Book Review

Book Review: The Art of Asking

Posted on February 25, 2015 by caseykins

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I just finished The Art of Asking.  I don’t even know what to say about it, because it filled me up full of feelings both good and sad.  It felt like a story I was intimately familiar with, and yet something wholly new.  It left me with so many images from my own marriage, my own struggle toward legitimacy as a writer, and my own hang-ups about asking.   It has left me feeling confessional.

I joined the AFP fandom right about when she found out that Anthony had cancer and cancelled her tour.  I remember being worried for them.  I was jealous of all the house parties.  I’m a lurker, though.  I have never tweeted her, never tried to attend a show, never attempted to find Neil at a signing.  I made a highly-inappropriate-for-work playlist of her songs and played them in my lonely office in the basement of Chapman University.  I thought about buying tickets to the book tour in Los Angeles, but I didn’t.  I am an introverted, fuddy-duddy house maker. I will go one of these days, though.  I will.

Amanda and I are fundamentally different people, but so many of those life changing moments she writes about are moments I have had myself.  Like the tear-jerking relief of being told to keep going.

Oddly, it is Neil who gave me the first words of encouragement that weren’t from people who love me (and have to be complimentary).  I spent a year and a half researching a 45 page thesis on Deaf identity and film.  My advisor loved it and suggested we try and joint publish it.  He staked his PhD on me.  And then it was rejected in a mean, mean way.  I was told it was unscholarly and offensive.  I spent the night sobbing and reading Neil’s “Make Good Art” on the couch while Brian slept in the next room.  In a fit of despair, I decided that I would write Neil and thank him for Make Good Art, because at least I had a place to proceed from.  He wrote me back.  “Good luck! And keep going…” he said.  I would have kept going anyway.  But to be told I was legitimately allowed to? By a professional? A cool wave of gratitude washed over me and something in my heart released.  I wanted to cry again, this time from relief. It was a flood.

Perhaps this is why the book feels so familiar.  I have never been a statue on the streets of Boston.  I could never live at a place like the Cloud Club.  I would never shave my eyebrows and draw them artfully back on again.  Nor would I be comfortable on a stage even partially naked.  But there is so much love in this story, and the experience of needing, wanting, and being afraid of what people will say if you ask (or take) is universal.

My father was a great help to me in relationships.  Among many other things, he taught me that I could never be angry with someone for not providing me with something I haven’t asked for.  That is how I’ve lived my life.  It’s okay not to ask, but I have to assume that if I don’t ask I’m not getting it.  This is why it took me five years to see Garrison Keillor at the Hollywood Bowl (I told you I’m a fuddy-duddy).  It’s why I sometimes don’t feel like I’m getting enough attention from Brian (ask him to get off Facebook, or decline a night of Netflix? No).  It’s also why I had an amazing and awesome graduation party.  That one was important enough.  That one I told him I wanted.

I am slowly learning to ask; to hit myself over the head with my own “legit” wand as a writer.  The Art of Asking is a chronicle of Amanda’s journey toward the same and it is extraordinary.  It has exposed me to the wonderfulness of  a life I never would have led.  Although places, dates, and names are unique the inside struggle is something we all share.

I heartily, 100% recommend the book with all my heart.  I simultaneously want to loan it to everyone I’ve ever met (especially my artist friends) and can’t bear to part with my copy.

You should definitely go read it now.  I promise, you will walk away with something new and invaluable to think about.

Amazon Affiliate link here: The Art of Asking: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Let People Help

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Mockingbird

Posted on February 4, 2015 by caseykins

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Harper Lee is coming out with a new novel. I was VERY excited about it, but now I’m a bit worried… according to reports, Harper Lee isn’t all there and will almost sign anything that’s put in front of her. Her sister, who had it very together and took care of all Lee’s business, died last year. I hope it’s all fine, and I do trust that Harper Collins is a company who won’t outright screw her over. I just hope that the other people looking after Lee are trustworthy too. They’ve proven otherwise in the past.  If you’re interested; http://the-toast.net/2015/02/04/questions-harper-lee-editor-interview/ is a pretty great article explaining all the ins and outs of the crazy.

