My Year of Reading: 2012

My Year of Reading: 2012

Welcome to 2013! Another year of reading in the... um.... books.

This marks the beginning of the third year I have kept this blog. In that time I have written up on every single book I have read in that time. I've blogged through sickness, vacations, typhoons and pregnancy. I'm the blogosphere's version of the postal service! I've even managed to maintain the blog through the first six weeks of my daughter's life. Why stop now, hey? Here's to continued reading success in the new year.

I'm not one for memes, though I like to follow what others are reading. I think reading challenges are a clever idea, but I've never felt compelled to force myself to do more or less of anything literary. I see a lot of bloggers stating that they will read ten classics this year or that they will endeavor to finish at least five books over 700 pages or that they will read more non-fiction or Charles Dickens or less erotica or whatever. I respect the diligence and discipline, but I've always considered the act of reading (no matter what I am reading) as diligence and discipline in and of itself. Furthermore, reading challenges often narrow a person's reading rather than broaden it. So I vow to continue reading whatever I may get my hands on over the next twelve months.

So what's new in 2013? Well, for one thing, I will be sharing a portion of my reviews with the good people over at I Read A Book Once.... If you haven't been over there yet, I sincerely urge you to do so. Jonathan is doing some stand up work and the resources he is amassing put this little corner of the net to shame. And since this blog is strictly reviews I might even get around to posting a rant or two along the way. I'll be sure to let everyone know when I have posted something new over there.

Otherwise, let's get to the main event, shall we? We're all here to get a load of my year end lists. And without further ado, here they are in no particular order...

Best Fiction of the Year

1. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

This novel absolutely blindsided me. When someone asks me my favorite novels, this one always seems to pop in my head.

2. A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin

I could have chosen any one of three of the George R.R. Martin novels I read this year, but I'll go with my favorite.

3. Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin

This is one of those solidly written novels that you carry with you for years. 

4. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

Ishiguro made my top five last year and manages to find his way on again with this nuanced masterpiece.

5. The Virgin Suicides by Jeffery Eugenides

Speaking of making my list two years in a row, Here's Eugenides again. I had wanted to read this novel for ages and it did not disappoint.

Best Non-Fiction of the Year

1. Bossypants by Tina Fey

The great thing about this book was that its awesomeness was completely unexpected.

2. Anvil: The Story of Anvil

Yeah, sure the writing is atrocious but I double dog dare you to read this book without a)bawling and b) becoming a huge Anvil fan.

3. Cinderella Ate My Daughter by Peggy Orenstein

Perhaps it was the impending birth of my daughter, but this diatribe on the insidious marketing strategies aimed at young girls really struck a chord. Everyone with a daughter should read this.

4. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua

This book got a lot of undeserved slack. It's a very open and honest book about parenting and worth reading.

5. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics by John J. Mearsheimer

Anyone even remotely interested in the larger workings of world politics should read this book. Whether you agree or disagree, Mearsheimer presents some compelling evidence.

Worst Books of the Year

Note: I'm not implying that these are bad books when I list them as the worst books. These are books that either disappointed me or failed to live up to certain expectations. I still stand in awe of the fact that these people are able to sit down and write novels. I have unwavering respect for that.

1. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell

After Cloud Atlas, how was Mitchell ever going to maintain expectations? This book is fine, but ultimately disappointing.

2. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

...and a million YA readers wept. Sorry.

3. The Postmistress by Sarah Blake

Meh.

4. The Story of O by Pauline Reage

Shocking erotica that failed to shock or eroticize. Fifty Shades of Snore.

5. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John le Carre 

Seriously, WTF was going on?

Anyway. Hope everyone had a great New Years and I look forward to continuing the blog into 2013.

Girl With A Pearl Earring

Girl With A Pearl Earring

By Tracy Chevalier

Hi there.

Please allow me to apologize. You see, I have lured you here to my blog under false pretenses.  You have, most likely, come to my blog in search of a review of Tracy Chevalier's charming novel Girl With a Pearl Earring. And while it is most assuredly the most recent novel I have finished, I have very little to say about it that hasn't already been said. It was, after all, a New York Times Bestseller and hardly needs my help as a reviewer. It was a fine novel. I enjoyed it. You might too. Read it. If you only came here for the review, hopefully the above words have satiated your need for literary criticism. I suspect they haven't and therefore the apology. I don't care about this book, but I care about you because I'm hoping you might help me. Please bear with me as I explain.

See, my blog has a certain consistency to it. Every single entry save two (Year in Reviews) have been posts pertaining to the book I have most recently finished. I read one book at a time and blog about it after I finish. Each post title is the name of said book and it is accompanied by an image of the cover of the book and I try to write something witty along the way. I like the consistency. I've been doing this for almost two years now and I've never stopped along the way to introduce myself or explain exactly why my blog is the way it is. It would have ruined the continuity. I don't intend to break that so I've been waiting patiently for a book to come along that prompted minimal feelings for me. I planned to co-opt that book's blogpost and use its space as a way to ask a question to all who visits.

That blogpost just happens to be Girl With A Pearl Earring. Fine book, like I said.

Anyway, enough about all that. I have an agenda today and I need your help. So let me get right to the point:

I'm thinking about changing the name of my blog.

When I first started this blog I was totally unaware that there was an entire world of book bloggers out there. In my blissfully ignorant mind I was a pioneer! I would be the first person to read books and write about them when I finished. I was going to bring literature to the unwashed masses of the Internet. When Blogger asked me to type a name, I did so without much thought and barreled forward toward posting. I had a mission, people, and it did not wait for a witty title! My Life in Books. Good enough.... moving on!

Since then, of course, I have discovered the multitude of wonderful book blogs out there, I realized how entirely inadequate both my blog and my blog name really was. My Life in Books? Atrocious. I aspire to greater creative heights that that! The name simply has to go.

Worse still is that it doesn't reflect what I do here, which is read any and all books that I can get my hands on.

For those unaware, I live in Taiwan. I'm neither Taiwanese nor ethnically Asian. I'm Canadian by birth and identify myself as such, but I live here nonetheless. How that came to be is a decidedly longer and more personal story so it may have to wait for another book that elicits zero feeling in me. I promise, however, that I will write it at some point. Rest assured that it's not important to our task at hand.

