Wondering what to read next?

I just had to take a quick break from The Eyre Affair to share this great idea with you, which I heard from M. According to Marshall McLuhan, a great way to predict whether you will like a book is to read page 69. That’s it. M tried it, although as she pointed out, her sample was a bit skewed because the books whose page 69s she read were books that had already made it to her TBR list for one reason or another.

I happen to have a book right here next to me that just arrived via BookMooch this morning. It’s The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, which I mooched only because my book group (not me) picked it for next month. I have never read it (obviously) and I know almost nothing about it. Like, why is it called an autobiography if it’s not written by Alice B. Toklas? I have no idea.

So, let’s take a look at page 69… Oh my word… heh heh… !!!

Luckily this is a small paperback and there isn’t a lot on page 69. It’s the beginning of a chapter, and it ends in a complete paragraph, so I will give it to you here in its entirety, with original typography and punctuation intact.

Chapter 4. GERTRUDE STEIN BEFORE SHE CAME TO PARIS

Once more I have come to Paris and now I am one of the habitués of the rue de Fleurus. Gertrude Stein was writing The Making of Americans and she had just commenced correcting the proofs of Three Lives. I helped her correct them.

Gertrude Stein was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. As I am an ardent californian and as she spent her youth there I have often begged her to be born in California but she has always remained firmly born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania. She left it when she was six months old and has never seen it again and now it no longer exists being all of it Pittsburgh. She used however to delight in being born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania when during the war, in connection with war work, we used to have papers made out and they always immediately wanted to know one’s birth-place. She used to say if she had been really born in California as I wanted her to have been she would never have had the pleasure of seeing the various french officials try to write, Allegheny, Pennsylvania.

Well, hey, if Marshall McLuhan is right, I’m in for a ride on this one! I can hardly wait!

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Anyone else want to test The Page 69 Theory?

Posted on July 29, 2008, 12:19 pm by Julie | Filed in Reading | Comments (11)

Sunday Salon: A crazy week

salon.pngHi there, Saloners! Hope you all had a great reading week. Mine was hectic, to say the least. I put in some serious overtime hours on a project I’ve been working on for a long time, and it cut quite a bit into my blogging time. So much so, in fact, that I had to get my daughter to write a guest post. ;-) The biggest thing I didn’t have time to do this week (yet) was write about City of Glass. You guys left such great questions and I plan to answer them all. Any day now.

* * *

So, anyway. I read Geek Love this week. This is one of those books that’s been on my mental TBR list for years. Chartroose’s terrific post about conformity and alienation prompted me to finally read it.

Whoa! This was an amazing book. I can’t say I liked it, exactly, but it was amazing. Not an easy read, but worth the effort.

If you aren’t a fan of Traveling Show Lit, you may not be aware that the word geek has its origin in seedy carnival sideshows. Geeks were people who would bite the heads off of live chickens or snakes and drink the blood, for the public’s viewing pleasure. How the word ever came to have its current meaning I can’t imagine.

In Geek Love, the owner of the traveling show marries a geek and they decide to create a family of sideshow freaks. The wife takes drugs, exposes herself to radiation, etc., while pregnant, with the hope that her babies will have marketable deformities. And they do. One has flippers instead of arms and legs; two are conjoined twins, another is a bald albino hunchback, and the last appears normal… but isn’t.

The novel is about this family — how they relate with each other, how they relate to “norms,” how they get along in the world. There is much grotesquerie; I found it almost impossible to eat while reading. Chartroose is absolutely right that this book is about conformity and alienation, but not in the way you might expect. It’s not the freaks that are alienated, it’s the norms. No, scratch that. It’s the whole world that’s alienated. Freaks and norms alike. And people will go to horrifying (and futile) extremes trying to conform and find happiness.

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Aaaaaand I’m in the middle of The Eyre Affair. Also not an easy read, but for very different reasons. See, in order for alternate history to make sense, you have to know actual history. I keep scratching my head going “wait, is that right?” It took me a while (I’m sorry to say) to catch on that this story is taking place in an alternate universe. I mean, I’m pretty sure the Crimean War was over long ago, and I’m almost positive Napoleon lost at Waterloo. And I am nearly certain that at the end of the book Jane Eyre does hook up with Mr. Rochester.

Speaking of which, I’ve been racking my brain to dredge up what I can remember of Jane Eyre, which I haven’t read since I was a teenager. Let’s see… Jane starts out in an orphanage where she makes friends with a girl who dies of tuberculosis, excuse me I mean consumption, then she goes to be a governess. Somehow she ends up living in Mr. Rochester’s house, employed in some capacity which I can’t recall. Then what? She discovers his wife in the attic, right? And she leaves? And I don’t know what happens next but eventually she ends up with Mr. Rochester again — she does, doesn’t she? — and now his wife is dead and his house is burned down. Oh, and I think he is blind now, but he recognizes her voice because he loved her all along. Did I get it right? Please, if you can fill in the gaps, let me know in the comments.

Although I keep worrying that I’m missing out on clever humorous details (e.g. I read the name Millon DeFloss about five times before I saw the joke) I do like the way the plot is unfolding. I don’t like a book that makes me feel dumb, as this one does, but on the other hand the idea of fictional characters coming to life is too good to resist.

