Blurb for the back cover:
“Deals with love, women, and writing”

I’m personally not quite sure what to make of All The Sad Young Literary Men, Keith Gessen‘s first novel. ATSYLM follows three different individuals (Sam, Keith, and Mark) as they progress through their late teens into their late twenties. All three are in some way related to literature.

Sam wants to write the great Zionist epic novel and is having trouble doing so. His frustration grows to panic as the number of results Google returns when he Googles his name shrinks and he fears never amounting to anything in his life. In an attempt to try and understand his feelings on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. Being of Jewish decent, he feels a loss since he is not fighting along side the refugees and tanks in Jenin.

Mark, trying to find love or at the very least some sort of special connection with a woman, is writing his dissertation on the Mensheviks. He is the first character introduced in the prologue and is my favorite of the three. When the book starts he has a wonderful marriage with a girl and they seem to be the perfect couple. Later on we discover that the two had divorced and Mark is having a hard time meeting new women. The last chapter to feature him is about him dealing with the conflict of picking between two women whom he feels the same amount of affection towards. It shows the conflict he goes through in trying to weigh one versus the other and in the end he has to pick between the two. Of Mark, the one complaint I had was that he gets introduced first and I immediately become interested in him, but he doesn’t show up again until midway through the book.

Lastly, Keith who is partially based on the author and also deals with love, women, and writing. Wait a second, now that I think about it, all three protagonists tend to blend in to one and can sometimes be hard to differentiate between the three. They also make numerous references to Russian history, a subject which I am sorely lacking familiarity.

This book I think wants to be a Russian novel. It’s sad, depressing, and most of all slightly pretentious. ATSYLM covers themes ranging from the Bush administration, the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, and the daunting task of doing something, anything with your life after college.

I liked the book. It kind of dragged on at certain parts and the three main characters don’t stand out when compared to each other. But the overall theme and conflicts that they face are interesting enough for me to actually finish reading this book, granted it too longer than normal to finish.

Here is my lovely little town of Portland, Ore. there is a petition going about in an attempt to rename our 42nd Ave to Douglas Adams Blvd. Naturally, I’m all for this crazy idea. So, if you are a fellow Portlander, there are locations to sign the petition listed at the web site.

Blurb for the back cover:
“Not something you should read to your toddler”

My first Neil Gaiman book. Well, if you wanted to get technical about it, it is technically my second. The first one I read was Good Omens which was co-authored by Terry Pratchett of Discworld fame. I’m not quite sure who to credit that book it. Good Omens wasn’t a book I particularly enjoyed, so let’s call is a Pratchett book and still consider Coraline to be the first book by Gaiman that I read. Having got that unnecessary bit of confusion out of the way, let’s talk about Coraline, which I liked.

Coraline, the book’s title character, is a little girl who moves in a multilevel house with her parents. One the ground floor there are two retired actresses who love to reminisce about their glory days while on the top floor, the attic, lives a man who is busy training mice to produce a circus. On the second floor, in the middle, is Coraline’s family. One day while exploring her new home, Coraline discovers a door that when she first opens it discovers it to be bricked off. She thinks nothing of it at first but when she returns to it later the bricks have vanished and she find a corridor that leads back to her house. Only it isn’t her house. Everything looks pretty much the same but slightly off. Coraline then meets her other mother and other father who sport buttons for eyes and tell her that she has discovered an alternate version of her world where the food is better, toys are more fun, and everything is just all around better. Whats more is that Coraline can stay in this better world forever, all she has to do it let other mother replace Coraline’s eyes with buttons, an offer she promptly refuses. Returning from the alternate house, she discovers her parents missing and must travel back through the formally bricked door and save them from the clutches of her other mother who wants to keep her forever.

Coraline is a young adult book but it’s kind of dark and spooky. Probably not something you should read to your toddler. This book you would be able to finish in an afternoon if you were truly dedicated. This book is fast paced which is one of the problems I have with the book. It’s quick and not much happens. Coraline must find a way to free her parents as well as some ghosts and she does so with ease without much of a fight. I guess since it’s a young adult book I can’t expect it to be as deep as the novels I traditionally read.

