Double-Fisting

So I'm cheating a bit this week. Despite my resolution to only read one book at a time, and despite my two-paper-cut rating of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo," I found myself on Sunday gazing somewhat longingly at the second book in the series, "The Girl Who Played with Fire." (For the record, I can often be found standing idly in bookstores, staring in the general direction of the shelves and daydreaming). In any case, next thing I know I'm walking away from Borders with a shopping bag and a receipt. Seems I bought the thing.

This fairly minor relapse was compounded by a two-hour train ride on Sunday, during which I found myself unable to nap (I suspect it had something to do with the toddler behind me, who was engaged in a high-volume recitation of the alphabet). So I casually started "Played with Fire," and now I'm 100 pages in and refuse to put it down.

None of this would really break my resolution—after all, reading a sequel is still reading—were it not for my other book obligation this week: "Ms. Hempel Chronicles," which I am reading for a book club that meets on Friday. True, said book club is comprised entirely of a small circle of friends, and we spend more time gossiping and drinking than discussing our latest read, and this particular book and associated meeting have been postponed for no less than six months. But I am not one to walk away from goals. Unless they're related to my intake of ice cream, or a lessening thereof.

And so I find myself in a conundrum that can only be solved by an even more dedicated focus on the written word: Since "Hempel" is a mere 190 pages, I have decided that I will finish both books this week, primarily by thinking of them as one very long book (around 900 pages) called "Ms. Hempel Played with Fire." I see it as a novel set in Sweden, where relatively young and inexperienced teacher Ms. Hempel becomes involved with a student, which leads to some sort of murder mystery that can be solved exclusively by Lisbeth Salander. Lisbeth and Hempel become good friends (post-mystery of course) and spend their days hacking into mainframes and kicking hornets' nests.

And I guess teaching.

Well, That Was Easy

Lisbeth Salander, from the Swedish movie.

Four days. A new Sorry Television record.

I was unquestionably aided in this week's reading endeavor by the Thanksgiving holiday, which right now means I wish I had brought an extra pair of stretchy pants but a day or so ago meant hours of uninterrupted reading time, thwarted only occasionally by my mother's well-intentioned attempts to initiate conversation--attempts I rebuffed by grunting monosyllabic replies from behind my paperback. Because aren't endless solitary hours of quiet reading time what Thanksgiving is really all about?

And certainly, I had the right book in hand. "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" has plenty of simultaneous compelling plots (to the point that after what was arguably the book's major reveal, I was surprised to find there were still another 100 pages of denouement) and manages to cover the familiar crime-fiction territory of murder and intrigue without seeming stale. The book follows main character Mikael Blomkvist, an investigative reporter and magazine editor who early on is charged with libel and consequently resigns his magazine post to spend a year in self-imposed exile, writing a family history for affable Swedish captain of industry Henrik Vanger, who has given Blomkvist the simultaneous (and more important) task of finding out what happened to a female family member that disappeared 30 years earlier.  Along the way Mikael joins forces with Lisbeth Salander, a 20-something hacker and the famed owner of said dragon tattoo.

For a crime novel, "Dragon Tattoo" gets off to a slow start, which in retrospect I think has something to do with Larsson having written and submitted all three novels at once--200 pages of exposition seems less excessive in the context of three 700-page paperbacks than one. But the relationships so thoroughly established in the beginning--between Blomkvist and his colleague/longtime lover Erika Berger, between Salander and her employer, between Henrik Vanger and Blomkvist--prove relevant in the rest of the story, and in a way the time devoted to each person's character makes the plot's "whodunit" elements that much more compelling. Still, I would say the story truly picks up a little before the halfway point, and the last 100 pages have as much excitement as the first 400 combined.

Everybody's Doing It

If I've learned anything in these last seven weeks, it's that burritos are not a good reading food. But also that choosing to read books simply, or least primarily, because of hype is--for the most part--worth it. I'm basing this on "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" and "The Devil in the White City," both of which I wish in retrospect I had read when they were more pertinent water-cooler literary chatter. But there have been other examples in my personal reading history of books that lived up to their reputations: "Life of Pi," "The Kite Runner" and "World War Z," to name a haphazard few. Certainly there are exceptions--I remain underwhelmed by Elizabeth Kostova's "The Historian" and have somehow not been able to get through "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay," despite multiple attempts--but for the most part I tend to enjoy books that have for whatever reason gained widespread popularity. And I don't care what you say, "The Da Vinci Code" was entertaining.