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It looks like it’s going to be a gorgeous day here in southeastern Michigan. I hope to spend a good portion of it in the hammock with my book. What does your day have in store for you?

Posted on July 27, 2008, 9:09 am by Julie | Filed in Sunday Salon | Comments (16)

Lena’s review: Hugo Pepper

Inspired by Heather’s mother-son book club, I asked my 9yo daughter if she’d be interested in writing a guest post every once in a while. She loved the idea, provided that I would do the typing. So, here’s her first review. It was a great learning experience. We talked a lot about how to describe a book “just enough” to entice others to read it, without giving away any spoilers. It was harder than she thought! I myself haven’t read this book, by the way, so I can’t vouch for the accuracy of her review. ;-)

Plot summary: Hugo Pepper is 11. He is an orphan and he doesn’t know where his home is. His parents crashed in the Frozen North, in a Crane & Sons Aeronautical Snow Chariot, Mark II. Apparently snow giants brought him to some reindeer herders (Harvi and Sarvi Runter-Tun-Tun) who brought him up. When Hugo finds the Crane & Sons, etc., Harvi and Sarvi tell him about his past. Then Hugo flies in the Crane & Sons, etc., to Firefly Square, crashing into a tree because the engine sputtered out. He meets his grandfather, who is trapped in the basement of the Firefly Quarterly Institute, which is where they make, edit, and print newspapers. And now Hugo has to figure out how to save his grandfather.

My favorite things about the book: One of my favorite things about the book was a detail: cloud sheep wool blankets and carpets. I liked it because of the description they give of the cloud sheep. Hugo’s parents’ friend was a carpet weaver, and her husband was a cloud sheep shepherd. Instead of carrying a crook, he carried a net, because apparently cloud sheep have buoyant wool. Because cloud sheep are about the size of guinea pigs, they look like little puffy clouds. Every once in a while a gust of wind will come and blow some cloud sheep off the mountainside. The net is to make sure they don’t fly away! In fact, there aren’t any left in the world, because a giant gust of wind blew them all off the mountainside! A 50% cloud sheep wool carpet is rare. It hovers a few inches off the ground. A 100% cloud sheep wool carpet is extremely rare. There’s only one in the entire world. You have to make sure you keep a tight grip on it! If you don’t, you’ll end up 100% cloud sheep wool carpet-less! The illustrations are great, too.

Would you recommend this book to other kids? Yes! If you liked The Edge Chronicles, you’re bound to like this! It doesn’t have as many made-up creatures, but there are snow giants and mermaids. Plus, it’s by the same author.

Posted on July 25, 2008, 6:56 pm by Julie | Filed in Lena's reviews | Comments (4)

Quick post which I wish wasn’t necessary

Like most (all?) WordPress bloggers, I use Akismet to trap spam.

The nice thing about Akismet is that it works completely in the background. It simply checks each comment for spam characteristics, like multiple links, certain *ahem* keywords, and so forth. It’s very accurate and it obviates the need to use CAPTCHAs — you know, those things where you have to type in the distorted letters to prove you’re not a spambot. It’s so accurate, in fact, that I don’t even need to moderate comments. Which I prefer, because isn’t it fun to see your comment pop up on the screen as soon as you hit the post button? Plus I would rather give you the benefit of the doubt than assume you’re a spambot!

Lately a lot of spam has been falling though the trap, though, and when I did some experimenting I got weird error messages. I don’t know if it’s just not playing nice with the WP 2.6 upgrade or what. In any case, I sent a message to the guys at Akismet. Haven’t heard back yet, but I’m still hopeful. In the meantime I regretfully enabled comment moderation for first-time commenters. Believe me, your comments are very welcome, and as soon as this thing gets fixed, I’ll turn moderation back off.

Anyone else having problems with Akismet? Any other issues or questions about comment moderation or CAPTCHAs?

Posted on July 25, 2008, 9:59 am by Julie | Filed in Blogging | Comments (5)

BookMooch, anyone?

I joined BookMooch last week. It was kind of a spur of the moment thing. Hubby and I had a brief moment where we felt motivated to Get Stuff Done Around The House (don’t worry, it didn’t last long), including clearing some bookshelf space. So I joined BookMooch, listed some books, and next thing I knew I was packing up a bunch.

I thought the fun part would be the mooching. It turns out the fun part is the mailing. It’s so much more fun than selling them to a used bookstore or donating them to the library, cuz you’re giving the books to people that you know want them. I got the biggest kick, so far, out of giving away my copy of The Postman Always Rings Twice. I have a lingering fondness for James M. Cain, whom I loved when I was 20ish. My favorites were Mildred Pierce, Double Indemnity, and a wonderful collection of short stories called The Baby in the Icebox. If you like hardboiled noir fiction, it doesn’t get much better than James M. Cain. Hoo boy!