Taiwan has very few English bookstores or libraries. Most of the few are relegated to the largest urban centers: Taipei, Kaohsiung and Taichung. I do not live in any of those cities. I live about as far away from those cities as one can on this island (Hualien if anyone is Google Mapping it). The closest city with an English bookstore is Taipei, three hours north by train or 2.5 hours by car... if the road is open. There are no English bookstores in my town. Imagine that.

There are, however, English speakers in my town, many of which read. So there is a good collection of novels that have trickled down to my town via current and former expat residents as well as books left behind by tourists making the circuit of the island (it pays to befriend the owners of local hostels!). A lot are cheap romance novels, a fair amount of science fiction and way too many Penguin classics. So finding books in my town isn't impossible, but you rarely find exactly what you want.

I do go to Taipei a couple times a year and always buy books. I get shipments of books from my family back home a couple times a year, which is really sweet of them to do and I have a Kindle which means I can get books online. So, if I really want something, I can get it. It will just take more time (this is why I tend to read books that are a bit older than the books most other book bloggers read). I do miss browsing book stacks, though, and I develop fits of jealousy when I see other book bloggers blogging about their trips to bookstores, book shows or libraries and showing off their stacks of new books. I miss that a lot. For those counting, I have seven unread books on my shelf right now. That number will get much smaller before it gets bigger. But don't cry for me or anything. It's not as bad as it sounds. Just different.

Anyway....

I need a new name for this blog!

I would like a blog name to reflect my circumstances but I have not, as of yet, thought one up. This is disconcerting to me because I pride myself on my ability to be creative and yet...

I have been toying with the name Just Reviews to reflect my affinity to posting reviews only (and my attempt to be honest about everything I read), but it's just not capturing me. I thought I'd open up to everyone who visits to see what you think and whether you have a name suggestion. I can't promise I'll use it, but I'll take each and every suggestion seriously.

So, what do you think? Please take the time to offer your comments or suggestions. I'd greatly appreciate it...

My Year in Books

My Year in Books

Holy cow, it's 2012! How did that happen? I was still writing 2010 on deposit slips and stuff well into November and now I've got to remember to write 2012. Actually, it only occured to me the other day that the 1990s are over a decade ago now... insanity. Years fly by.

It still seems like only a few weeks ago that I started this blog but it has already been over a year. I have somehow managed to write something (sometimes only just) about every single book I read. I didn't think I would have very much to say after the first few books but I found that I was already crafting many of my blog posts in my head somewhere in the middle of most books I read. It has become part of my reading routine, which I think is worthwhile.

Not all of the books were fun to write about, mind you. There were some real clunkers on my reading list this year and since I always finish what I start, writing about some of these books was far more difficult than I would have expected. It's hard to muster the ambition to write about a book you barely finished, didn't like and would sooner forget. It is even harder to make it interesting. I suspect I failed on more than a few posts over the course of this year.

I started this blog as a bit of a reference experiment, really. I read so much that I often forget about a lot of books I read. I pick books up that I have read and forgotten about and it takes me dozens of pages for me to realize what's happening. This actually happened this year when I picked up How to be Good by Nick Hornby and realized about 30 pages in that I read it a few years ago. It obviously hadn't made an impact.

I wanted a place where I could record my thoughts, snide comments and theories about everything I read and maybe spark up a discussion or two along the way (and I won't lie, I'm more than narcissistic enough to enjoy knowing that people are reading what I write and I love comments). In that respect, this blog has been a huge success for me and I look forward to writing it (almost) every time I finish a book.

Moving forward, I am going to try carrying a notebook with me while I read. I found that I often had great ideas about a book only to forget about the idea when it came time to post a blog. This lack of planning made many of my blog posts feel rushed and superficial. I want to be a bit more astute in the coming year.

That being said, I didn't take any notes on this post and I'm writing it with a New Year's hangover. Even so, I'm going to try and divide my year in reading into a few year-end lists, with some superficial comments to go along with them. I provided the links to the actual posts, some of which aren't terrible. All of these are in no particular order.

Best Fiction of the Year

1. Hater by David Moody

I cannot wait to read the second in this series. What a great take on the zombie mythology.

2. The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields

This book surprised the hell out of me. I expected to hate it and it blew me away.

3. Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

Who knew that fantasy could be so riveting. Another first in a series that I expect to continue in 2012.

4. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Absolutely sublime. One of the best books I have read in a decade.

5. Middlesex by Jeffery Eugenides

If not for Never Let Me Go, this would have been the best book I read this year. It is such a masterful piece of fiction.

Best Non-Fiction of the Year

1. Where Men Win Glory by Jon Krakauer

2. Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom by Peter Guralnick

3. Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace

4. Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole by Benjamin R. Barber

5. Moneyball: The Art of Winning An Unfair Game by Michael Lewis

(I read so much good non-fiction this year that I could have had five more here and I wouldn't have felt I left anything off.)

Worst Books of the Year

1. I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell by Tucker Max

Blogs don't make good books (My Life in Books: The Movie!). Besides, college humor is so 2000.

2. Henry's Sisters by Cathy Lamb

This book is quite probably the worst book I have ever read. If anyone brings this book up in conversation I still go off on insane rants.

3. The Kin of Ata Are Waiting for You by Dorothy Bryant

New age hokum.

4. Endymion Spring by Matthew Skelton

Harry Potter without an ounce of fun.

5. Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk

Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.

Anyway. Hope everyone had a great New Years (I did) and I look forward to continuing the blog into 2011... I mean 2012. As a parting gift, here is the complete list of my reading this year...

