Inner Chapters Book Club

Book Club Meeting--Sunday April 11th 3:00 pm!

2010-03-25T11:42:00.000-07:00

Our book group is officially (and quite literally) re-grouping! We've chosen The Gutenberg Galaxy by Marshall McLuhan for discussion. It should be rather interesting, considering that it was written in the 1960's--long before Western civilization's concept of "media" exploded with the emergence of the internet.

So far, I'm really enjoying the way McLuhan is placing King Lear in historical context with the printing press; the themes of blindness and three-dimensionality are particularly relevant. Admittedly, it's been over a decade since my last encounter with this play, but I'm still enough of a geek to enjoy revisiting it.

Good Omens

2009-10-08T10:48:00.000-07:00

Yes, I'm finally getting around to reading the Pratchett/Gaiman collaborative masterpiece.......not finished yet, but I can't get this one little tidbit of hilarious (one of thousands) out of my head! It's towards the beginning, when we meet Crowley:

"Admittedly he was listening to a Best of Queen tape, but no conclusions should be drawn from this because all tapes left in a car for more than about a fortnight metamorphose into Best of Queen albums."

So many tapes left in cars should be so lucky!

Snow Crash

2009-08-11T12:00:00.000-07:00

Since we're putting Snow Crash to bed (for now), I better make a few comments just for (temporary) closure.

One of the things I really enjoy about this book, even upon repeated readings, are Stephenson's clever language and name games. Obviously, Hiro Protagonist is a totally brilliant and obnoxiously sarcastic character name--from the very beginning you know this is going to be good. Then there's Vitaly Chernobyl....

I'm sure hardly anyone finds this as amusing as I do, but I must comment on "dentata"; the device Y.T. wears down there to prevent sexual assault (or at least punish it severely). When I took a mythology class in college, we were reading an anthology of myths about females, and one has always stuck out for me (it's of African origin if memory serves): the vagina dentata. This is the belief that the female body part in question possesses teeth which will bite off any corresponding male body part should a sex act occur. Since women obviously don't come equipped with these naturally, it sure would be a useful invention!

I'll leave it on that note for now, but stay tuned for more Snow Crash commentary from time to time!

I Hate Reading Books

2009-07-23T20:15:00.001-07:00

I can barely keep my eyes on the page any more. Sometimes, instead of doing the reading, I imagine my own plot. Unfortunately, I only have one plot, which consists of the main character (me) drinking beer, and then having sex. Fun on its face, it soon gets old.

I used to love reading. Nothing else to do. This was before video games. But I don't play many video games any more, either. So I don't know what it is.

The last five books I've read, and finished, in reverse random order, are:

(1) Radicals for Capitalism by Brian Doherty.
(2) Capitalism and Freedom by Milton Friedman.
(3) Das Boot by Lothar-Günther Buchheim.
(4) The Economic Laws of Scientific Research by Terence Kealey.
(5) Fool by Christopher Moore.

Okay, actually I enjoyed reading the libertarian stuff, (1), (2), and I guess (4). I now have lots of new stuff to think about, but even while reading those I found myself reading the same sentences over and over and wondering if the Nuggets were going to re-sign Birdman Anderson (they did, woohoo).

Das Boot was good enough (see here) I guess, but I had to re-find that part of myself that thinks prose can be pretty in order to deal with like 100 pages of the mother of all storms. The prose was pretty.

Fool was okay, but not as good as Moore's* other stuff. Retelling King Lear was neat, from the point of view of someone who is unlikely to ever read King Lear, mainly because I think everything is downhill after Hamlet and Tempest. I mean, maybe after a while turn in your quill and retire?

*I have a frightening and amusing anecdote about Christopher Moore. Those allergic to amusing anecdotes should scroll down a couple of paragraphs. In 2007, Moore was at Books, Inc., in Mountain View, California,** just a skip away from me, part of a tour I guess for the release of his You Suck, which was swell, but as a sequel not nearly as good as Bloodsucking Fiends.*** We were required by the management to purchase hard-cover books for Moore to sign. He signed our paperbacks, anyway. Then I lent my signed Bloodsucking Fiends to my friend David, who lost it somewhere in the vicinity of Poland. He then wrote to Moore (okay, this is all a little stupid, since they both live in San Francisco, probably in the same stupid block) and asked for a resigned copy with a suitably David-denigrating enscription. What a nice guy is Christopher Moore. In the end, we all went out for ice cream.

