years of working for Brandt Electric, "in March 1984, I broke out on my own (with a partner)," he said. "I just felt it was time and was worth the risk. It was difficult because I was used to getting a weekly check and the economy wasn't going very well. But I was ready for having my own business. All those years working for Brandt Electric, I would raise pigs, rent land, and farm on the side. I was always doing something on the side anyway." And he also had that financial pledge he made to his wife.
He won his first two bids within 24 hours of each other: Tauer's Grocery Store in Springfield and a Windom hospital clinic addition. He also had some work regularly coming from Sanborn Manufacturing in Springfield. By the end of his first year—even though he struggled at times eking out payroll—he had 13 employees.
By 1990-91, the company was going great guns with up to 40 employees and was the first business settling into the industrial park on Springfield's west side. The company began a seven-year stretch of having a maintenance crew work on site in Marshall at a corn processing plant. Also about 1990, the company became a subcontractor for a Tracy business specializing in lighting retrofits for Xcel Energy customers.
"And also that same year (1990), we ran into a company that asked about our providing cardboard storage for them," said Lipetzky. "So we rented a building to and hauled cardboard for Rapid Packaging, who supplied cardboard product to a large window company. "
He attributed the company's success through this growth period and beyond to a lot of hard work he and his employees spent building relationships with customers and contractors, which included being competitive with pricing, on time with product, and on schedule with contractors and owners. (His first employee, Larry Kohout, still works for him as an estimator.) He believed in his employees and gave them a great deal of power on job sites to make many of their own decisions. They have always tried doing that "little extra" to make sure the owners or contractors were happy, he said.
He said, "As a boss, I'm not really the boss. Everyone working for me is the boss. They tell me what we should do. I'm here only to put out fires."
Having talented and hard-working employees he could trust gave Lipetzky the confidence and extra hour or two daily to try his hand at dabbling in side businesses—something he had done his entire life. His electric business was booming. In the late '90s, he began two new business diversions for fun and profit: Springfield Fish, which was a company that raised 2,000 yellow-striped perch at a time for resale to a buyer in Wisconsin; and a day trading career of buying and selling stocks through Scottrade.com. Both of these diversions ended within a few years. The perch company went belly-up when the sole buyer stopped buying and competition was rumored coming; and day trading ended when his wife felt he was neglecting L&S Electric. The former company—Springfield Fish—never made much money, while day trading turned a tidy profit and could have been a full-time career even though this was during the stock boom years of 1998-2001 when many people made money trading stocks.
L&S Electric maintained growth into 2005 until two rather large electric jobs literally ended the same weekend. Lipetzky had 42 hungry employees and not enough work. The company couldn't get a bid, he said. He had to lay off almost half his workforce.
"The economy was beginning to go down, too" he said. "It was difficult letting people go. I just had to hang my head and tell them I was sorry. My dad gave me advice by saying I had to do what was best for the company to make sure it survived. If the company didn't survive, then literally everyone was out of a job." That same year, he bought out his partner, who by that time held only five percent of the business and ended up started a company in Willmar.
Just like cancer moved him to start a new business, having to lay off so many eventually did the same. He saw the bread-and-butter construction market fading, profit margins narrowing, and he had only so much operating capital to keep L&S Electric employees working in shop between jobs. He had to diversify—and fast.
In early 2008 after much preparation, he launched Green Energy Products. He said, "We had started looking at doing solar and wind, and started calling Sunpower (a solar manufacturer) and emailing them weekly for eight months straight. We became their first dealership in Minnesota." His starting Green Energy Products, he said, not only provided a much needed revenue influx, but also probably saved L&S Electric, the mother company.
Asked to give Connect Business Magazine readers his best solar sales pitch, he said, "First off, it will lower your operating costs. I feel it's a very good investment because Sunpower has the most efficient solar panels. For example, they just made the Guinness Book of World Records this year for having the most efficient panel. Even on a cloudy day, you will do anywhere from 30 to 70 percent (of maximum energy production). I'm a believer that if I want you to buy solar or wind, I should own some myself. So I have three solar systems and three wind generators, so I can get my own production data. Payback is in the eight- to twelve-year range depending on rates and incentives. It has a 25-year warranty and the life expectancy of a Sunpower solar panel is more than 50 years. My electric bill last month was a minus $3.25. As for the environment, because of my 18 solar panels I have not emitted 30,000 pounds of CO2."
As for wind power, Green Energy Products buys from Southwest Wind of Flagstaff, Arizona, which manufactures smaller wind generators retailing for about $15,000. Customer payback has been seven to twelve years depending on wind conditions, which can vary considerably from year to year.
Said Lipetzky, "We have installed about 50 (wind turbines) in the Midwest and 120 solar systems. One thing not discussed in terms of payback is the residual value. For example, my son started out in solar with a different brand at his home. When we became Sunpower dealers, he took the old one down after two years and was able to sell it for what he had paid initially."
The company recently opened a new Mankato office next to Zanz Mexican Restaurant after having been in the nearby Mankato Design Center. Tim Schwartz of Brown and Brown Insurance helped find a location. The Mankato office has been managed by Drew McCabe, an MSU construction management graduate Lipetzky hired on sight at Red Lobster where McCabe was working as a part-time waiter while going through school.
Today, Green Energy Products doesn't have any employees per se, only cross-pollination with L&S Electric, which has workers commuting to job sites from their homes all over, including Willmar, New Ulm, Jeffers, Lamberton, Springfield, and Mankato. L&S Electric itself lately has been staying busy working on a hospital project in Slayton, a clinic addition in Marshall, a remodel at the Jackson hospital, and ongoing work for hospitals in Springfield and Windom. The company also does some lighting retrofit and energy management work. Lipetzky sees his 28-year-old business as being centrally located: Marshall is 56 miles away, Willmar 61, Worthington 57, Jackson 42, New Ulm 28, and Mankato 58.
That 1980-81 cancer scare changed Lipetzky inside out. He said he still hasn't figured out why he received a second chance, but then again, maybe other people have. This soft-spoken, humble man makes a habit of doing random acts of kindness for people less fortunate.
For example, he said, "One winter day, my wife and I went to Mankato. On the way back, there were these homeless guys on the east end of Springfield. When the workday was over for us, they were walking out on Highway 14 near our shop. I went out and asked what they were doing. They wanted to get to the Salvation Army in Brookings. So I gave them a ride 90 miles to Brookings. I wasn't doing anything. They had gotten a ride earlier with someone in a motor home. The bags they had were still in the back of the motor home because the guy had forgotten to unload the bags. One of the homeless guys was frostbitten. In Brookings, I got them a motel room and went to Wal-Mart to buy clothing. I always think back that could have been me."
Hot Stuff Pizza
On July 1, Tim Lipetzky's Hot Stuff Pizza Buffet franchise opened in a former Chevrolet dealership building in Springfield. He said, "My son said he always liked Hot Stuff Pizza. I told him to contact them to see if we could do a stand-alone restaurant. So we contacted Orion Foods of Sioux Falls. They were thinking along the same line. So Springfield has the nation's first stand-alone Hot Stuff Pizza Buffet franchise. They have it in 1,100 convenience stores and one stand-alone. Ours is the prototype."
Keep Working, Tim
L&S Electric owner Tim Lipetzky said, "Having family members come into the business has helped me provide a future for them. My son Phil and daughter-in-law are here. One daughter is a graphic designer and another a web designer—both from Minneapolis. I could have retired six years ago, but feel an obligation to them. My accountant says I should keep working because I will never adapt when I retire. I don't hunt, fish or golf."
Community Involved
Lipetzky volunteers up to 15 hours monthly with the Springfield power utility, which includes offering advice on long-term power contract decisions. For years, he was on the Springfield hospital building and finance committee, and worked on that entity joining Mayo Clinic Health System.
Location: 1315 W. Central Street
Springfield, MN 56087
Web: greenenergyproductsllc.com
Telephone: 723-4885
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