Keeping this in mind, I've decided to give it to the hype when it come to Stieg Larsson, so yes, this week I am finally reading "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo." It helps that I'm spending the better part of the week in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, where the highlight of my stay will be a 20-minute drive to the nearby Sonic. Any book that promises to keep me engrossed, no matter what I may sacrifice in literary sophistication, is worth bringing home for Thanksgiving.

But regardless of circumstance, I also love a good crime story, and have every intention of someday being one of those old women who read only tattered library copies of mass-market paperbacks (as by the time I am retired, printed books will no doubt be used as kindling). In truth, it's pure snobbery that keeps me from reading more crime novels right now. Snobbery and the fact that I try to avoid recurring-character stuff, as the neurotic in me then feels compelled to read the full series (just thinking about the Alex Cross books stresses me out). To this end, "Dragon Tattoo" is a safe bet: After submitting the manuscripts for the three books in the series, Larsson proceeded to die of a heart attack before he could see how famous the books would become.

Which brings me to my conclusion: Friends, should I ever do something that makes me famous but happen to die before I can reap the benefits of said fame, please take the proceeds of my success and set up some sort of foundation to encourage reading among children. Either that or build Kirapolis, a roller-coaster-centric amusement park named in my honor. I'll let you decide.

A Problem Only Turkey Can Solve

Generally, I love books of essays. Really, it's one of my favorite genres. But there are times, such as incredibly busy pre-holiday weeks when television is calling to me from the next room in all its prime time fall-programming glory, when it's tough to get through them. Books of essays, that is. Consequently, I don't think I gave "Half Empty" a fair shake this week.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it. David Rakoff has an incredibly sharp wit, the kind of negative attitude I appreciate and a more or less unparalleled vocabulary (the closest I've seen is David Foster Wallace, who had a thing for multisyllabic words. And I mean multisyllabic). Many of Rakoff's essays cover topics true to my heart—New York, work, aspirations, cynicism. He skewers the plot of "Rent," tells how he insulted the now-deceased author of "The First Wives Club" whilst she was in a coma, and gives a poignant-without-being-cheesy account of his second (yes, second) encounter with cancer. He draws a distinction between being negative for negativity's sake and simply being pessimistic to the point of preparedness (he defends both). There's even an essay about porn. 

So I don't know why it was so hard for me to get into this book. It wasn't quite long enough, or quick enough; it wasn't post-beer train reading, due to the aforementioned vocabulary and his propensity for run-on sentences (something I can relate to). The essays also at times felt too unrelated, like a series of magazine columns plopped together in a book. Except for a bevy of Jewish humor, not much was consistent throughout.

I'm Only Human

So I kind of had a relapse this weekend. Encouraged by the wonderful weather—60 degrees, in November!—I dragged my generally unmotivated self to the gym, which meant going to Union Square, which meant being near...Barnes & Noble.

I only spent $50 ($51 if we're being picky, though with $7.89 in member savings!), so it could have been worse, and I walked away with a good mix of new books: Marilynne Robinson's "Gilead," which has never interested me on its own but the resounding praise makes me willing to take the risk; David Rakoff's "Half Empty," which I've written about on this blog; and "Between the Bridge and the River," a debut novel from Craig Ferguson. Yes, that Craig Ferguson, of kilt-wearing, late-night-television-show-hosting fame. All in all, a good trip, as I made off with an award-winner, something on my Wishlist and a book I didn't know existed but has all the markings of a good find. As you can see, I'm more than adept at justifying my completely unnecessary literary purchases. After all, I've had years of practice.

Since I bought it in hardcover (even more difficult to rationalize), and because "Devil in the White City" was such a dense book, I'm taking the easy road this week and plowing through the whopping 220 pages of "Half Empty."  In a bit of karmic retribution though, I saw "127 Hours" last night, which (outside of arm-chopping) is very much about learning to appreciate life and take nothing for granted. Needless to say, reading a book that essentially praises the tenets of negative thinking is proving a little tricky in my post-James-Franco glow (though Rakoff's argument has nuances). It's TBD whether I'll spend this weekend ogling at nature or crying into a pint of ice cream.

I'll keep you posted.

Carnival of Carnage

This may very well the best nonfiction book I’ve ever read.

