Jane May
I love interviewing and talking with new authors--mostly because they're still enthusiastic about being interviewed and are willing to talk. Theirs are some of the most fascinating interviews, perhaps because they haven't answered the same questions a bazillion times already.
An example of this is the most recent Book Help Web interview with Jane May. It was really a lot of fun to do and I think it is fascinating to read. She's got a lot of interesting things to say and a wonderful sense of humor. It also helped that I truly got a kick out of her latest book, Hooked. It's a funny story that never gets preachy despite having something to say.
This was the first interview that I've done at Book Help Web using our chat room. It provided a nice opportunity for us to go back and forth on a given topic rather than being confined to a single question and answer. I look forward to doing more interviews that way.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Consulting literary horoscopes
Bestselling titles reflected such things as the shift from support to opposition to the Iraqi war, the move from angry conservativeness to hesitant moderation.
Is it any wonder that so many of us have a Love of Reading?
As I wandered around the Love of Reading site yesterday wondering what to blog about, I was drawn to the many wonderful books that they promote. Most of those books I probably would have known nothing about were it not for the fact that I run Book Help Web, a site that draws me far beyond my normal reading comfort zone and into the wonderful worlds beyond.
Book Help Web is a daughter site to Consumer Help Web, which is, in turn, the parent site to a collection of sites that help people make smart consumer choices about a wide variety of things whether it be media (Movie Help Web, Music Help Web, TV Help Web), hobbies (Beading Help Web, Scrapbooking Help Web, Cooking Help Web), finance and shopping (Consumer Help Web, Shopping Help Web, Financial Help Web), or travel and education (Homeschool Help Web and Travel Help Web). There’s even an MMA site (which has something to do with fighting, so I’m told).
As part of such a family, my mission at the book site is to try to cover a wide range of books and to comment where I can on what things people are reading. As the owner is constantly saying, we have to be more than a review site. We need to be a source of information. For books, that task can be pretty daunting. To avoid becoming a niche site, I've had to learn to stretch beyond what I would normally read.
The good folks at FSB Associates, the organization behind Love of Reading, have helped to do that with information about a wide variety of authors and books. It was through them that I was fascinated by the Intellectual Devotional. Thanks to them, I laughed and was warmed by Kevin Clash and his memoirs, My Life as a Furry Red Monster. They set me up with Adrienne Brodeur and her hilarious Man Camp. They left me outraged at what we're putting our teens through Alexandra Robbins' The Overachievers. It's been a good relationship that has helped pull me out of my comfort zone.
I've also taken to perusing best seller lists and ruminating over why people are reading what they're reading (or at least, buying what they're buying whether or not they're reading it). I've especially come to enjoy the Amazon top-seller list. It's one of those spyholes into the reading psyche, a hidden horoscope of American culture. It's like reading a code that tries to predict where the shifts in our cultural thinking are about to take place.Bestselling titles reflected such things as the shift from support to opposition to the Iraqi war, the move from angry conservativeness to hesitant moderation.
Now, my study has been so loose as to almost not merit so weighty a word as "study," but as an indicator of trends, I've found the list to hold great interest. It invites all sorts of wonderful conjecture from wild to thoughtful.
A year ago, non-fiction books dominated the list. Was it a desire to make some sort of sense out of the world around us? Even the fiction tended to be contemporary realism, with settings often placed in the hot spots of current events. One of the exceptions to that was the beautiful Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards—a book that is featured here at Love of Reading. Yet, even that book was based on a real-life event, though it was the author who infused that event with the moral and ethical questions raised in her novel.
At other times, on the top-seller list seemed to report on spiritual and ideological warfare, with theological arguments battling for attention. Even the fiction got into the game with such books as Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code breaking all sorts of records and C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia making a comeback. This year, Philip Pullman’s Golden Compass is climbing back on, throwing yet another voice into the mix.