1. I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell – Tucker Max
2. Smoke Screen – Sandra Brown
3. The Mirror Crack’d – Agatha Christie
4. The Stone Diaries – Carol Shields
5. Peter Pan – J.M. Barrie
6. Life – Keith Richards
7. Blue World – Robert McCammon
8. Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores The Hidden State of Everything – Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
9. Welcome Home: Travels in Smalltown Canada – Stuart McLean
10. The Unbearable Lightness of Being – Milan Kundera
11. Pillars of the Earth – Ken Follet
12. The Walking Dead Vol. 13: Too Far Gone – Robert Kirkman
13. The Power of Myth – Joseph Campbell
14. Stanley Park – Timothy Taylor
15. The Face of Battle – John Keegan
16. A History of Violence – John Wagner
17. Three Day Road – Joseph Boyden
18. Angela’s Ashes – Frank McCourt
19. Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro
20. The Cider House Rules – John Irving
21. Black Ajax – George MacDonald Fraser
22. In a Free State – V.S. Naipaul
23. Clara Callan – Richard B. Wright
24. Cutting For Stone – Abraham Verghese
25. The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, The Most Devastating Plague of All Time – John Kelly
26. The Rolling Stones Interviews – Jann S. Wenner
27. The Butcher’s Boy – Thomas Perry
28. Henry’s Sisters – Cathy Lamb
29. Flashman – George MacDonald Fraser
30. 6 x H – Robert A. Heinlein
31. Scar Tissue – Anthony Keidis
32. Every Man Dies Alone – Hans Fallada
33. Just So Stories – Rudyard Kipling
34. Dead Famous – Ben Elton
35. People of the Book – Geraldine Brooks
36. Hater – David Moody
37. Think of a Number – John Verdon
38. Thinner – Stephen King
39. Drowning Ruth – Christina Schwarz
40. The Stranger – Albert Camus
41. The Phantom Tollbooth – Norton Juster
42. A Spy in the House of Love – Anais Nin
43. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union – Michael Chabon
44. Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom – Peter Guralnick
45. The Kin of Ata Are Waiting For You – Dorothy Bryant
46. The Book of Laughter and Forgetting – Milan Kundera
47. I Am Ozzy – Ozzy Osbourne
48. A Long Way Down – Nick Hornby
49. Where Men Win Glory – Jon Krakauer
50. Endymion Spring – Matthew Skelton
51. The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
52. Atonement – Ian McEwan
53. Eleanor Rigby – Douglas Coupland
54. Fifth Business – Robertson Davies
55. Formosan Odyssey: Taiwan Past and Present – John Ross
56. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis de Berniere
57. Helmet For My Pillow – Robert Leckie
58. Why China Will Never Rule The World: Travels in the Two Chinas – Troy Parfitt
59. A Game of Thrones: Book One A Song of Fire and Ice – George R.R. Martin
60. Middlesex – Jeffery Eugenides
61. Snow Crash – Neal Stephenson
62. Pygmy – Chuck Palahniuk
63. Consider the Lobster – David Foster Wallace
64. My Life as an Experiment: One Man’s Humble Quest to Improve Himself – A.J. Jacobs
65. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian – Sherman Alexie
66. Everything is Illuminated – Jonathan Safran Foer
67. Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole – Benjamin R. Barber
68. Dust – Joan Frances Turner
69. Formosa: Licensed Revolution and the Home Rule Movement, 1895-1945 – George Kerr
70. That’s Me In The Middle – Donald Jack
71. The Education of Little Tree – Forrest Carter
72. Sabriel – Garth Nix
73. Let The Great World Spin – Colum McCann
74. Moneyball: The Art of Winning An Unfair Game – Michael Lewis
75. The Help – Kathryn Stockett
76. The Eyre Affair – Jasper Fforde

The Help

The Help

By Kathryn Stockett

Let me cut to the chase. I liked this book. This surprises me since it is the sort of Oprah-ish novel that I usually detest. It was only a few shades above Henry's Sisters and yet I found myself blasting through 100 pages a day because it was just that readable. It certainly wasn't the best book I read this year and it won't be making any top ten lists but it managed to sit me down for hours on end, sending me into fits at points because I desperately needed to know what happened next.

Of course, the book is full of faults, some of which are inexcusable. For example, far too many characters are two-dimensional caricatures of Southern women. I find it difficult to believe that real Southern white women could be this shallow and vindictive nor do I believe that Southern black women are all so universally noble. The character of Hilly Holbrook, a white women and the president of the Jackson Women's League, is especially grating. Stockett creates a virtually unlikable, unsympathetic banshee of a women who seems to grow in monstrosity throughout the novel. On the one hand, a wonderfully crafted villain, on the other a totally unbelievable human. I dislike characters who are entirely defined by a particular character quirk and Hilly is exactly that. Her entire raison d'être is to provide a sounding board for the segregationist establishment in 1960s Mississippi. There is no nuance, no complexity to her character. She was simply evil. Evil to the point where I was often left wondering why she was able to acheive her status in the community in the first place, much less maintain it. Not even the most mindless drone of a person could be blind to this woman's issues. Hilly isn't the only example of this two-dimensional characterization, but she is the most blatant. There were times when I thought I was reading a Disney cartoon.

Furthermore, Stockett seems to have issues with conclusions. While I will try to avoid spoilers, the end was a travesty. There were far too many loose ends that could have been tied up. A lot of sub-plots were left unresolved, least of which involved the characters of Celia and Minny. I appreciate an open-ended conclusion but I also need a modicum of closure, especially in a novel such as this. Stockett wasn't writing high literature. There is no need to leave so much ambiguity in the end of a novel. The end should have had the antagonist with egg on her face for the world to see and the protagonists riding off into the beautiful Mississippi sunset. The novel was cartoonish from start to finish, why infuse it with reality on the last ten pages. Readers stuck it out mainly for the hust desserts. Provide them, Stockett! I'll leave that there lest I give too much away.

Of course none of this matters, I guess. Like Harry Potter or a good John Grisham story, if a book makes to turn the pages and engrosses you to the degree that The Help did for me, then you must excuse its faults and own up to the fact that it was enjoyable. The Help is most certainly a fun read and I would recommend it to anyone looking for something that won't tax their brain too much. My fundamental problem with The Help has nothing to do with the book itself nor does it have anything to do with Kathryn Stockett. It has to do with its testimonials... specifically this one:

"This could be one of the most important pieces of fiction since To Kill A Mockingbird... If you read only one book... let this be it." -- NPR.org

Now, I love me some NPR. I'm an avid listener of Fresh Air (I think Terry Gross just might be the best interviewer of her era) and Science Friday but whoever it was that wrote this testimonial has some explaining to do.

I'm not a fan of comparing good new fiction to other, older, more important literature. I don't think it's fair to the book or the author to make premature comparisons to established novels. It's a recipe for disappointment. Comparing mediocre fiction to classic literature is simply wrong. It not only sets the mediocre fiction up for ridicule and mockery but it cheapens the legacy of the said classic, even if for a few moments.

Let's put it this way: Comparing The Help to To Kill A Mockingbird is akin to comparing the science fiction film Avatar to Fritz Lang's Metropolis. While I'm not implying that Avatar was a bad film, I am implying that Avatar doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence as Lang's genre defining work. Perhaps, in time, it will. But it is time, not comparisons, that will determine its place. Let the piece establish its place based on its own cultural merits.

This is not a knock on critics. Unlike so many others, I understand the need for critical response to pop culture. There is so much music, literature, film and television to sift through these days that critics often serve as a cultural guide for those searching for their next cultural fix. While I would never use critical response as an absolute gauge, it does serve to steer cultural consumers in the right directions. However, critics often overstate their case by comparing (unfairly) recent servings of culture with established canon. How many rock and roll bands have suffered under the moniker of "the next Nirvana," or "the next White Stripes?" How many films have flopped because a critic said something like: "If you liked Lawrence of Arabia, you're going to love Ishtar"?

Exactly.

This leaves The Help in an awkward position. A potential buyer reads that it is comparable to To Kill A Mockingbird, buys the novel, reads it and discovers that it is, in fact, not at all like Harper Lee's classic (Surprise!). In fact, The Help is nothing close to Lee's compassionate take on the South under the Jim Crow Laws. Skeeter has nothing on Boo Radley. Lee created a far more subtle world shaded in all sorts of grays while Stockett has written a very readable black and white (pardon the pun) soap opera for the Oprah set. This sort of gushing testimonial colors an opinion faster than any other platitudes a critic might write. As soon as you place a book along side another, tangible book, the reader has no choice but to spent their time making comparisons they may not have otherwise made. Disappointment abounds.

I tried very hard not to let this testimonial color my opinion of The Help, but if I had, I would have shredded this book in this space. The Help is no in the same league as To Kill A Mockingbird. It's not even playing the same game. But that's fine. there are all sorts of fiction. Not everything is going to be James Joyce or Harper Lee The Help is an enjoyable read and nothing more.

I have to wonder about that reviewer for NPR.org. What was his motivation for writing sure an over-wrought blurb? Was his or her goal to get people to read Stockett's novel or was his/her goal to get their blurb on the cover of the book and, therefore, further their own career. If it's the latter, that's perhaps the most pathetic thing of all. The sort oftransparent, two-dimensional career advancement that Hilly Holbrook would have employed. I shudder to think of the implications of such irony.

Captain Corelli's Mandolin

Captain Corelli's Mandolin

By Louis de Bernieres

Poor Captain Corelli never stood a chance.

As I've mentiond before, I'm a strict reader that adheres to a lot of self-imposed rules (My cousin, mentioned below, thinks this makes me strange). One of my self-imposed rules is that I finish everything I start, regardless of whether I enjoy it or not. The logic is that I gain from bad books as much as I do from good books, and it forces me to read outside my comfort zone. Also, laying into a bad book is so satisfying. Therefore, once I commit to a book, I'm locked in. Period. Paragraph.

When I picked up Captain Corelli's Mandolin, I was literally at my (reader's) wits end. I picked it off the shelf of my growing little community library (one of the biggest English libraries on the East Coast of Taiwan if I may pat myself on the back for a moment. Over 800 titles and growing!). I had zero interest in reading Captain Corelli's Mandolin when it was donated to the library last year and that interest had grown by a factor of zero. It just wasn't the sort of book that screamed: read me! But it was the best book available to me at that particular moment, so I locked in.

Almost as soon as I started the book a whole bunch of events conspired to ensure I would not give this book the chance it probably deserved. Here they are:

1. My cousin came to visit.

This is an awesome reason. Living 15,000km from my entire family means that when I get a visitor from home, it's a big deal. It happens less than once a year, but it's always a monumental event. My wife and I love visitors from home and we love playing tour guide for the area (Taiwan's east coast is spectacular and should be considered for your next vacation).

The visit has meant a lot of time driving, scootering, hiking, eating, talking, drinking and the such. Tons of fun for us, but less time for reading. Oh, sure, I'm fufilling my requisite 25 pages a day, but often not much more than just that. It's hard to really immerse yourself in a story when there is so much start and stop.

2. I'm knee deep in vinyl.

My cousin brought me a new needle for my turntable. This has been heavenly. My turntable has been out of service for over five years for various reasons but now it's turning and grooving and I have spent a lot of time rediscovering my vinyl collection (I am currently listening to Stereolab).

If there is one non-athletic pastime I enjoy more than reading, it's music. I started collecting vinyl records about 15 years ago and (like most audiophiles) prefer vinyl to CDs and MP3s. But moving to Taiwan put a temporary end to collecting as I did not have a turntable or records until my Mum shipped them all over earlier this year. It arrived fine, but the needle needed replacing. It has subsequently been replaced and it has been fantastic!

3. I got a whole lot of new books!

This is by far the best/worst thing to happen to me while reading something I would rather not read. When I got about 80 pages into Captain Corelli's Mandolin, I received three packages in the mail full of books from various awesome people. The first was a extraordinary birthday package full of books (and a George Foreman Grill... Thanks Mom!). The second came from a good friend on the other side of the island who was concerned about my recent lack of books (Thanks Tom!) and the third came from another fantastic friend on the other side of the island who has been kind enough to lend me some more books about Taiwan (Thanks Michael!). I also happen to know a fourth package is in transit from Canada (Thanks JP!). If anyone wants a book, let me know. I'll hook you up.

Within the space of 24 hours my reading shelf went from empty to full. New books staring at me and begging me to be read while I was mired in a book that never really found any rhythm for me given the relative chaos of the last week.

All of this was not fair on old Captain Corelli and his mandolin, which seemed like a good story that deserved a bit more attention than it got from me. I want to say it was the sort of book I couldn't put down, and I suspect that in any other instance it might have been. But circumstance conspired against Louis de Berniere this week and I'm left with very to say about a book and an author that should most definitely be given another chance.

Sorry.

Every Man Dies Alone

Every Man Dies Alone

By Hans Fallada

"Would you rather live for an unjust cause than die for a just one?"

Every Man Dies Alone is Hans Fallada's extraordinary novel of crippling repression, resistance and the triumph of life in Germany under Nazi rule. It follows the compelling story of Otto and Anna Quangel, an aging couple whose only son has been unceremoniously killed in France early in the war. In response to their grief, they begin to write anti-Nazi postcards and drop them around Berlin. Although this is a work of fiction, this novel is based on the true story of Otto and elise Hampel who committed similar acts of civil disobedience and were executed in Plotzensee Prison. Italian chemist (and holocaust survivor) Primo Levi called Fallada's book: "The greatest book ever written about German resistance to the Nazis."

Concurrently, the novel follows the antics of several characters inside the Gestapo as try, fail, continue to fail and then ultimately succeed in solving the case. While the story of the Quangels and their circle of everyday Germans is interesting, I found the murderous and petty machinations of the Gestapo far more riveting, especially knowing that these monsters agents will eventually get their culprits and the fear that goes with not knowing exactly what they will do once they get them.

In discussing the Third Reich it is so easy to lose site of the fact that there existed a large population within Germany who actively plotted against the Party from distributing anti-Nazi leaflets to harboring their Jewish friends and neighbors.

Before I get to my more philosophical musings on this subject I should review this book a little. If you are looking for some light summer reading, pass this one by. I was glad that the weather remained gloomy and cold while I read this book, otherwise it would have really brought me down. Every Man Dies Alone is one of the bleakest books I have ever read. Along the lines of Cormac McCarthy's The Road, Alexandr Solzhenitsyn's One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich and George Orwell's 1984, Every Man Dies Alone starts off bleak, remains bleak and ends on a sad note. However, along the way there are glimmers of hope and, like I mentioned before, the triumph of the human spirit.

To say that this book deals with some weighty issues is an understatement. To say that this book, first published in German in 1947 (not translated to English until 2009), has little value upon readers in 2011 is categorically false. I found that this book spoke to me in a way that many other books with similar themes have not. Through its bleak, hopeless tone, Hans Fallada speaks a message through the generations and, if anyone is listening, it could very well save us a repeat performance of these historical shenanigans.

When I started this book, I was caught up in a discussion over Facebook about the usefulness of conspiracy theories and whether or not their vocal and ofttimes obfuscating manner was not perhaps a detriment to a large cause of change and social justice. Whether a horde of people yelling often nonsensical theories perhaps clouded issues that might otherwise gain more tread in this world. I wasn't speaking against freedom of speech (I would never, ever do that), just the jumbling of messages that could be something more fluid, more tangible, more cohesive. Millions of voices screaming billions of theories seemed counter-productive against an establishment with one common, conservative and potentially dangerous voice.

After reading Fallada's novel and delving into the tyrannical fear of Nazi Germany, I think I may have changed my tone on this point. Shouting from the rafters is exactly the sort of thing we should all be doing, and often. Silence is equal to support. If you don't speak out when you have a chance, what will you do when you lose that chance? This is the sort of stuff we as citizens of this world are dealing with every hour of every day.

Got a problem with your leader? Do something about it. Dislike the environmental practices of a local industry? Make it known. Think someone in a position of power is lying to you? Call them on it. Sitting idly by and saying things like: "That's somebody else's problem" is exactly the sort of attitude that allowed for the emergence of the Nazi State in Germany and, given that Adolf Hitler is poised to exit from our collective consciousness in the next generation or so, this sort of rampant, oppressive power is very much ripe for a return. Question everything. We owe it to ourselves.

For Otto and Anna they began their revolution far too late but at least they had the guts to do something. Far better people did far less. They realized an inherent truth about their government at a time when doing even the smallest act against the state meant death not only for them but also for anyone associated with them. In a climate of crushing fear it's a wonder that people had the courage to do even as little as the Quangels. Far more simply kept quiet and hoped and waited for it all to end.

There is so much to gain from reading Every Man Dies Alone. This should be required reading for any student of critical thinking.

Silence can be violence.

Henry's Sisters

Henry's Sisters

by Cathy Lamb

Sweet merciful Jesus, it's rare that I read a book that not only sucks but also unleashes the full force of my ire and disgust. Alas, Cathy Lamb has written such a book. A book so mind-numbingly bad that I came within a camel's hair of putting it down (something I have not done with a book in almost five years). A book so poorly written that I actually read several reader reviews before I sat down to write this, thinking that I could commiserate with other readers about a book that just might be the worse thing I have ever read (and I've read Twilight).

Imagine my shock and horror when I discovered that Henry's Sisters seems to garner favorable reviews around the net. Goodreads, Amazon and Visual Bookshelf readers all seem to like it well enough, which made me check my medicine cabinet to see whether someone has been slipping me crazy pills again. Rest assured, they have not.

The atrocities committed by Cathy Lamb are so extensive that I have spent the last 300 pages (of a 400 page book) mentally cataloging them. I should have written them down because I fear I have forgotten so many that I will not be able to express my loathing in as much detail as I would like, but I will try. I figure the best way to organize this is with a simple list, beginning with:

1. One dimensional characters.

Christ Almighty, this pissed me off by the end of chapter four. Cathy Lamb writes characters like George Lucas creates a planet. Like Lucas' one-climate planets, each character in this book is characterized solely by his/her one defining quirk. Isabelle is a slut. Cecilia is fat. Janie is obsessive compulsive. Momma is cruel. It's as if these (cartoon) characters exist only through their one (and only, mind you) idiosyncrasy. None of these characters ever do anything beyond the bounds of this one, single attribute. By the end of the book when I should have been crying, I could only imagine cardboard cutouts of these characters being moved around on a cheap soap opera stage.

2. Constant reminders of one dimensional characters.

Cathy Lamb does not think much of her readers. I know that writing teachers will always tell a burgeoning writer to "assume your reader knows nothing." But there are limits to this. Lamb reminds me of Isabelle's sluttiness, Cecilia's eating and Janie's compulsions on EVERY PAGE OF THE BOOK! Holy hell, woman, I got it! Mentally disabled Henry is the only sane person in the Bommarito family. I can handle that. No need to hammer it into me every seventh sentence!