**Yes, a footnote footnote. (Screw you, Terry Pratchett.) As an ethnic Montanan, I find it offensive that someone once thought that was a mountain.

***Ahem. It's possible that Bloodsucking Fiends was boring, too, but I read it back when I didn't hate reading books.

Anyway, so now I hate reading books. I'd rather read the snide comments people make in the comment threads of blogs, usually about socialized medicine and how Obama doesn't remind anyone, at all, of Bush (I can't tell the difference: all statists look the same to me nowadays). I'd even rather watch TV than read books, and I hate TV, too.

Maybe I should get someone to massage my feet when I read books? On second thought, that could be extremely distracting.

Snow Crash....crashed.

2009-07-22T15:22:00.000-07:00

For some odd reason, nobody was able to get into this book--including myself. I had read it previously and yet, found it underwhelming in re-runs. I opted for an audio book version hoping to get through it quickly. Despite my plans, I never completed it and it is still sitting on my iPhone with about 6 hours left to go.

Maybe it's not a Summer read. Maybe it's not as compelling as it once was when the meta verse was still science fiction. Maybe it's time to read something less-fictiony. Who knows, but for now, Snow Crash may need to wait for the snow season before making a return visit.

Das Boot

2009-07-21T13:03:00.000-07:00

The cover of my copy says, like Comedy Central regarding Napoleon Dynamite, it's pretty much the best book about war ever written. Admittedly, I's paraphrasing, but the publisher was wee understated when saying it was one of the best books about war ever written. Since I have now read three books about war (The Things They Carried, All Quiet on the Western Front, and I guess you can count the Dragonlance series, but I wouldn't), but only one this century, I can with extreme prejudice say what the publisher of Das Boot couldn't, presumably because they're British: Das Boot, by that lovable rascal Lothar-Günther Buchheim, kicks ass.

I also now get those jokes from Beerfest. "I don't like submarines. Had a bad experience in one once," said Jürgen Prochnow, playing the BBEG from Beerfest. Okay, I didn't need to read Das Boot to get this, just see the movie, since Prochnow also played the Commander (Herr Kaleuen, The Old Man, Herr Kapitänleutnant, but only tools call him that). But he was Leo Atreides in the good Dune!

If Das Boot has a flaw, it is not enough Fremen. Actually, though, it does have a non-Dune-based flaw. The first chapter isn't interesting. It's just all the submariners in a bar drinking, peeing on stuff, and throwing people out of the window. I will admit that sounds like an awesome chapter, rather than a flawed chapter, but it's 98 % drinking and only 1 % peeing, which has to make room both for peeing on oneself and on other people.

On the other hand, there are two chapters entitled "Frigging Around," but they are almost the opposite of boring, even though the sailors are bored. They have crazy unexcited officers, mixing together, mmm, lemons and condensed milk (prevents scurvy). And apparently, German U-boat Lords have filthy minds. In fact, the dirty jokes are the best part of the book, even better than pages and pages of sneaking around dodging depth charges and putting up with the mother of all storms. It makes you feel un-funly wet, but that just shows how good is the prose.

The depth charge dodging is once rewarded with each crew member getting half a bottle of beer (you see, there's one bottle aboard for each, for the first kill). The prose made me really want a German beer, exactly, in fact, as if I'd been raised in München and had been on a U-boat for five weeks. (Luckily there was a Bev Mo down the road suitable for such emergencies.) I still suffer the aftereffects, as I would right now, about a week later, like another beer. The prose is that good.

Same goes for the food. The crew had a "feast," once, of pork knuckles and cabbage. I have never wanted a pork knuckle so much in my life. In a pork knuckle, this is why this book is awesome.