I was excited in large part because To Kill a Mockingbird was a huge part of my formative Junior High years. Back then, the teacher would give us a book, and then we would read it (sometimes during silent reading time in class), and then we would do a bunch of projects on it. I read so much faster than my classmates that I had usually been through the thing 4 times – at least – before we switched to the next book.

To Kill a Mockingbird was different. They messed up my schedule royally due to a new computer system and I was placed in a different class, with a different teacher, who were on a different reading schedule than my own class. The book they were reading? Yup. Scout, Atticus, Boo, and Jem followed me from place to place that year. They eventually put me back into my old class where my quick reading habits got me caught up quickly on whatever we read next – I don’t remember the book. But I definitely remember Atticus’ embarrassing talent with the mouth harp, and how he had to shoot the rabid dog that summer day, having to look up what a chifferobe was (it’s a wardrobe with drawers), and how the town drunk didn’t have alcohol in his brown paper-wrapped bottle.

I hope it’s all on the up-and-up with Harper Lee. I would really hate to not read this book.

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Book Reviews: 3 by Rainbow Rowell

Posted on January 21, 2015 by caseykins

Rainbow Rowell is my new obsession.  Her books are filled with flawed characters who live in the world I do and want the things I want.  Her plots may be slightly unlikely, but they err on the “OMG I wish that happened to me,” side.  Oddly enough, they make me long for that time when I was 20 and uncertain of everything except how much I loved Brian.  And how easy it was to love him in detail back then without the cares of the world to intercede.  I don’t get nostalgic for my 20s often, so the fact that Rowell can do that is a form of magic.  At this point, I’ll be reading everything she’s ever written.  The only one I haven’t dived into so far is Eleanor and Park.

My conclusion in a nutshell: READ THEM!  READ THEM ALL!  NOW!

Rainbow Rowell

Attachments: A Novel

I picked up this book because the premise sounded fun.  Man hired to read and screen company e-mails gets sucked in by the quippy correspondence between two girls in the office and falls in love with one.  I mean, it was written by a woman named Rainbow.  It had to be fun, right?  I expected a cute, light read.  What I didn’t expect was the depth of character.

Lincoln (the e-mail reader) is this sad guy deeply in need of, well, something.  He lives with his mother and pines for the high school girlfriend who cheated on him once they got to college.  He’s pathetic, but there’s something so attractive about him just the same.  You feel sorry for him, but at the same time you can see how a girl would fall head over heels for him.  I don’t know how Rowell does that, but it’s brilliant.  One of the many reasons to love her.

There is depth in the story of the two girls, also.  One pregnant with a baby she isn’t sure she wants even though she’s happily married.  And another who is trapped in a relationship with a man who has been very clear that he will never marry her, despite her desire to get married.  They go beyond being funny (which they are – hilarious), and become genuine people.

I won’t say too much, but the ending is way more satisfying than I ever thought it could be.  A+

Landline: A Novel

This book is strange, from the standpoint that everything else in Georgie’s life is totally normal, except that she finds a telephone in her bedroom that calls the past.  When she has to stay at home over the holidays to work on a script, her husband takes the kids to his mom’s house without her.  And then is strangely unreachable.  Also enter complicated relationship with male best friend.  So she calls on the telephone and talks to her husband Neal just before he proposed to her, in another time and place 20 years earlier when they were also on the rocks.

This book felt really familiar, in that I think all people who are married build up baggage and decide that the other person is  judging them for things when they might not be.  And that there is a past that was blissful without responsibility involved.  This is the book that made me really nostalgic for those college days when I used to drop by Brian’s house between classes, when he took me out for hot fudge sundaes after work at 2 am.

If this book has any flaws, it is the unlikeliness of that phone existing, and the fact that there doesn’t seem to be an unsolvable problem between Georgie and Neal.  It’s all in her head.  But the flaws might be all in my head.  It was a pretty great read.

Fangirl: A Novel

Just as I’m about to say that this one is my favorite of the three, I remember how great the other two were.  But seriously, this one is SO GREAT.  Cath and Wren (twins) go off to college, and socially challenged Cath is dismayed to find out that her sister doesn’t want to hang out once there.  Cath much prefers the online community she’s built as a fan fiction writing mogul to meeting any new people at all.