Looking at the list today, it seems we’ve made a sharp turn into New Age spirituality, a spirituality that lets us hold onto our obsessions about our body and physical health. The top five books are all about improving one’s soul, life, health, and diet. It’s not until you get to #6 that Khaled Hosseini makes a bid for fiction’s place on the list with his A Thousand Splendid Suns. Such a bid is quickly shoved aside by Stephen Colbert, the as-yet unreleased “An Inconvenient Book”, a dog story, and numerous other self-help and guide books. Even James Patterson can only make #14 with his latest Alex Cross book.
What does all this mean? Are we looking inward more? Do we think this is a time for improvement and a new form of escapism? Are we trying to meet ourselves in the pages of other people’s books?
Who knows!
But I do know that I'll continue to read the list and wonder why we're reading what we're reading and what it means for our future. For somewhere in the pages of what we read, we discover and renew our passions. While my passions may not be the same as my neighbors, the better I can understand theirs, the more likely we are to find common ground and to connect with each other in a healthy, joyful manner.Is it any wonder that so many of us have a Love of Reading?
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
The Golden Compass
My e-mail box was recently the recipient of a barrage of e-mails about an upcoming children's movie that should be avoided at all costs. I glanced at the first few, not really worrying about it because I so rarely get to the movies that it was unlikely I'd have to go out of my way to avoid seeing this one.
Then I got one that went into more detail. It said that while the movie would likely be innocuous enough, it was intended to draw people into the books and the books were an atheist's attempt to kill God. The mention of the books sparked my interest. I read further and discovered they were talking about Phillip Pullman and the "His Dark Materials" trilogy.
Possessing the contrary soul that I do, I immediately went out and bought the trilogy, prepared to feel the same frustration that I did when people called for the banning of Harry Potter books. The outcry over Harry Potter I considered to be sheer idiocy and the result of intellectual laziness.
After reading The Golden Compass, the winner of a Carnegie Medal, I can at least understand where the critics are coming from. Yes, this book does point out the abuse of the church. However, I'm still not convinced that this is a bad thing nor that there is anything in this book that I would consider harmful.
This is the response that I have drafted, but not yet sent to those who forwarded me the e-mail along with (in some cases) their outraged commentary:
My e-mail box was recently the recipient of a barrage of e-mails about an upcoming children's movie that should be avoided at all costs. I glanced at the first few, not really worrying about it because I so rarely get to the movies that it was unlikely I'd have to go out of my way to avoid seeing this one.
Then I got one that went into more detail. It said that while the movie would likely be innocuous enough, it was intended to draw people into the books and the books were an atheist's attempt to kill God. The mention of the books sparked my interest. I read further and discovered they were talking about Phillip Pullman and the "His Dark Materials" trilogy.
Possessing the contrary soul that I do, I immediately went out and bought the trilogy, prepared to feel the same frustration that I did when people called for the banning of Harry Potter books. The outcry over Harry Potter I considered to be sheer idiocy and the result of intellectual laziness.
After reading The Golden Compass, the winner of a Carnegie Medal, I can at least understand where the critics are coming from. Yes, this book does point out the abuse of the church. However, I'm still not convinced that this is a bad thing nor that there is anything in this book that I would consider harmful.
This is the response that I have drafted, but not yet sent to those who forwarded me the e-mail along with (in some cases) their outraged commentary:
I would encourage everyone to read this interview:
http://www.thirdway.org.uk/past/showpage.asp?page=3949
before making a final judgment on the movie or the book. The Third Way is a Christian magazine that describes itself as a "virtual home of rigorous Christian thinking on politics, society and culture. Third Way is a magazine for people who haven't lost faith in God or lost touch with the world." It is a rather intense interview with the author that deals specifically with his viewpoint on Christianity and how that is manifested in the books.