See, when I mentioned to friends that I was reading "The Devil in the White City," I heard some resounding praise, but at least two people admitted they’d liked the book but never finished it. As someone who loathes not finishing books—even before this endeavor, I’d convinced myself that none of my half-read novels were abandoned so much as on hold—the possibility that I was about to embark upon a journey of which I’d grow bored halfway through was distressing. I pictured myself falling asleep to in-depth descriptions of 1890s Chicago, and waking up at 3 a.m. with drool on my glasses.

Thankfully that wasn’t the case.

The details of "Devil" simultaneously are and aren’t important. As a potential reader, you should know it follows two people during the time around Chicago’s 1893 hosting of the World's Fair: the architect mastermind behind almost the entire event, and a serial killer who masqueraded as a businessman while preying on women in the same city. If you have some sort of niche affinity for Chicago history, this is definitely the book for you, but I would be remiss to pretend any interest in Chicago, architecture or history itself is a prerequisite for enjoying "The Devil in the White City." Rather, the details are important only insomuch as there are tons of them. Every scene of every chapter is researched with such stunning thoroughness that "Devil" reads like a novel, and I found myself more than once stopping to consider the amount of research that must have gone into this book. (It doesn’t take much imagination: "Devil" has 390 endnotes, and its bibliography lists more than 130 sources).

Pedophiles, O.J. Simpson and Aliens--Oh My!

My grandmother's self-published book.

I've been so busy with my, you know, actual job this week that I almost missed something that oh so rarely happens: book scandal!

Indeed, there was a big old hoopla this week over Amazon.com's delay in removing "The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure: a Child-lover's Code of Conduct," from its site, which was contentious for all the obvious reasons. The e-book, written and published by Phillip R. Greaves II (Amazon allows users to submit e-books and shares revenues with them) offers advice to pedophiles on how to make a sexual encounter with a child as safe as possible. It includes first-person descriptions of such encounters, apparently written from a child's point of view. ...Pleasant.

After a shitload of comments, including many calling for a boycott of Amazon (as if), the company pulled the guide, as well as, it seems, another book by the same author, "Our Gardens of Flesh: From the Seeds of Lust Springs the Harvest of Love" which Gawker outlined in detail yesterday. (Their story doesn't say this book was pulled, but I can't find it on Amazon's site.)

I could go into the First Amendment implications of Amazon's decision, or initial lack thereof (the company at first said it didn't want to censor submissions) but I don't really want to open that can of worms. (Or at least not anymore. At first I thought about looking into other dubious titles Amazon hasn't yet pulled—like O.J. Simpson's conveniently fictional "If I Did It"—but a few searches for things like "how to make a bomb" and "how to murder someone" had me wondering if I'd end up on some government watch list.) Rather, I see this as an e-book issue.

My Book Is Not Racist

Yo, did I tell you guys I'm reading a book this week? Well I is! It's called "The Devil in the White City," which makes me about 13% more uncomfortable than usual when reading it on the train.

I have two confessions to make related to this choice. The first is that I've actually had it for at least a year, but only decided to read it this week because I saw that Leonardo DiCaprio is playing one of the main characters in a movie adaptation. That's right ladies and gentlemen, all this masquerading as an intellectual is actually an excuse for me to feel closer to celebrities.

The second confession is that even though I've actually had it for a year, until I took "The Devil in the White City" off of my shelf on Sunday, I thought it was a novel. Turns out, it's historical nonfiction. Who knew! The book follows the lives of two men in 1890's Chicago, one the lead architect for the World's Fair taking place that year, and the other a serial killer preying on women in the same city. That makes me feel a little bit better about having thought it was fiction.

Also it's got one one of those silver sticker things. I repeat: I'm an intellectual.

PS: I'm experimenting with putting book names in quotes instead of italics, 12% because it's what all the cool kids are doing and 88% because it's easier. (Have you guys noticed how many more unnecessary statistics I'm using since I finished "Proofiness"?) I have to say I feel stylistically liberated, like the first time I abbreviated "obvious" as "obvi" without being totally ironic.

What You Are About to Read Is Not Sexy

Cannot tell a joke.

For such a great title, Proofiness gets off to a rough start.

Maybe I’ve been spoiled by nonfiction writers known for their pizazz as much as their knowledge—my most recent nonfiction read was by the utterly hilarious Mary Roach—but it’s worth noting that Charles Seife is a decidedly dull writer. I mean, he tries—on one page, he jokes that "Ramsey County's voter turnout lists seemed to have been lovingly maintained by a pack of wild raccoons"—but it comes across sort of like a high school science teacher trying to pal around with a classroom of uninterested students (not entirely surprising, considering Seife is a professor). Assuming the people reading this book are doing so of their own free will, the jokey pandering is odd. Then again, maybe he's just a big nerd with a dubious sense of humor.

