Skip navigation

Category Archives: Books

Go Set A Watchman: Harper Lee and the Glorious Return of Scout Finch

The literary world is rejoicing today at the announcement that Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird, will be releasing a sequel this year. The new novel, Go Set a Watchman, was actually the first novel written by Lee, but was not initially published. Her editor advised her against the publication of the book, which focused on To Kill a Mockingbird‘s heroine, Scout Finch, as an adult. Instead, flashback scenes of Scout’s childhood were reworked into the classic novel we know. According to initial press, the sequel will follow a now-grown Scout returning home to visit her father, Atticus. July 14th is the current planned release date for Go Set a Watchman, and frankly, I can’t wait to see it.

I haven’t read To Kill a Mockingbird since I was in junior high, in Mrs. Crocker’s English class. It’s been far too long since I watched Gregory Peck star in the film adaptation as Atticus. I need to make another trip to Maycomb, Alabama, because it’s tragically clear that the prejudices Lee wrote about in 1960 are just as present today.

Literary Lovers: A Flowchart from Goodreads

In keeping with some of the themes from last week, I decided to share this with you. This infographic comes from the amazing people over at goodreads. Here’s there “What’s Your Love Story?” flowchart. Find the original here.

Pretty damn thorough...

Pretty damn thorough…

The Book Is Not Dead

Just thought I’d share this little beauty from Daily Infographic. The original can be found here.

2014: A Brief Preview

2014 is going to be the best year yet. I said that last year, and it’s just as true today. It’s going to be a big year, with lots of upcoming books, movies, and more. Here’s a little preview of what I’m looking forward to in 2014.

Books: Mr. Mercedes. A new novel from Stephen King hits shelves this June. King is always worth a read, and I can’t wait to hear what his latest tale has to offer.

Karen Traviss is releasing a new Halo book this year, with Mortal Dictata. She’ll be concluding the story she started with Glasslands and The Thursday War. I’ve really enjoyed Traviss’ take on the Halo universe, especially her depictions of the Sangheili (Elites) and their culture.

Conferences: I’m adding a category this year, because I’m planning (and hoping) to attend the Pikes Peak Writer’s Conference for the first time this year. Guests of honor include Gail Carriger, Jim C. Hines, and Chuck Wendig. It’s going to be an incredible weekend, and I’m hoping that some of my local writing friends, including V are able to join me.

Movies: Marvel’s Cinematic Universe continues to march into Phase 2. Following last year’s Iron Man 3 and Thor 2: The Dark World will be Captain America: The Winter Soldier and the relatively risky Guardians of the Galaxy. Winter Soldier should be a solid follow-up to The Avengers, with Cap having his WWII past catch up to him. Guardians of the Galaxy is going to be interesting, since the comic isn’t exactly the home of Marvel’s A-list characters. Still should be a hell of a movie to catch in the theatre.

Also this year, Wes Anderson’s new film, The Grand Budapest Hotel opens. I love Anderson’s style, and this looks to be a grand collaboration with all of his usual cohorts. Look for Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, Tilda Swinton, Bill Murray, Edward Norton, and more great stars in the tale of a legendary concierge, Gustave H. (Ralph Fiennes).

Television: Sherlock. It’s back, after far too long. British audiences got to see “The Empty Hearse” premiere already. American audiences should be getting in on the action by mid-January thanks to PBS (or sooner, if they’re clever).

Doctor Who celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2013. Now that Matt Smith has handed the sonic screwdriver and TARDIS key over to Peter Capaldi, it’ll be heading in a new direction. Having not yet seen the most recent Christmas special, I can’t speak to Capaldi’s role just yet, but any time the Doctor regenerates is exciting.

So here we go, 2014. I’m counting on you to be the best year you can be. I’ll do everything I can on my end.

Happy New Year, everyone.

Required Reading

Required reading. It’s a phrase that strikes fear in the hearts of lesser men and women. Despite the delays that my undergraduate career caused for my reading list, I encountered some of my favorite works of literature during those years. I had numerous lists of required material for my classes in college, and I can honestly say that my tastes have changed for the better because of it.

Some of my favorite pieces of required reading from my college courses are listed here.

Beowulf (translated by Seamus Heaney). My medieval literature professor had us read this one. I knew the story prior to taking the course, but I’d never read Heaney’s translation. Heaney maintains the verse form of the original text, but makes the legendary tale accessible to modern readers. Follow the adventures of Beowulf, mighty warrior, as he does battle with monsters and becomes a king. Side note: kennings are awesome.