But it’s about living with social anxiety, living with a mentally-ill father, dealing with the tragedies in your past, learning to write, and letting yourself fall in love.  Cath’s roommate, Regan, is so negative that she’s hilarious.  Levi’s aerie in the house he lives in is my favorite thing ever.  I would never leave.  And there are super-hot, reading aloud to each other leads to heavy petting, scenes.  Basically every fantasy I’ve ever had.  Another amazing read.

I hear there’s going to be an actual Simon Snow novel next.  I’m a little thrilled about that.

All links are Amazon Affiliate links. Happy reading!

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Book Reviews: 4 by John Green

Posted on October 1, 2014 by caseykins

John Green

Looking for Alaska:

I picked this one up because I felt I had to jump on the John Green, The Fault In Our Stars bandwagon. The movie was coming out, and his work was EVERYWHERE. Even if I didn’t like his stuff, it was enough of a cultural phenomenon that I had to have an opinion. I knew I couldn’t handle a kids with cancer, dying sort of novel so I looked at what else he had written. Looking for Alaska was a NY Times Best Seller.

I really loved the way he organized this novel. Most of his books are the linear chapter 1, 2, 3… you expect but this one isn’t. This one is broken up into “before” and “after,” but you have no idea what the event in the middle is until it happens. I had a growing realization of the doom of it as I read the novel and I hoped I was wrong. I wasn’t.

Pudge and the Colonel are hilarious with their dilapidated couch, and their milk & vodka antics. Alaska is a spitfire of a girl who feels so real that she’s easy to fall in love with despite the crazy that’s lurking inside. Pudge has his last words and his Great Perhaps. She has her Labyrinth. The pranks they pull are genius. Especially the last one, the one Alaska masterminded. The novel walks this line between tragedy and comedy, with plenty of embarrassment thrown in. It feels like a cooler, more expansive version of my own high school life. My only criticism is that Green uses the high school, class-mimics-life trope that is so overused in high school stories. But if it has to be used, this is the way to do it.

I read a lot, and what I am reading for is to find those novels that take up head space and linger. They are rare. If I don’t find it in 80% of the books I read, I am at least guaranteed some entertainment along the way. Looking for Alaska is one of the lingering kind. I read it on kindle, but I purchased the nice hard back. It’s a keeper.

 An Abundance of Katherines:

This novel wounded me, and I’m not really sure why. It’s lighthearted. It features the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, a pig hunt, a grand theorem of dumping, a cave lair, and plenty of other silliness. I don’t know how John Greene gets women so right, but his girls are all some of the few women written by men who feel real. Lindsay Lee Wells is the sort of girl I wish I was: bold with no nonsense and sweet all at the same time. Colin’s assertion that his prodigy status doesn’t automatically make him a genius (or even successful) felt so true. Hassan’s Arabic insults make me smile.

I was wounded, I think, because the novel is about the things we give up because our families have expectations of us. It seems easier to not do, or conform, than to decide and leave. It’s about the burdens of a good upbringing amongst a supportive family and how that can shape someone, too. Lindsay Lee Wells’ life is not like my life, but I recognized her problems as old frenemies.   It’s about other things too, of course, and some are probably more evident to others than my own take away. Like the quest of us all to be original and the ways history changes through the generations. But that was the one that stuck in my heart and kept me pondering.

This was another book that was a thinker. I’m a convert to the John Greene church of nerdfighting (or whatever). I bought this one twice, too.

The Fault in Our Stars:

Perhaps, you think, I should have seen it coming? I did not. I thought, ‘John Greene, amazing writer, in a lauded book I’ve seen on the internet everywhere. I never cry at books. After the other two, I think I’m ready.” I also made the mistake of reading it on my lunch hour. I have not cried over a book since I was 12 and John Brooke died in Little Men. I ugly cried on my lunch hour over TFIOS. I’m 32. It didn’t help that tall, quippy, Augustus Waters reminded me a little of Brian.

Maybe I wouldn’t like to be Hazel Grace with pips in her lungs and an oxygen tank, but I would like to have that smart brain of hers. She is another force of nature like the rest of John Green’s girls. Her parents are great people. Augustus’s search to make a mark on the world that was permanent is something everyone I know has experienced. Isaac’s blindness is sad. All of their stories are sad, but they are so smart and so funny in the midst of all this tragedy. It is gallows humor, but it is the funniest gallows humor I have ever read.