As a result of these e-mails I did go out and buy the trilogy because I'm always wary when someone starts a campaign that preys on our fears. I've now read the first book and would certainly agree with the assessment that this is not a pro-Christian book (of course, neither are the majority of shows we watch on television). It does, though, raise interesting questions that we as Christians ought to be prepared to respond to and frankly, consider. He does address abuses of the Church throughout history, abuses that we should be aware of if we wish to prevent them from being repeated. Knowing that the Church has done evil things in the past does not mean acknowledging that the Church is an evil entity. It means acknowledging that we must understand the cultural forces that led to those acts so that we can be vigilant about not falling into the same errors. If we pretend that they did not exist, then we provide fuel to our enemies who know otherwise and will (and do) use those things against us.
These books are only dangerous to children who believe everything that they read or are told. As Christians, we raise our children to have spirits of discernment, to not believe everything that they read. We raise them to be able to listen to an idea and then compare it to God's teachings. If we don't let them read or see things as children which are contrary to Christian beliefs, then we risk them being swayed or shattered by the first eloquent argument they meet as an adult. Haven't you met the adults who left their Christian faith because they came across a single fact that seemed to contradict what they had been taught as a child? Rather than be able to meet the seeming contradiction with a spirit of inquiry, secure that God has the answers and that we can search for them, they throw everything away.
Yes, Pullman dislikes Narnia. Personally, I adore Lewis' work but I also recognize that he proposes a pretty unconventional theology (do you know that in the Narnia books he says anyone who does good does it onto God even if that person is serving another religion by a different name? That people do not need to be Christian in name in order to achieve heaven so long as while practicing the other religion they act in a way consistent with Christianity?). For that matter, fellow Christian theologian J.R.R. Tolkein didn't like the Narnia series. Pullman has some valid criticisms of the series, but while he didn't like the series, neither did he set out to write the opposite.
I won't encourage my son to read Pullman's trilogy, but neither will I forbid it. Rather, I will be vigilant so that if he does read it, I'll ensure that we can discuss the ideas and where I think they are flawed. If he reads it, it will be an opportunity to talk to him about Christian theology and how the misreading of it can lead to the errors that were committed historically and how we can avoid it now. I will teach him also, how our God is so strong that he is not weakened by the searchings of those who have not yet found him nor by their outrage at what they see as the wrongs of those who serve Him. By teaching him that God is stronger than doubt, I hope that I will teach him that God will love him through the inevitable doubt that his faith will suffer.
Please forgive the length of this e-mail. I think literature and storytelling is important--it was Jesus' favorite way of teaching. I get nervous whenever there is a call for censorship. I would far rather we be called upon to read and engage with things that we disagree with than to call for it to be banned or ignored. Every time we have done the latter, the sales of the targeted book or movie go through the roof as its defenders rally around it. Wouldn't it be more effective to arm ourselves with God's grace and wisdom rather than with our anger and indignation? Couldn't we use this movie as an opportunity to engage people on the ideas set forth? Because we won't silence the ideas even if we refuse to participate in the debate. We serve a mighty God. Perhaps we ought to look at this movie as an opportunity to bring about greater things for Him by speaking up to dispel some of the myths or even to ask forgiveness for those things of which we are guilty. Perhaps there is a message that Christians might take from this movie and these books that can be used to strengthen our faith.
Friday, November 02, 2007
Terry Goodkind and the Sword of Truth
I really have no objection to authors making money. Nor do I mind them returning to characters again and again or continually returning to a world that they've created.
What does sour me on an author is when they constantly return to a world even though they no longer have a story to tell and they're simply rehashing the same one over and over again. For some reason, fantasy authors fall prey to this more than any other genre--except perhaps romance novels.
One of the biggest offenders in my book is Terry Goodkind whose 11th book in the Sword of Truth series (Confessor) comes out next Tuesday. It claims to be the last one, but I'm afraid I won't believe that until at least five years have passed without another one coming out.