One thing I couldn’t help but do while reading the book is compare it to the movie Mirrormask which was written by Neil Gaiman. In the movie a girl travels to a alternate world and her mirror mother tries to keep her there as her own daughter. Just something I noticed.

But speaking of movies, Coraline is being made in to a film by Henry Selick, the director that brought you The Nightmare Before Christmas. It will be made using stop motion which means it looks awesome. You can check out some previews of the movie here.

Friend and co-worker Nathalie drew her rendition of a Book Pirate.

Nathalie has a art blog here which you can check out and she is also part of the Robopocalypse Comics Collective.

The Book Pirate’s Musings on… Literary Drinking

I was musing last week about the fact that writers tend to surround themselves with other writers. It probably has something to do with all of them being able to relate to each other. All writers will at some point know the frustration that comes with writing either in the form of writer’s block or the dreaded rejection letter. We have people who when they say “I know how you feel” actually do.

Another thing we tend to all have in common is that writers are drinkers.

It’s a fact. Name one writer who does drink. Go ahead. I dare you.

Sure, there are writers who jumped on the proverbial bandwagon and gave up the sauce and wrote a book about it. But they were just doing it for a chance to be on Oprah. Real writers drink. And I feel comfortable saying this because it is something I believe to be true. Anyway, there is nothing wrong with drinking. It can be fun and sociable. If thing go right you often end up with a story that you can work in to your writing.

I bring the subject of drinking up because last night, while at a wedding, Portland author Jamie S. Rich (of Love the Way You Love and Have You Seen The Horizon Lately? among others) told me that he knew my secret identity and that I was going to blog about it. He was right. And since I know he uses Google Alerts and will be reading this. I’m also going to post a picture of him.

Anyway, more about Jamie S. Rich and his books next week. Until then, enjoy the rest of your weekend with this fancy adult beverage.

The Old Pirate
- 1 oz. Irish Cream (Bailey’s)
- 1 1/2 oz. Vodka
- 1 oz. Coconut Milk (Malibu)
- 1/2 oz. Orange Juice
- 1/2 oz. Pineapple Juice
- 1/2 oz. Mango
Shake everything with ice, pour and serve.

Blurb for the back cover:
“Any book by Max(x) Barry is highly recommended.”

I love Maxx Barry and everything he has written. Given he has only penned three books thus far. But that is three more than I have. Of his three novels, Syrup is his first and the last one I read. All of Barry’s books tend to provide a satirical look on big business. In Syrup the focus is on Scat who invented Fukk Cola for the Coca-cola company only to have his idea stolen by his roommate Sneaky Pete. The feud continues to escalate as Scat tries to cash in on any one of his million dollar ideas. Eventually he teams up with the girl of his dreams, the oddly named 6 who balances her business knowhow with his creativity. Together they try to thwart Sneaky Pete by creating the biggest, boldest, most expensive commercial every made, a movie.

Barry, a former marketer, uses his knowhow to poke fun at the advertising industry with great success. Really this book is about identification and Scat’s journey to find himself. He envisions himself to be someone rich and famous but can’t seem to make it happen. He even went so far as to change his name to something more memorable (Scat is not his real name). Barry did the same thing by adding an extra X to his name on the cover. Barry says he “put an extra X in his name for Syrup because he thought it was a funny joke about marketing but failed to realize everyone would assume he was a pretentious asshole.”

There is also 6 who has to prove herself in a male run corporate world even if it means telling people she is a lesbian. I think one flaw that this book has is that it focuses mainly on Scat and 6 and leaves other characters like Sneaky Pete and @ (another odd name) with very little development. I have hopes that Barry will go the way of Christopher Moore and use smaller characters in his other novels but so far that is not the case. @ in particular is one I would like to see more of only because of her awesome name.

Have I mention this book is funny? Because it is. Any book by Max(x) Barry is highly recommended for anybody who has ever worked for a big corporation. Or anybody who likes funny books.