3. Characterization of men

This has bothered me in other books, but none more than this one. Aside from Henry (and he's mentally disabled, remember?) all the male characters in this book either rape, abandon their family, cheat, lie, mass murder, say impossibly insensitive things, act like a raging idiot or (just to mix it up) a combination. I'm not anti-feminist or anything, but c'mon! Some of the men in this book were about as intelligent as Curly from the Three Stooges. Great if you are writing absurd comedy. Absurd if you are trying to write great drama. When the only male character written with any compassion is mentally disabled (in case you forgot), perhaps you are trying to send a subtle message?

4. The dialogue is impossibly bad

Seriously. Lamb tried to write witty arguments between these sisters but it invariably sounded like the sorts of arguments that six year-olds have over who's father can beat up everyone else's. Case in point:

"Your momma's got good tits," he told us, smirking, when Momma was out of earshot.

"And you have a small dick," I told him. "Flaccid. Weak."

"And a fat ass," Janie added. "Like blubber cannons. I'd like to chop them off with a hatchet."

"Are you related to a pig? Your nose, it's amazing," Cecilia said. "Piglike. Snort for me, would you, you ugly pig?"

Who talks like that?

5. Mentally disabled people and Vietnamese people speak the same.

Guess who is mentally disabled and who is Vietnamese...

A) "I no take a second. I no want a shot."

B) "I no understand. Your face... Ah Isabelle."

6. The litany of tragedy

I wonder whether this may be Cathy Lamb's last book. I say that because she seems to have tried to squeeze as much tragedy into 400 pages as is humanly possible. Rape, murder, Vietnam flashbacks, cancer, death, abortion, family dysfunction, homelessness, cruelty toward the disabled, messy divorce, serial rape/murder, psychological disorders, abandonment, prostitution etc... etc.... etc.... I know this book is supposed to be about the triumph of the human spirit and the importance of family but jeez, Louise, save an issue or two for your next book, would ya?

7. Telegraphing the reveals

I can visualize Cathy Lamb sitting at her computer (or typewriter or whatever) thinking to herself: "Oh man, when my readers find out the truth behind this deeply imbedded plot tidbit, won't they be surprised. What she fails to understand is that her well-placed clues are dead giveaways for what is coming, which really takes away from the enjoyment of the book when you know exactly what's coming in a couple of dozen pages. The white haired man in the street was really their long-lost father? Imagine!

8. Blatantly obvious statements

Such as: Pancreatic cancer are two words you never want to hear.

You don't say....

9. Thinly veiled devotionalism

This is what really galled me. About halfway through the book I realized that I was reading Christian literature. I knew there was something askew, much like when you realize that the sort-of-good-but-kinda-odd rock you were listening to was actually Christian Rock. This is a novel akin to The Shack, a book I read and detested last year. Which, come to think of it, would explain all the positive reviews this book seems to get online. This is the sort of book that is read by a very specific slice of the reading public. People who are shocked by graphic language and sexuality. Readers who identify with one-issue people because they are one-issue people themselves: Christians.

Anyway, There are a host of other, lesser reasons that this book sucked, I feel like I've wasted enough time and words on this disaster of a novel. I wouldn't recommend this book to my worst enemy. Don't bother.

Cutting For Stone

Cutting For Stone

By Abraham Verghese

I have a Doogie Howser reading complex as of late. According to the books I read, teenage surgeons are far more common than I have been lead to believe. First there was Homer Wells in The Cider House Rules and now Marion and Shiva Praise in Abraham Verghese's opus Cutting For Stone. Who would have thought that performing life and death procedures could be so flippantly possible for those suffering from low self-esteem and acne.

But I digress.

Cutting For Stone is an epic story of two generations of expatriate doctors living and working at a mission hospital in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. The novel is actually quite sweeping and provides a wonderful insight into life during the last years of Selassie's reign and the tumultuous years of Mengistu's dictatorship (not to mention the uncertainty of the Eritrean and Tigre independence movements occuring in the background). Verghese is an adept novelist who knows exactly where, when and how much information to divulge to the reader throughout but is also careful to remind readers along the way about key ingredients that cannot be forgotten along the way. I enjoyed the way he constructed such flawed, fragile characters and his ability to describe specific forms of surgery is borderline grotesque. Verghese reminded so much of Salman Rushdie at times that I had to check the cover to make sure I hadn't picked up The Moor's Last Sigh by mistake.

Cutting For Stone, like so many novels I have read this year, really concerns itself with time and love, our lack of time and the way we as humans fritter it away on things we assume are meaningful, much to the detriment of love. This notion is best represented in the relationships between the narrator, Marion Stone, his (formerly conjoined) twin brother Shiva and their childhood friend Genet. One uses time, another abuses it the third lives as if it doesn't exist at all. This, as one can imagine, complicates their relationships immensely as they grow up and enter the world for adults. This was the central precept of the entire novel for me. As a complete piece of work, Cutting For Stone is quite a rewarding read...

That is, if you can get that far.

Aha!

Considering the plaudits this book has received since its publication in 2009, I might be sticking my neck out by saying this. The problem with this novel, for me, lies in it's first third. It's a minor problem in the grander scheme of the entire book, but it was something that bothered me the entire length of the read. I spent a week reading this book and almost half that time trying to slog my way through the first 150 pages. I hardly ever put a book down, but Cutting For Stone really tested my mettle. I can't recall a novel that eased into the story more slowly.

Verghese sets a pastoral, provincial tone for life in Haile Selassie-era Ethiopia and much of the first third is comprised of plot structures in need of construct for their inevitable culmination. I understand setting up your pins, but things need to keep moving. Furthermore, Verghese spends this portion of the novel delivering a Ondaatje-esque, dream-like narrative of life before the birth of the main character, Marion. All of this together makes for some pretty foggy reading.

There is a (non-spoiler) scene around the 150 page mark that speaks volumes about the pace of this book. Ghosh, one of the resident doctors at the mission (called Missing) hospital is asked to perform voluvus (a blockage in the bowel) surgery on a controvertial army colonel. The surgery is ultimately successful, Ghosh saves the colonel's life and the colonel is able to pass stool once again. I found this bit to be an interesting piece of art-imitates-my-reading.

Perhaps it was my own state of mind during the first few days of reading but it seemed to me that the novel itself had been suffering from a blocked narrative and this little piece of fictionalized surgery removed the blockage and allowed for the story to finally progress unobstructed without asides, tangents or fuzzy pre-birth assumptions. It was only after this scene that I was able to settle into the book and truly enjoy it.