Fun Home by Alison Bechdel. Bechdel’s art recreates memories of her childhood in the family-run funeral home. Along the way, she reflects on her coming out as a lesbian and explores her recently-deceased father’s reasons for hiding his own homosexuality from his family. This graphic novel and its follow-up, Are You My Mother? are fantastic. Solid writing, honest prose, and intricate drawing make Bechdel’s works must-reads. My many thanks to my American Literature professor for introducing me to her writing.

The Giver by Lois Lowry. This was one I’d read a couple of times since first encountering it in audio book format on a family camping trip as a kid. When I learned that it was on the list for a sociology class I was taking, I wanted to thank the professor for picking something that so beautifully described a small, isolated community. Jonas’ selection as his village’s new Receiver of Memory is the first step in his realization that life in his home is not as ideal as he believes.

That’s it for now, folks, but I may make another post or two along these lines. Remember, literacy is our friend, even if it’s forced on us.

Doctor Sleep: A Review

In 1977, Stephen King chilled readers with a tale of a young couple and their son, and the worst winter to ever pass in a hotel in Colorado. That book, The Shining, was King’s third novel, and thanks in part to the brilliant work of Jack Nicholson and Stanley Kubrick, is widely remembered as the basis for one of the greatest horror films ever. Now, almost forty years have passed since The Shining first hit shelves, and we are granted a rare treat from the master of horror. On September 24th, 2013, Stephen King released Doctor Sleep, a sequel to one of his earliest and most famous novels.

One winter, long ago, one of Colorado’s finest hotels burned to the ground after the aging boiler exploded. Four people were at the Overlook Hotel at the time. Jack Torrance (the recently hired winter caretaker), his wife, Wendy, and their son, Danny (a young boy gifted with the titular “shining”, a type of psychic power), were living in the hotel for the season. Also on location was Dick Halloran, head cook of the Overlook, who had returned from vacation in Florida because of a growing concern for the safety of the Torrance family. Mr. Torrance was killed in the blast while the other three escaped with relatively minor injuries. Torrance had reportedly returned to the hotel’s basement in an heroic attempt to relieve the pressure in the boiler, albeit regrettably too late to save the hotel and himself. The truth of that winter is known only to the survivors.

Years later, Danny Torrance is a grown man struggling with ghosts, both literal and metaphorical. Having inherited his father’s propensity for alcohol, Dan tries to hide from his past, locking away the memories of the Overlook and drinking to numb his psychic abilities, always on the move from town to town. After a time on the road, bouncing from bottle to job and back again, Dan realizes that he has to get his life back together. In a small town in New England (surprise!), Dan finds an AA sponsor and gainful employment at a local hospice. Before long, he’s learning to use his shining to help those who are near death to cross over to the other side, earning the nickname “Doctor Sleep.”

Far across the country, a group of people known as The True Knot are stalking people with shining, feeding off of their powers and extending their lives. They soon set their sights on a young girl named Abra, whose latent shining is a blazing fire next to the flickering match that is Dan Torrance’s power. The True intend to find the girl, torture her to death, and feast and rejuvenate on her power, or “steam.” When she learns of their existence and their plans, Abra reaches out via the shining, attempting to find someone who can help her stand against the True, and finds Dan. Soon the two are communicating, planning a way to defend Abra from those who would do her harm and simultaneously lay Dan’s ghosts to rest once and for all.

King has crafted a delightful tale with Doctor Sleep, continuing the story of a tormented young boy as he passes into adulthood. He skillfully weaves new and old, tying details of The Shining into the present-day narrative. It’s not The Shining all over again, but rather a different, more mature type of horror. Dan is sympathetic, and overwhelmingly human, struggling to flee from the gifts that saved his life when he was a child. Abra is a bright spot in his life, reminding him of the hope his family once had.

If you’re a Stephen King fan, odds are that you’ve already at least considered giving Doctor Sleep a read. I devoured it, and as always, I wanted more when I was done. It’s a fascinating opportunity to see the evolution of King’s writing style and technique, and a great story in its own right.

Banned Books Week 2013

It’s almost the end of September, and another favorite time of year is here. This year, Banned Books Week runs from the 22nd to the 28th. For you uninitiated out there, Banned Books Week celebrates the freedom to read. You see, some people in the world are so terrified of knowledge that they actively seek to hide information from other people. In some unfortunate cases, this results in people attempting to remove a book from public access. In response to this behavior, the American Library Association started Banned Books Week, an annual celebration of free and open access to information.

I’m not going to mince words. I fucking hate people who push for the banning of books. It is the one thing that gets me upset more than anything else. It is an act of supreme ignorance to ban a book. No one should be able to tell someone else that they can’t read something. Period. In fact, I’m rather stubborn about it. If you tell me that I shouldn’t read something, I’ll ask you why. If you tell me I CAN’T read something, I’m going to find a way to read it.

So, why do people ban books? Most challenges to books occur in schools. This frequently has to do with a book that a class has been assigned to read having some content in it that a parent or guardian of one of the readers finds offensive. Case in point: Judy Blume’s Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret is a frequently challenged title. This is usually more because it includes a description of a girl having her first period than because it is about said girl’s questioning of the existence of a deity. Yeah, that’s right, kids. Talking about the changes that EVERY HUMAN BEING goes through are apparently reason enough to stop someone from reading a book. HOW DARE YOU CHILDREN ATTEMPT TO LEARN WHAT YOUR BODY IS DOING!

But yeah, “sexually explicit” and “unsuited to age group” are the two biggest reasons cited when someone challenges a book’s presence in a library. That’s because both of these terms are open to a very loose interpretation. If a parent feels that their precious little snowflake of a child isn’t ready to read about something that everyone else in their class at school has been talking about, then BAN THAT BOOK. Guess what, folks? Mitch Hedberg said it best. “Every book is a children’s book if the kid can read!” Look, if you’re concerned about what your kid might learn from a book, talk to your kid about the topic. It’s called parenting. The librarians aren’t there to do it for you. They’re there to provide information to their patrons, not to keep them from accessing it.

Why should I care? Orwell left us this gem in 1984. The oppressive regime in control of England in the book uses several slogans, including  WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, and IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH. It’s quite telling, and a bit terrifying, that 1984 has itself been challenged. We’re living in a world where our ability to access information is greater than ever. Thanks to the internet, we have an unbelievable amount of data that we can use every day, WHENEVER WE WANT. However, there are people who want to limit this sort of access to those things that they feel are appropriate for us to see. Sound familiar? People who want to ban books are proponents of ignorance. Fight them. Peacefully.

What can I do to help? Learn your library’s policy on reacting to book challenges. If someone says that they want to complain about a book, ask them if they’ve read it (Yes, this is a legitimate issue—most of the people I’ve met who complained to me about Harry Potter, for example, had NEVER ACTUALLY READ THE BOOK). Many complaints are based purely on hearsay. I like to think of this as the “Cycle of Stupidity.” Some day I’ll draw you a nifty illustration as an example of the cycle. For now, let it be known that only you have the power to stop stupid people. Fight the spread of ignorance. Embrace literacy. Read a banned book. Judy Blume has a great strategy for getting a kid to read. “The best thing to do is leave the books around the house and from time to time say, ‘I really don’t think you’re ready for that book.'”

Other people can stand where they like on the issue of reading freedom, but me? I’m with the banned.

Under the Empyrean Sky: A Review

I recently finished Chuck Wendig’s first novel for young adults, Under the Empyrean Sky. As a fan of Chuck’s blog over at Terrible Minds, I felt I owed it to myself to give one of his full-length books a read, and I’m damn glad that I did.

Under the Empyrean Sky introduces us to our intrepid young hero, Cael McAvoy, captain of a teenage scavenger crew in the Heartland. Cael and his friends sail a land boat across the seemingly endless fields of corn to salvage anything they might be able to sell in their home town of Boxelder, because any extra money they can bring in helps provide for their families.

See, only one thing grows in the Heartland. The Empyrean makes sure of it. Hiram’s Golden Prolific is a modified strain of corn that spreads anywhere it pleases, choking out any other potentially competitive life (and it’s not fond of people walking near it, either). It’s the only seed that the Empyrean distributes to the farmers in the Heartland, and the returns for working for the Empyrean machine are enough to barely survive.

So Cael McAvoy scavenges, but he and his friends are not the only crew at work. The mayor’s son has a crew, number one in salvage recovery in Boxelder, and Boyland Barnes Jr. brings daddy’s money to the fight to ensure that Cael’s crew remains in second place. With tensions running high as the Harvest Home festival approaches, Cael takes his ship out for a prime target, only to be shipwrecked in the corn by Boyland Jr. It’s then that he finds something out in the middle of the field, something no one in the Heartland could have predicted. Vegetables. Fruits. Things that have no right growing in the midst of Hiram’s Golden Prolific. The discovery could make them all rich enough to buy passage to one of the flotillas, massive hovering cities of the Empyrean, where the wealthy live in splendor floating over the Heartland like Cael’s boat over the corn. Or it could get them and everyone they’ve ever loved killed.

Wendig packs one hell of a punch into the pages of this book. Deep characters and rich world building blend seamlessly with gritty violence and some of the most honest dialogue to hit the pages of a young adult novel. While some things might come across as a bit heavy-handed (like Empyrean agent Simone Agrasanto‘s name), most of the novel is quick and sharp, like the leaves of the plant that lends its name to Wendig’s self-dubbed “cornpunk” genre. Under the Empyrean Sky weaves teenage love, sex, violence, and intrigue into a wild land boat ride that will leave you counting the days until the release of volume two.

Book Day Part II: The Signing

Last week I wrote that I had made a trip to Denver to purchase a copy of Neil Gaiman’s new novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane. On Tuesday, I returned to Denver with my new book (which I had just finished) and my copy of The Annotated Sandman Volume One tucked safely away in my messenger bag. Along with two of our other friends, V and I trekked down the 16th Street Mall to the Lodo Tattered Cover and joined the queue.

While we arrived too late to be seated in the room where Neil was speaking, we were able to find space on the carpet of the second floor, where the audio was being broadcast over the sound system. We got to listen to him read an excerpt from his new book (he also reads the audio version, and given the autobiographical tones, no one else could have) and answer a handful of questions from the audience. After describing his life as “realism splashed with the supernatural,” it was time for the signature line to form.

First up, the new book.

First up, the new book.

The remarkable Neil Gaiman in mid-signature.

The remarkable Neil Gaiman in mid-signature.

And finally, a close-up of the personalized signature.

And finally, a close-up of the personalized signature.

There is no way to accurately state how awesome this entire experience was. Mr. Gaiman was polite, professional, and incredibly enthusiastic to see all of us, despite the exhausting touring schedule. I, for one, cannot express my gratitude.

Book Day

I woke up at five AM on Tuesday. This is something I would not normally do, as many of you know. As a general rule, the only time I see five AM is when I have stayed up all night. This was a happy exception, however. You see, Tuesday was Book Day.

Way back when I worked for Borders, I learned that new releases came out on Tuesdays. For whatever reason, your favorite author’s new book, that awesome band’s new CD, and that DVD you’ve been waiting for since you saw the film on opening night at the theatre all come out on Tuesdays. I would show up to my Tuesday morning shift to help with the unboxing and shelving of all of the latest titles that people had been asking for the for month prior. Despite the early hour, it was one of my most enjoyable shifts at that job. There was something wonderful about opening a box full of new books, knowing that in a few hours they would be in the hands of elated readers. Ever since then, there’s been a bit of a thrill surrounding Tuesdays for me, even though I’m not as connected to the retail world as I once was. Like I said, this was a special occasion. This Tuesday was the street date for Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane. 

I’m not entirely certain about how I first encountered Neil’s writing for the first time. At some point within the last seven years, though, I was introduced to the Sandman comics. I devoured them. Neil’s scripts and the absolutely gorgeous artwork drew me in, and within a month I’d read the entirety of his Sandman run. I wanted more, and I found it. Works like Coraline, American Gods, The Graveyard Book, and Neverwhere would be completed in days, if not hours after I started reading them. I told all of my friends that they needed to read his work. Any of it. All of it. To this day, I have not been disappointed by Neil Gaiman’s writing, whether it comes in graphic novels, children’s books, brilliant pieces of literature, or Doctor Who episodes. 

All of which brings me back to why I was awake at five AM on Tuesday. New Book Tuesday. The Ocean at the End of the Lane. There are lots of bookstores in Colorado Springs, but I didn’t want to buy my copy here in town, even though under any other circumstances I will shop locally first. I decided almost two months ago that I was going to be driving to Denver on June 18th so that I could buy a copy of Neil’s latest book from the Tattered Cover. This is because his upcoming book signing is going to be held at the Tattered Cover’s LoDo location, and purchase of the book from any one of their locations included a numbered ticket for the autograph line on the 25th. I’m number 53. I’d say that certainly merits being awake at five on my day off. There’s nothing quite like meeting other people who are willing to get up at a ridiculous hour in order to wait in line for a book. Many thanks to V for going on an adventure with me.