It's a series that started out wonderful. Wizard's First Rule was engaging and compelling and if there was a little too much bdsm kink in it, it was forgivable because the story was so well told. Even the next few books carried on some of the promise. However, they were saturated with the same heavy-handed themes. It got to the point where I could only envision Goodkind wearing leather and carrying a whip that he brandished over readers he expected to be ever-more submissive and willing to take whatever punishment he wanted to dish out.
I'd lost any sort of submissive tendency by the third book and while I tried to force myself to forge on eventually gave up in utter disgust. I no longer cared about Richard and Kahlan because they were no longer real to me. They constantly made the same mistakes and faced the same decisions. They learned little and grew less.
Even reading the description of what is supposed to be the final book once again brought back the anger that what started out so creatively and sparked such interest became bogged down in such muck.
I really have no objection to authors making money. Nor do I mind them returning to characters again and again or continually returning to a world that they've created.
What does sour me on an author is when they constantly return to a world even though they no longer have a story to tell and they're simply rehashing the same one over and over again. For some reason, fantasy authors fall prey to this more than any other genre--except perhaps romance novels.
One of the biggest offenders in my book is Terry Goodkind whose 11th book in the Sword of Truth series (Confessor) comes out next Tuesday. It claims to be the last one, but I'm afraid I won't believe that until at least five years have passed without another one coming out.
It's a series that started out wonderful. Wizard's First Rule was engaging and compelling and if there was a little too much bdsm kink in it, it was forgivable because the story was so well told. Even the next few books carried on some of the promise. However, they were saturated with the same heavy-handed themes. It got to the point where I could only envision Goodkind wearing leather and carrying a whip that he brandished over readers he expected to be ever-more submissive and willing to take whatever punishment he wanted to dish out.
I'd lost any sort of submissive tendency by the third book and while I tried to force myself to forge on eventually gave up in utter disgust. I no longer cared about Richard and Kahlan because they were no longer real to me. They constantly made the same mistakes and faced the same decisions. They learned little and grew less.
Even reading the description of what is supposed to be the final book once again brought back the anger that what started out so creatively and sparked such interest became bogged down in such muck.
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
While browsing the bestseller lists, I was surprised to see such names as Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Leo Tolstoy pop up. Then I remembered Oprah. I have to confess, I'm please that she's been selecting literary classics for her book clubs. I don't think she could have started with them--people wouldn't have done it. But now that she has built up the trust that she has, it's a perfect move.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera has been on my list to read since last year when I saw a Spanish-language opera based on that book performed at Michigan State University. It was a beautiful opera with a magical story. As I read more about its background and talked to the director, the phrase 'magical realism' kept coming up. In some ways it struck me as a more literary and "acceptable" term than "fantasy," but really it is just a subgenre of fantasy. (Of course, I've always believed that fantasy has the ability to be as literary as any other genre even if some of it is pretty trashy and churned out with little thought to quality.)
It was certainly those magical qualities that made the opera so appealing--that and the three love stories were endearing. I'll be looking for the book and saying yet another thank you to Oprah for making books like this so accessible and popular.
While browsing the bestseller lists, I was surprised to see such names as Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Leo Tolstoy pop up. Then I remembered Oprah. I have to confess, I'm please that she's been selecting literary classics for her book clubs. I don't think she could have started with them--people wouldn't have done it. But now that she has built up the trust that she has, it's a perfect move.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera has been on my list to read since last year when I saw a Spanish-language opera based on that book performed at Michigan State University. It was a beautiful opera with a magical story. As I read more about its background and talked to the director, the phrase 'magical realism' kept coming up. In some ways it struck me as a more literary and "acceptable" term than "fantasy," but really it is just a subgenre of fantasy. (Of course, I've always believed that fantasy has the ability to be as literary as any other genre even if some of it is pretty trashy and churned out with little thought to quality.)
It was certainly those magical qualities that made the opera so appealing--that and the three love stories were endearing. I'll be looking for the book and saying yet another thank you to Oprah for making books like this so accessible and popular.