Minor thing, I know and certainly not the sort of thing that should dissuade you from reading this novel, especially if you are interested in Africa, medicine or complicated familial relationships. Ultimately, this book is well worth the effort. Abraham Verghese is a stunningly adept writer of prose and a vibrant new face in the literary world. I'll be on the lookout for his other work in the near future.

Black Ajax

Black Ajax

By George MacDonald Fraser

I have a theory about sports movies. It goes like this: Sport, as a subject for a non-comedic film, rarely works. Sure there are all sorts of comedies about sports that entertain (Caddyshack, Happy Gilmore, Slapshot etc...) but when it comes to making a serious, poignant film about a sport, the pickings become fairly slim.

There are two exceptions to this rule, however: The first exception is boxing. For whatever reason, film has always been about to portray boxing with delicacy and humnity than, say.... bobsledding. Does boxing possess more pathos than bobsled competitors? Well, ok... bad example, but there is no shortage of great films about boxing: Raging Bull, Ali, The Hurricane, Rocky among dozens of others. I guess there is something about pummelling other humans within an inch of their life that makes for human tragedy as well as filmatic consumption.

(The other exception to the sport movie theory is baseball movies starring Kevin Costner. I have no idea why but baseball movies roundly stink and Kevin Costner is an unforgivably awful actor but when baseball and Costner are brought together, it's magic. But I digress).

I am beginning to wonder whether this theory may apply to fiction as well. Surely, there is no shortage of excellent non-fiction about sport. Some recent reads include Our Game by Ken Dryden (Hockey), Invictus by John Carlin (Rugby) and The Luckiest Man by Jonathan Eig (Baseball) all of which reduced me to tears, but the list of good sport non-fiction is longer than I care to type and I'm trying to get somewhere with this post, so lets just agree that sports are well covered in the non-fiction category, shall we?

Finding good fiction about sport is more difficult and usually relegated to the world of Young Adult Fiction. Here's why: The fun-loving loser (or team of losers) winning the championship works only if it's a true story. It comes across as a tired cliche if it is fictionalized. If there is an animal or alien or magician or magical alien animals involved in the winning of said championship all the more reason to not read it. With all due respect to the genre of young adult fiction, I'm not young. I want something a little more nuanced.

Black Ajax is that book.

I must admit, Black Ajax by George MacDonald Fraser is a bit like cheating to get an example of good sport fiction. First, it's historical fiction which immediately makes the story more believable since, you know, it actually happened, more or less. Second, it's about boxing which, as I mentioned above, makes for good human tragedy. Third it is about a particularly misunderstood era of the sport (bare knuckle boxing) and finally it is about Tom Molineaux, a former American slave and the first black man to challenge for the title of Champion of England. You simply can't make up a story that interesting.

George MacDonald Fraser is a scholar of Victorian England, its culture as well as its language and does a stunning job of chronicling the events of Molineaux's life leading up to his title fights with Tom Cribb through the voices of witnesses (trainers, former boxers, fellow slaves, sportswriters, his opponents and even the Prince of Wales) all written in painstakingly realisitic Victorian and pugilistic vernacular. A glossary is provided to translate the vast repitoire of slang used by the witnesses.

Black Ajax gives a stark and often grotesque account of the world of bare-knuckle boxing during the years of the Napoleonic Wars and the hold Tom Molineaux had over the sport for the year of two in which he was the talk of the Fancy (world of English Boxing). Fraser harsh narrative is in accordance with the views and prejudices of the time and the leading characters of the brutal sport. Reality is what a reader should look for in a work of historical fiction. In Black Ajax, the reader is provided with a wonderful example of how it should be written.

Highly recommended.

The Cider House Rules

The Cider House Rules

by John Irving

An open letter to John Irving:

Dear John,

Please excuse my sudden interuption of your highly successful career. I realize that an author of your caliber has very little time to answer open letters addressed to himself on random blogs scattered about the internet but if I could just ask you to put down that enormous bucket of money for a second and hear me out, I think it would do you and your readers a little good.

It's odd that I feel a little like your character Wilbur Larch who, in his ever-so-gradual descent into an ether-fuelled senility begins writing to President Roosevelt (and later Truman and Eisenhower) to plead his case for the legalization of abortion. Perhaps I should have begun this letter: Dear Mamie.

Ha ha. Just a joke, John. Just a joke. I'm not senile.

Not yet.

First, I must confess that I have not read a lot of your books. This is not entirely my fault, as you might not know. I don't often come across your novels in Taiwan (you should talk to your agent and publishers about that, by the way). But I did read A Prayer For Owen Meany way back in high school and recall enjoying it quite a bit.... High school, John. That was over 20 years ago. Jeez, we're getting old, huh?

I remember that Owen Meany freaked me out. Not the book, but the character. Can't remember why, though. I have forgotten most of that book.

Anyway, I just now got through your 600 page opus, The Cider House Rules. I want you to know, John, that I didn't enjoy this book and I want to tell you why: I can see by the clothes on your back and the bushel-full of currency you have at your feet that you must be doing something right. You don't spend your days unloading stacks of Benjamins if you're doing it wrong and who am I to sit here hunched over my keyboard in the early hours of an Asian morning to tell you otherwise?

(Benjamin is apparently a slang term for an American one hundred dollar bill, John. I just looked it up, Kids, these days, huh?)

Well, since you are still reading, I can only expect you want to know. It occured to me while reading The Cider House Rules that you have trouble commencing a book. It's lucky for you that I'm not the sort of person that puts a book down, John. It took me over 250 pages of random nonesense to get even a feel of where you were going. The story meandered around with no apparent sense of direction or purpose. It got so bad that I expected you to wax intellectual about a crowd of golden daffodils at one point.

Oh, it's not like I demand predictability from a novel. If you continue down this blog, you will see that I quite enjoyed the entirely unpredictable work of Kazuo Ishiguro and who doesn't like a good Kurt Vonnegut novel, hey John? Anyway, I certainly don't want to know the plot before it happens but I do want a book to catch my imagination before I am a full third into the reading. And since you're such a verbose and pleonastic fellow who often write books in excess of 500 pages, a third of a book is a hell of an investment to make just to get interested. It makde me wonder: Did you know where this book was going when you started it? Hell, there wasn't even a damned cider house until 300 pages in!