I could say things about Amsterdam. Or about universes needing observation, tasting the stars, video games and inspirational needlepoint, or the literal heart of God. But I realize that I can’t even put this book into words. It’s something that must be experienced. It defies summary.

This one wasn’t a thinker. It was a life changer. Those are the rarest kind of books of all.

Paper Towns:

When I originally read Paper Towns, I felt like it was the worst of all John Green’s books (That sounds more terrible than I mean it to sound. It’s still far, FAR superior to most things I come across. ‘Worst’ is in relation to the rest of John Green, not to the rest of literature). I will still assert that Looking for Alaska was a better finding someone novel and An Abundance of Katherines was a better road trip novel. I did like his thesis that some people are windows and some people are mirrors, and you never know if you’re looking in a mirror or a window when you see someone. I feel more mirror than window most days.

The book is beautiful, too; all these abandoned settlements, tract houses, and malls. Visiting them was fun. Learning about paper towns was so interesting. There is a dog named Myrna Mountweasel. I realized after a few days that I do find myself thinking about this one. After I had written it off as not his best, I found myself pondering the abandoned mall, and the place they find Margot, among other things. I’m sure if I had read this one first it would have been another favorite. I still recommend it, but after TFIOS it was anti-climactic. Perhaps that is the real reason I didn’t fall head over heels with it.

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Book Review: The Princess Bride

Posted on September 12, 2014 by caseykins

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I hate to admit it, but I had never read The Princess Bride. I am a terrible nerd, and should be forced to hand over my membership card. No one who GMs Savage Worlds games should admit to such an atrocity, I’m sure. I have seen the movie. Many times. And I can quote large swaths of it. Isn’t that enough?

Yeah, don’t worry, I know it’s not.

I had several friends in middle school that loved the novel and thought Florin was an actual place. They would argue with me, and claim that they couldn’t wait to get their hands on the unabridged version if they could ever find one. That is the joke, though. There is no unabridged version, and there is no Florin, no Guilder. S. Morgenstern is a made up fellow, much like Daniel Handler is Lemony Snicket. I don’t wonder that our pre-teen selves were bamboozled. Especially in a time before internet was prolific. When things got heated, when they insisted that there were swathes on culture that had been taken out of the book and that obviously made those countries legit, I would stop arguing and start nodding and smiling. Whatever you want, friends, as long as I don’t have to believe it too.

I don’t know why I never picked up the book myself in those years. Maybe it was because I was too obsessed with Tolkien. His fantasies felt like histories. I dove into Middle Earth and didn’t emerge for years.

But I picked it up a few weeks ago, and this is how:

I have been trying to get myself to write more consistently. As part of that, for every 30 days I write (not necessarily in a row), I buy myself a present of a fancy book or two. I have been letting John Greene traumatize me for the past month, and enjoying every minute of it. So I thought I was going into the bookstore for hard back copies of The Fault In Our Stars, Looking For Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, or maybe even Paper Towns (which I haven’t read yet). They were there on the shelf, and they were so pretty. But there were too many of them. I couldn’t have all four, and how would I ever decide?

The Fantasy section is right behind the Young Adult section in my bookstore. I turned, and there it was in all its blue-bound glory tucked among the Tolkien books and the George RR Martin books. The illustrated Princess Bride, hard covered, beautiful, abridged. The pages are glossy, the illustrations are gorgeous. I had never read the book, but I knew I would like it. And that my husband would like it. And that it would be something to treasure for a long time, because they don’t make editions this pretty every day. It came home with me.

It reads like the movie, only much better. The snarky comments of Goldman, the abridger, are hilarious (he’s never read the novel – he’s only had it read to him. He cut out the parts his father used to skip). The story is broader and more real than the movie, which feels like a silly but intelligent fable. The characters are real and flawed, but worth loving and the back story Goldman has sketched out for them makes them all the more lovable: Buttercup’s love of dirt and slight stupidity; Inigo Montoya’s swordsmith friend; the Zoo of Death. The jokes are just as good as the movie, too.

I can’t say I’m sorry I read the book as an adult and not as a teen. I don’t think I would have understood the footnotes, the jokes about Goldman’s inability to publish Buttercup’s Baby due to estate problems with Morgenstern, or the way he talks about the country of Florin. It would have all gone over my head. What I would have been left with is the sweet, impossible fairy tale that appears in the movie. But I would have missed the sense that I was in on this gigantic inside joke. I am glad I bought it, glad I read it, and I think everyone else should too. No, really. Everyone. Especially if you are an adult and like fantasy novels.

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Oh, Amazon…

Posted on August 11, 2014 by caseykins

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So it turns out that not only is Amazon blocking Hachette (http://online.wsj.com/articles/amazon-hachette-e-book-pricing-battle-continues-1407708761), but they’re trying the same shit with Warner Brothers (http://mashable.com/2014/06/10/hachette-warner-bros-amazon-lego/) and Disney (http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/08/09/amazon-takes-the-muppets-off-the-shelf/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&smid=tw-nytimesbits&_r=2&). Umm, I don’t know how you expect this to end guys, but I predict that it won’t go well. In addition, Amazon has sent out a letter to all their self-published KDP writers asking them to write to the CEO of Hachette and complain (http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/08/09/orwell-is-amazons-latest-target-in-battle-against-hachette/). Another really bad idea, I would imagine; even if they had gotten their literary references correct. Amazon is now putting people like me (who just want to read a damn book, or sell a damn book) in the middle of this thing. It’s like running to mommy when the big kid tries to take your lunch money, except that Amazon is supposed to be the mommy in this situation. 

I am shaking my head over here. Also, I’m angry.

Frankly, I don’t care how I get my stuff as long as I get it. I liked the fact that Amazon is easy to use and all in one place; I can click a single button and the thing I’ve ordered arrives. However, all my stuff is no longer in the same place or will arrive reliably. Shannon Hale is with Hachette. Amanda Palmer is with Hachette. JK Rowling and Stephen Colbert are with Hachette. I LOVE the Muppets.  I really don’t like getting dicked around because two giant corporations can’t get it together and make an agreement. I don’t think that Hachette is blameless, but I do think they’ve played the PR game better. And really, for me, the whole thing is about access. I don’t care how Amazon and Hachette resolve this thing, I just want to be able to read what I want to read. I also don’t mind paying a little more for that privilege.

So basically, this post is to say that I’m done. Amazon obviously can’t give me the customer experience I need. I love that Kindle app on my phone, but did you know that Kobo also has a reading app? I downloaded it last night and I already love it. Their prices are not that different from Amazon, and I was able to preorder both Shannon Hale’s “A Wonderlandiful World” and Amanda Palmer’s “The Art of Asking” with the click of a single button. It loads faster than the Kindle app, too, and they give me fancy badges for reading stuff! There is also a little green bookmark that goes into your page when you sign out. Next, I’m going to try Powell’s (http://www.powells.com/) or Vroman’s (http://www.vromansbookstore.com/) for all my physical book ordering needs. There is also the fabulous Barnes and Noble, for the large and established factor.  I’m not going without stuff to prove a point I don’t care about, Amazon.  Maybe if you had gotten that George Orwell quote right… (Okay, not even then).

In the mean time, I wish both Amazon and Hachette luck in figuring this whole thing out. Now excuse me while I go enrich Wil Wheaton’s stock in popcorn by buying a huge bowl for myself. I’ve figured out a way to get my books like I want them and I no longer have a stake in the game. Now the travesty can unfold for my amusement.

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Book Review: 2 Lyra Novels, The Raven Ring and Shadow Magic

Posted on July 25, 2014 by caseykins

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Patricia C. Wrede, The Raven Ring:

Remember how I said I didn’t really like reading D&D campaigns? Evidently this book doesn’t apply. It’s full of tropes that usually infuriate me into a book throwing rage, and yet I enjoyed this. I can’t put my finger on why. The story line was one of the usual things in D&D campaigns. Mom dies, so scrappy daughter goes to collect Mom’s things only to find out that Mom was murdered and people are after her things. Chaos and kick-assedness ensue. For extra good measure, there’s an aristocratic, handsome (and full of himself) swordsman. He’s good at the fighting stuff, but not as good as the heroine. There’s also a cocky and friendly thief who belongs to a mafia-like family. There is wizard wisdom and magic galore. Everyone makes a pass at the main character. (sigh…)

But it was fun and light, with just enough surprises to keep the standard adventure plot feeling comfortable and not stifling. It did have a few flaws. The resolution felt like it blindsided me, it happened so soon and with so little warning. I thought it was another complication until I realized that the book was over. It was well chosen, though, and ultimately satisfying. I also can’t help but wish that the main character didn’t end up with any of the boys and just left for home without a fellow in tow.