Unfortunately, Proofiness kind of missed the mark for me, at least in the beginning, and a low-ish opinion of his audience's intelligence was a general problem I had with Seife, and the book overall. The first few chapters are devoted almost entirely to an overview of what I would consider basic math. On one page, Seife suggests "Most people think that 'average' means typical—that if, say, the average salary at a company is $100,000, then each employee earns $100,000, more or less."

...Really? I mean sure, if you polled the general population, that's probably the case. Shit, a significant percentage of the general population doesn't know who the vice president is. But we're not talking about the general population—we're talking about the decidedly smaller universe of people choosing to read a nonfiction book about statistics. Give us the benefit of the doubt.

Seife does touch on some hugely relevant topics: poll results, elections, the validity of the Census, faulty science, the court system. In fact, despite my bias after reading three chapters of Stats 101, I was still intrigued and even shocked by some of his better points—did y'all know that part of the reason OJ Simpson was acquitted was the use, in court no less, of a highly inaccurate statistic? (No really, am I the only one who didn't know this?)

I Prefer My Pudding With Proof

Seeing as it's Election Day, I fully expect to be bombarded for the next day—as I have been for the past three months—with the results of  a zillion different polls, projecting the outcome of the election to within plus or minus a hundred percentage points.

Considering this, I thought it only fitting to spend this week reading a book about how unreliable the vast majority of our statistics are. As humans, we're exceedingly willing to believe something like "By 2022, there will be no more natural blondes on the planet," simply because there's a number involved, and numbers make things seem reliable. Watch: 84% of people who read my blog gain at least 12 IQ points within one hour. It's the truth! Didn't you see the numbers?

Proofiness: The Dark Arts of Mathematical Deception, by Charles Seife, only came out this year, so it's chock full of not only historical examples of misleading stats, but a wealth of current ones. In the introduction, I was even promised the real truth about the 2000 presidential election, which would supposedly be displeasing to Bush, Gore, and the American people (I mean, what's that about? Did Pat Buchanan actually win? Ralph Nader?)

It should be noted that I maintain, for work, a Twitter account devoted almost exclusively to disseminating these types of shaky statistics. Which makes this book all the more interesting. Unfortunately, there's little chance I'll change my ways, no matter how bad Seife makes me feel for playing on the gullibility of the masses. After all, 100% of my tweets are either true or false. And that, my friends, is the truth.

Up In Smoke

Nick and David Sheff.

Well I made it through the weekend without crying on the floor of any bathroom, and finished my addiction memoir to boot. It may or may not have been karma that I read the last 50 pages while nursing a severe hangover on my couch, but a mission accomplished is a mission accomplished.

There's something I want to say before going into the book itself, which was as heartbreaking and poignant as I expected it to be. Because in order to really, I think, appreciate Beautiful Boy, you have to step back and put the family's story in context. Not the context of addiction itself, though that too is important, but the context of being young, of being at an age where drugs aren't hard to come by and more importantly, aren't unusual to do.

See, in my opinion at least, there is a pervasive sentiment among teenagers and 20-somethings that the majority of drugs are basically okay. This isn't, as adults like to believe, simply a product of drug use at some point in youth becoming "cool," nor is preventing drug use simply a matter of eliminating or tampering peer pressure. Many teenagers do drugs for the same reasons addicts do—because they want to get high. Marijuana, cocaine, ecstasy, mushrooms, acid—I could tell many of my friends that I had done any of the above in the last month without raising eyebrows. And I'm not saying there aren't exceptions. Heroin, crack and meth (the latter is the focal point of Beautiful Boy) are the triumvirate of what I'd consider untouchables, but that's three out of many. It stands to reason that cultural acceptance (however age-based) of the many is likely to make the few seem decidedly less unsafe.

It's problematic, to say the least. I don't know why, or when, drugs cease to become a real threat (which isn't to say that people don't develop addiction later in life). It may be a physical change; it may be a mental one; maybe it simply becomes unfathomable to call up a drug dealer past the age of 35. But what's important is that between, say, ages 15 and 25, the ten years during which drugs seem most prevalent, they are also the least frowned-upon.