Wait, wait! I know you are checking your watch. I know you are thinking: I've sold millions of books, many of which have been made into movies that star Michael Caine and John Lithgow, why should I listen to the critique of one guy, living in the outskirts of nowhere, writing a blog read by the bare minimum of his friends and suffering from attention deficeit disorder.

Well, you shouldn't.

But, if it's all the same to you, I still felt it necessary to let you know, personally, why I didn't enjoy your novel (or, more precisely, why it took me 250 pages to develop even the slightest interest in the development of your characters, setting and plot). That's the sort of thing that makes me not want to read your other work, which will very marginally affect your vast and more-than-adequate income which, in turn, should be infintisimally disconcerting to you.

Sincerely,

Your Almost Fan

Ryan

The Power of Myth

The Power of Myth

By Joseph Campbell

Note: I am finally caught up on my vacation reading. These blog updates will now come at more reasonable intervals as I actually finish books I'm currently reading.

In my mind I invite the following three people to my house for dinner: Richard Dawkins, Joseph Campbell and C.S. Lewis. somewhere after a delicious smoked salmon dinner while we lounge in the parlor sipping a glass of port I pose the following question:

Ryan: Is there a God?

To which I imagine I would get the following responses:

Lewis: "Unequivocally, yes."

Dawkins: "Categorically, no."

Campbell: "Who cares?"

The Power of Myth was Campbell's literary swan song from 1988 and coincided with a PBS special of the same name. The book reads as a long interview with Bill Moyers and after having finished it, I'm already wondering whether this was the best possible introduction to Bill Campbell, a writer I have been dying to read for quite some time.

First off, the interview style lets Campbell go off in all sorts of directions concerning mythologies from around the world while only loosely adhering to a particular theme. I have a decent handle on mythology via the Bible, Edith Hamilton, a smattering of Eastern texts and whatnot, but I couldn't call myself an expert on the subject either. So it was difficult to follow a man with a lifetime of learning, especially as he jumps from Pima Indian folklore to Japanese legends to Hindu myths. But I managed and came away with a lot to think about.

I especially enjoyed the moment when he told the story of how he feared his teaching would rattle the faith of his more religious students. He worried that his more dogmatic students might question their faith based on the recurring themes in mythology and how that fit within the framework of their own beliefs, somehow lessening them. What he found instead was that these mythologies actually illuminated their religious lives, added color to their beliefs.

As for me, an avowed atheist, I found that a lot of what he wrote made a lot of sense. We as people spend a lot of time wondering about the purpose of life and whether or not God exists. Campbell argues that life has no purpose and the existence of a personal god is beside the point. Mythologies don't exist as a way to explain this world and the afterlife. They are constantly evolving lessons (often anthropomorphized) that help us understand that we do not move through this life alone. Myths play an important role in our journey through life and they are just as relevant today as they were thousands of years ago. God has very little to do with it. n fact, the idea of god (or gods) is up for debate. The idea of God, in fact, is inward, rather than outward. God is within us rather than the unknowable being in the sky. each of us is a god and we find god within the other.

Oh man, trying to sum up Campbell's ideas in a single paragraph sounds like the ramblings of a new-age weirdo. I'm not really doing him justice. But to be fair, the book isn't well organized. I realized that I need to read some of Campbell's earlier work to get a firmer handle on his teachings. The Power of Myth was not the best place to start. But the book fell in my lap and if nothing else, it has whetted my palette for more.

I also quite liked the bits about Star Wars. I'm glad Campbell died before the prequels were made. I suspect his insistence on George Lucas being a modern myth-maker would have disintegrated had he seen Jar Jar Binks

The Walking Dead Volume 13: Too Far Gone

The Walking Dead Volume 13: Too Far Gone

By Robert Kirkman

Before continuing with this blog post, please bear in mind that I am not a comic book collector. I know precious little about comics, and it will show.

I have always strived to keep my reading as expansive as possible. I try to move from genre to genre as often as I can, shifting from fiction to non-fiction to historical fiction. As far as I'm concerned, I'll try anything once. A lot of this attitude comes from living in a non-English speaking country. Let me rephrase: A remote part of a non-English speaking country that provides the bare minimum of English anything, least of all, books. I have learned to read anything and everything placed in front of me. This includes graphic novels.

I used to be of the mind that graphic novels (or comics. I don't know how to differentiate) didn't count. They were like five-pin bowling, The Monkees or RC Cola. Reasonable facsimiles of something more substantial. Something more real.

It was The Dark Knight series by Frank Miller that changed my opinion. Until that point,my entire comic book reading career had consisted of a few dozen Archie comics and Bazooka Joe. It just wasn't something I did as a kid. When other kids were reading Batman and Superman, I was reading Encyclopedia Brown. When those same kids were discovering The Sandman I was reading Midnight's Children. When I finally had The Dark Knight stuffed under my chin, I had all but dismissed graphic novels as a mutated form of arrested development.

Of course Frank Miller's depiction of Batman as an aging anti-hero who borders on the suicidal was eye opening to me. I had no idea that comic books had progressed past Jughead vs. hamburger jokes. I was that much in the dark. Miller's distopian world and his litany of villians was right up my alley. I read The Dark Knight three times in succession, on the same day. I simply couldn't believe what I had just read and seen.

To give you an example of my awe, imagine the that last movie you saw was the Ray Harryhausen version of Clash of the Titans complete with plasticene Kraken and Rubber Medusa head. Fast forward several decades and sit down and watch The Matrix or Avatar or any one of the special-effects driven movies out today and you've got an idea of my misconceptions about comics.

I'm still not much of a comic reader. I've only really been sucked into the one series. And granted, the appeal of The Walking Dead series owes more to my love for all things zombie than to my love of comics. But my eyes are opened to the possibilities of the graphic novel. Any serious reader cannot and should not dismiss comic books. Comics are as much a part of our modern literature as any novel, play or poem. If you are dismissing graphic novels, you are dismissing a very large and very complex portion of the global library and that would be a shame. I'm not remotely qualified to talk comics on the internet, but as a reformed book reader addressing other book readers who may not read comics, give them a chance.

They'll surprise you.