Seriously, though, for as cavalier as I’m treating this review I did stay up all night to finish the book. That’s not something I do often these days. I also downloaded another Lyra novel ASAP and devoured that one in the space of about six hours as well. That book was:

 ***

Patricia C. Wrede, Shadow Magic:

The book is again along the D&D Campaign lines, and I fell in love with it harder than I did the Raven Ring. Kayl has two children and a dead husband when the magic seekers come to town. Escaping them, she’s pulled into her old life in the house of the Silver Sisters. They want her to go back to the twisted black tower where a dark ooze ate her best friends, leaving only four of them alive to bring the story to others. She’s fifteen years older, out of shape, and out of sword practice, but she has to go and complete the mission (children, and all of the people from the old expedition in tow) and hope they don’t all die in the process. She has memory issues, too, and one of her friends looks to die from the prophetic visions the tower gave him so long ago.

I felt like some of the reasons to have the children along were contrived, but they ultimately played an important part in the resolution of the story, so I forgave Wrede for the wishy-washy excuses to have them go the whole way. Besides the constant bickering between the siblings (which I’m sure is realistic but isn’t always fun to listen to), that’s really my only beef with the book. The rest of it was excellent. The plot is less predictable, and left me guessing (and drooling, and wondering) to the end. Pacing was perfect.

 ***

Some thoughts about both: Perhaps what I am fascinated by most in these books is the world of Lyra. It feels real, and I’m forever learning about secret societies, different races, and different customs that fascinate me. Her characters are so well developed that it doesn’t really matter if the campaigns are standard roleplay fare, because they trump cliché with humanness. With many bonus points for books about kick-ass mothers.

At a highbrow party I would be much more likely to recommend The Enchanted Chocolate Pot by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevenmore, or Wrede’s Frontier Magic series to strangers, but there’s just something about both of these that makes them impossible to put down. Excuse me while I go download the next.              

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Book Review: Inkheart

Posted on February 19, 2014 by caseykins

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Inkheart, by Cornelia Funke

I picked this one up because my father said, “Have you read Inkheart yet?  You would really love it.” And then my aunt said, “you haven’t read Inkheart?  You really HAVE to.” On Christmas, she wrapped up my cousin’s old battered copy and put it under the tree for me.  Anyone over the age of 21 doesn’t get gifts from extended family, that is the rule, but a re-gift is allowed and welcomed.  I was so excited to start it.

It is exactly the sort of book I should like, and I know I would have devoured it with relish had I found it twenty years earlier.  I read it today with a mild sort of amusement that never took hold to become obsession.  I know this is not because it’s a children’s book that it didn’t quite pull me in, although I was always on the brink of it.  There were a number of problems I had with it that I just couldn’t seem to get over. 

The biggest problem for me was the character of the writer.  The good guys find the writer of the book and convince him to write a new, happy ending.  That is how they solve the main crisis.  It’s a little more complicated than that, but not much.  The writer isn’t even hard for them to find.   It seemed like such a cop-out.

I was also not very convinced (for a long time), that the bad guys were all that bad.  They were mostly token bad guys – shooting cats in the alley, imprisoning children, and generally thieving, bullying, and being thugs.  I was never really afraid that the good guys wouldn’t win.  There was a fascination with fire that ran through the whole novel that I also felt was never fully realized. 

The original novel is in German.  I read a translation, and I’ve decided that I’m pinning all the problems on the translator (even the plot points that are really the fault of the writer).  Aside from the things above, the book really is a wonderful romp.  My favorite parts were the bits from other novels that were sprinkled throughout.  They were so fun to recognize, like coming across old friends.  Tinker Bell comes to life in it, and Long John Silver (thankfully) does not.  It also features a spunky elderly aunt who is hilarious.  You have to love Eleanor. 

In short, I would recommend the read and I’m glad I read it myself.  I know there are sequels, and I’m left with a comfortable feeling that I don’t need to purchase the next one, but that I might enjoy it if I decided to some day.  If you have an eleven year old reader at home, they will probably be obsessed. 

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Make Good Art

Posted on June 4, 2013 by caseykins

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It’s summer now, and I have less to occupy my time.  This means that the annual book devouring is in full force.  I’ve read seven books in two and a half weeks.  I have four waiting on my shelves for their turn.  Keeping me in books is a problem that I have only found one solution to, and yet my library card at Chapman expires on July 6th.

“I hope someone gives me Neil Gaiman’s Make Good Art,” I told Brian a few days before I graduated.

“Did you ask anyone for it?” Brian said.

“No.”

Brian laughed, “Then why do you think someone will give it to you?”

“I don’t really expect it,” I said.  “My love of Neil Gaiman is well known, though.  I’m more just hoping.  It’s a graduation speech, it’s about life and stuff.  It’s really the perfect present.  Someone should think of it.”

No one thought of it.  Instead people gave me money, so I bought the book for myself.  (Not that I’m knocking money.  Money is really great.)  The book is really more of an art book than an actual book book.  The remarkable thing about it is the way the artist did the typesetting.  It reads like Neil Gaiman’s vocal inflections while he was giving the speech.  Inside the back flap, the book told me, “This is really great.  You should enjoy it.”  Well, I did.  Your command is my command.  (Wait, that’s not right…)

I may be biased.  I’m a vehement Neil Gaiman fan almost to the point of obsession.  (“Almost?” Brian would say.  “It’s gone far beyond almost.”  It’s really his wife I’m twitter stalking, though, I promise!)

I’ve ordered my copy of Ocean At The End Of The Lane, and those other books will all just have to wait their turn once it arrives.  I can hardly wait until mid-June when my signed copy gets here.  I’m hoping for a ghost.

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Men, Women, & Manners in Colonial Times, Volume I

Posted on April 25, 2012 by caseykins

Sydney George Fisher’s Men, Women, & Manners in Colonial Times, written in 1898, depicts the general history and customs of Colonial America through a heavily biased lens.  The book is divided up regionally, clearly showing all of the many reasons people immigrated to the Americas, and how that affected their dispositions and customs by region.  While this book is very entertaining, the history that was correct is relayed through a partial viewpoint, and some of its assertions are hard to take seriously.  This book is very worth the read, but more for the insight on how people in the nineteenth century viewed our colonial history than for the actual history relayed in the book itself.

Although much of the history relayed in the book is technically correct, Fisher’s biased portrayal of historical figures and regions is comical.  Modern historical accounts tend to be fairer to these people, presenting facts and letting readers form their own opinions.  Fisher, on the other hand, forms his opinion for the reader.  For example, Fisher calls John Smith “a lying braggart, an adventurer, a Gascon, and a beggar” (Fisher 24), claims that the puritans “pried into people’s history and business in a way that was very offensive to strangers and travelers – a habit which has since been known as Yankee inquisitiveness” (Fisher 205), and brands Rhode Island the “Isle of Errors” (Fisher 303).  Prejudicial language appears on nearly every page.  These descriptions of the peoples of Colonial America, although amusing, do not paint an unbiased picture of what it was really like to live in these times.  The narrative is more indicative of the attitudes and ideas of the time the book was written than of the times it is talking about.

Many of the customs set out in the book are hard to accept as true. Most notable of these customs is the purported South Carolinian custom of gouging out other people’s eyes for fun.  Fisher assures us that it was a common practice, essentially similar to young children roughhousing and yelling “uncle” when they have had enough.  Supposedly, these gentlemen would press on their friend’s eye until the friend said the code word of “King’s Cruse”, but it was a mark of terrible weakness to use the code word, no one would say it, and many lost an eye this way.   It seems completely ludicrous that this practice would be widespread enough to warrant inclusion in a book on colonial customs, and there seems to be no supporting evidence that this practice was as widespread as Fisher claims.

Men, Women, & Manners in Colonial Times is an entertaining read.  Although there are several problems with the book as a historical account of Colonial Times, the book is an entertaining picture of the 1898 view of our history.  The wildly off the mark depiction of our history in Men, Women, & Manners in Colonial Times makes one wonder how modern books on history will be received a hundred years from today.  If they are as entertaining as this book, at least they will have stood the test of time.

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