And then at the end of the book, everyone has ice cream and marries his favorite French prostitute. Sorry for giving away the ending, but I hope readers read Das Boot anyway.

Moving On

2009-07-21T12:44:00.000-07:00

Well, let's just say that life happens and we all got a wee bit sidetracked! Snow Crash will be set aside for the time being (but please feel free to continue commenting on it) while we go off on a non-fiction tangent.

Here's our new list of titles:

The Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond (Anthropology)

Gods Graves and Scholars by C.W. Ceram (Archaeology)

The Gutenberg Galaxy by Marshall McLuhan (Print and Media)

Prodigal Genius: The Life of Nikola Tesla by John J. O'Neill

The Republic of Pirates by Colin Woodard

Other subject areas we're interested in pursuing: Philosophy, Ancient History (Romans specifically), Northwest History, the Oil Industry......

Cyberpunk Mania!

2009-04-22T15:37:00.001-07:00

Snow Crash it is! This is my second time, and I'm already loving it--again....let's shoot for the 24th or 31st of May for a discussion date. Bring booze ;)

A fruitful, dynamic discussion!

2009-03-18T11:59:00.000-07:00

Little Brother was a good fit for everyone who showed up to the discussion last Sunday! We all had something unique to say about it, which expanded our appreciation of it as a piece of modern literature; that is the ultimate goal of a book club, am I right? Here are some highlights:

We all agreed that the antagonist, DHS (Department of Homeland Security), was a bit one-dimensional, making the good vs. evil aspect of the plot excessively black and white; it needed more of a grey area, with "bad" folks on the good side and "good" folks on the bad. However, this plot structure really drove the story and kept us reading. The composition is very strong, with great timing, memorable scenes and likable characters, though we felt some characters could have been further developed, such as Van and Jolu. We are reminded of Orwell's "Big Brother" in 1984, to which "Little Brother" is an appropriate counterpoint.

The target audience--young adults--is quite apparent to some readers, especially in comparison to Doctorow's other books (those of us who have read his other work wouldn't call this one his best, but that may have something to do with some readers being outside the age group Little Brother is supposedly geared toward).

Marcus (aka M1k3y, W1n5ton), our protagonist, is the only character suitable for the role of narrator. We discussed how different our experience would have been had the story been told through any other character's eyes, and we agreed that Marcus was wisely chosen. His quirkiness could be seen in a number of ways, depending on where the readers see themselves in relation to the target audience (if they choose to approach it this way). It was said that Marcus actually created a fair amount of trouble for himself throughout the story, but it makes him a very believable, well-developed character that most of us can identify with in some way.

Our more "geeky" club members appreciated the accuracy and knowledgeability that Doctorow displays with his use of technology as a character (and second narrator, in my opinion). There were definitely some shots taken at the Microsoft Corporation--all in good fun, of course--which we found amusing.

The generation-gap concept plays a major role both in the book and in the discussion of it. The behavior of the adult characters in comparison to the teen characters reflects what we've seen in American culture for decades; young people are ready to fight for what they believe in, while adults tend to follow what authority figures dictate. Why? Fear. Fear is another secondary character in Little Brother. DHS acts out of fear, instilling fear in those they wish to control, which seems to work more effectively on adults, who have already passed through the invincible rebellious phase (and its consequences) that is so stereotypical of teenagers.

So who blew up the bridge? By the end of the story, does it really matter? What if DHS was the terrorist all along?

To make a longer story shorter (I hope that wasn't too painful), Little Brother is a timely tidbit of fiction that reminds us of the recent past and perhaps forecasts the near future.

So what's our next book? On Sunday, the following titles were suggested (we need a few more before we vote!):

Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card)
Snow Crash (Neal Stephenson)
Anathem (Neal Stephenson's most recent)
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Mark Haddon)
Hyperion (Dan Simmons)

We seem to be on a bit of a Sci-Fi/Fantasy binge--I'm all for it!

Thanks to everyone for waking up my brain on an otherwise lazy Sunday!

Meeting date changed--March 15th

2009-03-10T12:36:00.000-07:00

Due to some scheduling conflicts, we're now meeting March 15th (Sunday). