Glad No Matter What: Transforming Loss and Change into Gift and Opportunity by SARK

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was my first exposure to SARK’s writing, aside from her posters. It was a gift from a former co-worker as I left my job at the San Francisco Public Library. At the time, I didn’t feel very gracious about the transition, and so it has taken me a while to finish reading this.

“Glad No Matter What” is primarily a book about the type of loss and change that surrounds the death of a loved one, but I could apply some of it to the loss and change I am currently experiencing as I transition to my new home. SARK’s unbridled enthusiasm and good nature bursts from every page, and it is difficult not to be cheered by her multicolored scrawls.

My favorite portion of her book was about her “emotional GPS” and how she notices negative thought patterns and reactions as she is having them, then tells herself “recalculating” as she finds a new “emotional route”. I chuckled over this, and then gave it some thought. Sometimes I feel very guilty about my negative responses to things while feeling helpless to change them. But with the emotional GPS idea, I can recalculate negative reactions into less negative responses.

I admit to skimming over some parts that were simply too spiritual for my tastes, but I remain an admirer of SARK as a creative force and a positive influence in a cynical world.



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We Need to Talk about Kevin by Lionel Shriver

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I really do not know what to write about this book. On the one hand, it is a known quantity; no one starts reading it without knowing, at least in the most general sense, what it is about. On the other, it answers none of the questions the reader will have about its horrific central narrative.

Shriver is, undoubtedly, a talented writer. The story made me feel ambivalence for every single character introduced, no small feat considering how easy it would be to create a maudlin mother or monstrous son. No, in fact, every single person involved has realistic foibles, making the absence of the great “why” at the end all the more appalling.

It could happen to any one of us, here in the real world. And it has. And I’m not sure I needed to read a book about that.



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The Dewey Decimal System: A Novel by Nathan Larson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It may be weird to say that I am a fan of dystopian near-future settings. I have a morbid fascination with bleak, sparse landscapes and crumbling infrastructure; I remain hopeful that I will never have to live in such a world, but constantly wonder what type of person I would be if I survived in one.

In “The Dewey Decimal System”, Larson creates an instantly engaging survivor as a protagonist, and a compelling city in ruins around him. Larson’s staccato, fragmented style makes this a quick and brutal read with plenty of physical and emotional carnage. I only wished for more scenes in the New York Public Library, yearning for more details of this post-apocalyptic information age that seems entirely devoid of the ‘net.



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Author and publisher Carmen Callil has withdrawn from the judging panel of the Man Booker International prize over its decision to honour Philip Roth with the £60,000 award. Dismissing the Pulitzer prize-winning author, Callil said that ‘he goes on and on and on about the same subject in almost every single book. It’s as though he’s sitting on your face and you can’t breathe’.
Judge withdraws over Philip Roth’s Booker win | Books | guardian.co.uk

Bossypants by Tina Fey

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Because I am not up on these things, even though I really should be, I had no idea that Tina Fey had written a book. If I had, I would have pre-pre-ordered it as those of us in the librarian cabal are able to do. What? That’s not a thing? I have been lied to! Anyway, I stumbled across the disturbing cover of her not-quite-memoir "Bossypants" three seconds after stepping into a local bookstore, and even though I am trying very (kind of) hard not to buy any new books, I bought it.

And I devoured it in less than 24 hours.

"Bossypants" is a fast, sparkling read, with plenty of LLOLL (legitimate laugh-out-loud in the library) moments. Fey is funny and smart, which everyone already knew, and also eloquent and gracious, which you probably already knew because you are up on aforementioned things while I am not. A review of this book should probably mention that she addresses sexism in comedy and television and everywhere else, but I am allergic to saying things like "so-and-so is a feminist" because she happens to write things that are true.

My favorite quote from the book is: "It is an impressively arrogant move to conclude that just because you don’t like something, it is empirically not good." Since I am arrogant, I can state with authority that I liked this book, thus it is empirically good.

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From the Am Law Daily:

“The [amended settlement agreement] would grant Google control over the digital commercialization of millions of books, including orphan books and other unclaimed works,” Judge Chin wrote. “And it would do so even though Google engaged in wholesale, blatant copying, without first obtaining copyright permissions.”

(via FunkyPlaid)

George R. R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” series proceeds, finally, with a hard publication date of 12 July 2011.

Nine hundred pages? Let’s do this.

The children’s book “Goodnight Moon” reimagined in only the most wonderful of ways. Thanks, Julia Yu. And thanks, MetaFilter.

The Malcolm Gladwell Book Generator, via Poets & Writers Magazine: My favorite is Germs, Steel, & Guns: A Slightly Reorganized Version of That Other Book.

I would read this. I would read this very much.

The Last Ring-Bearer, by palaeontologist Kirill Yeskov, retells Tolkien’s epic story from the perspective of the region of Mordor, from where Sauron, the Dark Lord, waged war on the free peoples of Middle Earth in the War of the Rings, eventually to be defeated by Gandalf.

But I understand why Tolkien’s estate is displeased. Because they are part of the political machine devoted to suppressing the Mordorian minority’s historical relevance! Er. Or copyright. That.

via Lord of the Rings reworking a hit with fans, but not Tolkien estate | Books | guardian.co.uk.