While slacking off at work this evening I came across this fiction contest that celebrates bad writing, The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest. People submit an opening sentence for a fake novel. They just announced the winner for this year’s contest. Garrison Spik won with this opening:

“Theirs was a New York love, a checkered taxi ride burning rubber, and like the city their passion was open 24/7, steam rising from their bodies like slick streets exhaling warm, moist, white breath through manhole covers stamped “Forged by DeLaney Bros., Piscataway, N.J.”

The runner ups as well as winners in the various genre categories can be found here. Anybody can enter and you can enter as many times as you would like. Really there is no reason not to give it a shot. Naturally, read the rules first.

The Book Pirate’s Musings on… A Short History of Nearly Everything

I didn’t finish it. There is doubt in my mind that I ever will. Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything is not by any means a bad book. From what I read it’s very interesting and reads a lot better than a high school science book which, I believe, was the author’s intent. Since there is a need to cover a lot of ground, the topics tend to come in perfect ADD-size bites of information. It doesn’t let a topic drag on. Often the information prevented is filled with facts that may not particularly relate to the overall topic, but make the person Bryson is talking about more interesting. It’s similar to going on Wikipedia and reading about some random person and discovering that he collected stamps in addition to discovering dinosaur bones. Irrelevant, but interesting.

The book however, it just too much for a fiction reader who doesn’t care much for science to take in. I credit this to two small problems that prevented me from finishing this book.

1)Small font, no pictures
2)Found a hardbound copy of Maxx Barry’s Syrup

Sadly, I’m going to put this book back on the shelf and go back to reading books that interest me. The only reason I started this book was because I thought during the summer I should try and learn something. What I learned was not to try and read 700+ page science books.

Speaking of Stephen King and graphic novels. In an effort to promote his new book, Just After Sunset. King has started releasing a series of 25 short comic inspired films on this web site. Each is only about two minutes long and are somehow connected to the story N. which will be in his new book. I’ve only watched the first few episodes but if you have a couple minutes, I’d recommend checking it out. It seems interesting.

Blurb for the back cover:
“Sexily”

I am not the biggest Stephen King fan. Out of his many, many books I have only read eight of them: The seven books in the Dark Tower series and his pulp fiction inspired The Colorado Kid. The Dark Tower series is one that I am surprised more people aren’t interested in. It started in 1970 when Stephen King released The Gunslinger. Thirty-four years later, he finally finished the series with The Dark Tower in 2004. What drew me to this series is that it wasn’t King’s traditional horror type story but The Dark Tower is more of a fantasy story. Throughout the series, the story intertwines through some of King’s other work and occasionally crosses over in to real life.

Enter, 2007 when King returned to the series to pen a series of comic books that continue the story of the Gunslinger. In the first story arc, the one featured in the sexily hardbound edition the encompasses the first story arch, is based off of the fourth Dark Tower book, Wizard and Glass. I’m looking forward to the next story arcs which feature an original story.

The Gunslinger Born tells of Roland and his two best friends who are tricked in to early adulthood by evil man of many faces. Because of that they are sent away from their homes and come across a whole new set of problems in Hambry where Farson, the big evil guy, has put plans in to motion to use machinery from the old world to crush the forces of Affiliation led by Roland’s father.

This book is beautiful. Drawn by hand, colored by computers, the artwork in the book might be the nicest I’ve ever seen. It lacks the charm of a hand drawn, black-and-white graphic novel. It’s like comparing a low budget indie film like Juno to an expensive Hollywood blockbuster like Pirates of the Caribbean. But like all Hollywood blockbusters (especially the later two Pirates of the Caribbean films), something feels lost with such high production values. Since this graphic novel is based off of a 718 page (mass market version) book, something is bound to be lost and I am not sure how this story will read to somebody who has not read Wizard and Glass. I feel the story is a little rushed as they condense it down and the reader would have a hard time grasping the relationship between Roland and Susan or Roland versus the Big Coffin Hunters. I hope that in the future graphic novel plot arcs will be a little more clear.

Overall I wouldn’t call this a good introduction to the Dark Tower series (for that read the second book, The Drawing of the Three). Fans of the series however will enjoy this continuation of the series. So much of Roland’s life is left unexplored in the books that the graphic novel format is a good way to explore his past.