Both Eyes Book Blog

This week Trish and I were talking about our current reads.  I mentioned that I was reading The Story Sisters, and was surprised when she made a face.  She asked if I had heard about Alice Hoffman’s Twitter fiasco.  I hadn’t – I’m rarely in the loop about literary news for some reason.  The rest of you probably know that Hoffman reacted badly to what she perceived as a negative review.  For this reason, Trish would never read the book.

I finished it and was really impressed with it.  It did leave me thinking, though, about the curious relations between books, authors, publishers, reviewers, and readers.  Would there be a situation in which I refused to read a particular book for some reason?

The sad truth is, I realized I had a deep-seated belief that most authors are drawn to their craft largely due to a lack of normal social skills.  Someone who has always fit in easily might be less likely to stand to the side as a storyteller.  I could be wrong.  But if we aren’t surprised when actors, musicians, politicians, athletes or wealthy financiers do stupid things like slap cops, overdose on drugs, flee the scene of a hit and run, embezzle money, hire prostitutes, shrug off murder charges, etc etc, why should we be surprised when an author throws an immature tantrum?  We certainly don’t endorse misbehavior – that’s why we have laws and rules of etiquette – but we’re also quite familiar with it throughout the public sphere.

Negative reviews definitely seem to bring out the worst in authors, though.  Perhaps actors and musicians also throw tantrums when they see negative reviews of their work and I’m just insulated from this.  Regardless, we’ve all seen some incredibly ungracious receptions of what is meant as honest (and usually deserved) criticism.  Books are a consumer product, unfortunately, just like a pair of socks or a new flavor of chewing gum, and sometimes they’re just not going to find a welcoming audience.

In this particular case, I had mixed feelings.  I tend to agree with Hoffman that it’s not cool to reveal the plot in a review.  In fact, I won’t read a review of a book that I haven’t yet read if it mentions any plot points at all.  I want to know the theme, perhaps the setting, and how the book compares to other works like it.  I definitely do not want to know whether any of the characters die or what major issues they confront during the story.  If it isn’t revealed in the first half of the first sentence, don’t ruin it for me!  From a broader perspective, I do think it’s possible for a critic to abuse the role, and there should be a certain measure of accountability.

This, of course, does not excuse publishing another person’s private phone number.  I can’t imagine any situation in which that would be appropriate.  It’s triply bad when the victim is of mature years.  Authors, do not ask your readers to harass an elderly lady, for pity’s sake.

On another tangent, I think people over the age of, say, roughly, 35 really suffer from a comparative lack of familiarity with newer technology, particularly in the case of social networking.  It’s very new to them.  I deal with this at work on a routine basis, and at home, as when my dad friended me on MySpace and I saw the word ‘flirty’ in his profile.  (He’s still married to my mom).  Hoffman went off on Twitter.  Did she truly realize, the way a 15-year-old instinctively would, what it means to post stuff there?  It’s no excuse, but it’s certainly a nota bene:  Don’t type angry!

On to the question of whether my reading might be affected by something I know about the author.  I’ve read books by alcoholics, addicts, felons, philanderers, plagiarizers, and outright fakers.  I’ve read books by people whose politics make me break out in hives.  I read to find out what something is about, so if you see me sitting in the airport reading Ann Coulter, please don’t make any assumptions.  I just want to find out what all the fuss is about.  I’ve read everything by both Stephen King and Anne Tyler, two authors who most likely wouldn’t have much to say to one another, and as much as I would like to be a personal friend to either or both, I know they both value their privacy.  All I want out of a book is quality.  If producing a literary work of great depth and sensitivity reduces its author to a life of loneliness and inner pain, I bow to that.

Here is my response to this week’s Booking Through Thursday:

Give me the list or take a picture of all the books you have stacked on your bedside table, hidden under the bed or standing in your shelf – the books you have not read, but keep meaning to.  The books that begin to weigh on your mind.  The books that make you cover your ears in conversation and say, ‘No!  Don’t give me another book to read!  I can’t finish the ones I have!’

This hit my button, all right.  I’ve read over 650 books since January 2008, yet I still somehow have unread books in my stack at home.  Why do we all do this?

I’m better than I used to be about actual stacks.  In high school, I used to keep all my library books in a stack by my bed, and it began to grow until it was about two feet high.  One night, I had a nightmare.  I woke up dripping wet with my entire family shouting at me.  It turned out I had lashed out with my arm, spilling my water glass on myself and knocking all the books onto the floor.  Bedlam.  Ever since then I’ve made sure not to keep more than one book by my bed, and it’s the one I’m actively reading.  Right now there’s nothing there but my favorite lamp.

I can also claim to have eliminated the habit of stacking books on the floor.  I invested in the biggest bookcase I could find at Ikea, and (other than cookbooks, which have their own smaller case) the rule is that all the books have to fit.  I can’t borrow or buy any books until some of the existing ones have moved on.  This works for me because I’m not a re-reader and I know I can rely on the hundreds of thousands of books in my local library system.

That being said, there is an entire section of bookshelf in my house devoted to books other people have lent me that I have yet to read.  There are, I think, three more sections of books I’ve been given to read and pass on.  Some of them are even actively on my TBR list, i.e. I would have sought them out to read eventually.  So why are they still stuck there?  If these books were stacked next to my bed… well, we’re in earthquake country, so let’s not go there.  On the floor?  I’d never vacuum again!  Truly, if we were to pull out all the library books, loaners, and pass-along books out of my shelf, there would be precious little left.  About 85% of that bookcase is technically a TBR pile!

It’s possible I’d be more likely to read these books if I checked them out in hardcover from the library and then returned the unread paperbacks to their owners.  The lack of a “due date” and my dislike of paperback books contribute to my procrastination.  That, and an actual due date for exciting new books that seem to stream through my front door.

Oh, and the actual list?  I believe the loaners are:

The Given Day – Dennis Lehane

Alive in Necropolis – Doug Dorst

Tethered – Amy MacKinnon

Three Day Road – Joseph Boyden

If anyone has any comments that would induce me to either read one of these, or give up on it and give it back while making some lame excuse, have at it!

Scrolling!

It probably looks a little freaky to observers, but if you’re reading an e-book and you set the software to scroll, you don’t have to turn pages or interact with the device.  You just sit there and stare at it, and the words go flying by.  Sort of like the beginning of Star Wars, only not as slanty, and a whole lot faster.

The cool thing about this is that you can adjust the speed.  So I’m reading along, and reading along, and then I look up and realize I’m a third of the way through my book and I’ve been at it less than an hour.  It turns out I can read about 75 pages an hour with this thing!

I’d love it if all books were e-books, partly because the file size would always be the same.  No more variations between hardcover and paperback editions or different publishers.  Also no more heavy carry-on bags and no more moving 200-pound bookcases.