Yeah, the mooching is a little harder. There are a couple of ways you can find books. You can search for a specific title and see if anyone has listed it, which is frustratingly needle in haystack-ish. Or you can browse by topic. Sort of. Their classification scheme is a bit… puzzling. For example, if you look under “19th century” you’ll find Flowers in the Attic. Ok, I haven’t read it since I was 13, but I’m pretty sure it neither takes place, nor was written in, the 19th century. Ditto, the [giggle] Xanth books. And even worse is the “Classics” section. While I agree that there’s no arguing with taste and one girl’s classic is another’s trash, I just can’t see how, for example, States & Regions, Grade 4 or Timmy Turtle Learns Colors or Way Too Much Information: A Fanatic’s Guide to Dawson’s Creek could be considered classics by any stretch of the imagination. Still, I’ve managed to find a few. Should arrive any day now.

Have you tried BookMooch (or similar)? What’s your experience been like?

[Update: THREE books just arrived in today's mail! Now I'm embarrassed that I posted that photo of my sloppy stack. One book in particular was so beautifully wrapped that I gave the sender some extra "charity" points. And two of them had gift-wrap under the packaging. The next ones I send will be much prettier, I promise.

So, my new books are The Eyre Affair (I know, everyone else on the planet has already read it) and I Capture the Castle. And Joey's new book is The Rock 'N Roll Book of Lists. Wheeee!]

Posted on July 22, 2008, 10:53 am by Julie | Filed in Reading | Comments (17)

Weekly Geeks #12: Help me review a graphic novel!

This week’s assignment:

  1. In your blog, list any books you’ve read but haven’t reviewed yet. If you’re all caught up on reviews, maybe you could try this with whatever book(s) you finish this week.
  2. Ask your readers to ask you questions about any of the books they want. In your comments, not in their blogs. Most likely, people who will ask you questions will be people who have read one of the books or know something about it because they want to read it.
  3. Later, take whichever questions you like from your comments and use them in a post about each book. Link to each blogger next to that blogger’s question(s).
  4. Visit other Weekly Geeks and ask them some questions!


Oh, Dewey, your timing is perfect! Because I have this book I’ve been wanting to review and I just have no idea how to start.

A few weeks ago, I mentioned my total lack of interest in graphic novels. Then I thought I better put my money where my mouth was, and try actually reading one. So I picked up a copy of the graphic novel version of City of Glass, by Paul Auster. I thought this would be a good entrée into the genre, since I had read the original novel already. See? I could compare the same story, told “graphically” and told in prose.

Well, it was years ago that I read the original novel and I had forgotten what a strange, disturbing, avant-garde book it was. Heck, never mind the graphic novel aspect; I wouldn’t know where to begin to write about the original. Let’s see… there is stuff about mistaken identity. The author shows up as a character in his own story. There is stuff about the nature of language and the Tower of Babel. There is stuff about insanity and child abuse. And it’s all weird. Weird, and bleak and confusing. And strangely riveting.

Soooooo, how do I review this graphic novel? Can you suggest some questions to help me out? If you read graphic novels, what things do you think about when you review them?

Posted on July 20, 2008, 7:09 am by Julie | Filed in Weekly Geek | Comments (16)

Woopra: TMI?

Have you heard about Woopra? It’s a new website stats program that came out recently. In fact, it’s so new it’s still in beta. You can get a free copy, but it’s complicated. You have to request an invitation, and it can take a while for them to “approve” you (it took about a month for me). I actually got approved a while ago, but only just installed it yesterday.

Woopra is YASSP (yet another site stats program) that lets you know how many people have visited your site, how many pages they viewed, how long they stayed, what search terms/browser/OS they used, etc. If you use Google Analytics or Sitemeter you already know what I’m talking about. However, Woopra has some features that set it quite apart from the others…

For one, it is set up as a desktop application, with just a teeny bit of javascript on your site. As I understand it, this means that most of the processing gets done by your hard drive, so your website isn’t slowed down by the js. (Or not? Does my blog seem slower? Let me know.)

Two, it is gorgeous to look at! It’s all glowing and glossy, and things light up when you hover over them. Here’s a screenshot; click on it for a full-sized view. Beauty, eh?

Three, and this is the whopper. It gives you the information in real time. When someone visits your site, their info pops up on the screen immediately. When I made that screenshot, Visitor #25 was actually reading my blog at that very moment. In fact, I have enough information from Woopra to be fairly certain of the actual identity of Visitor #25. Between the host, the city, and the referrer, yeah, I am pretty sure. And guess what? If that person had ever left a comment on my blog, I wouldn’t even have to guess. Woopra would have displayed his name, email address, and even, if he had one, his gravatar. And if that’s not enough? Look at that screenshot again. Do you see in that upper right corner where it says “Start a conversation”? If I had clicked on that, a live chat window would have popped open on Visitor #25′s browser.

Question: how would you feel if you were visiting a website and suddenly a chat window popped open on your screen with a cheery little greeting from the webmaster? How do you feel about my being able to track exactly which pages you, yes you, visited here and how long you stayed on each one? Lots of people are lauding Woopra but in my opinion this is WAY too much information. I don’t want Big Brother watching me, and I don’t want to BE Big Brother, either.

Do you use a stats program? How do you feel about it?

Posted on July 19, 2008, 10:17 am by Julie | Filed in Blogging | Comments (10)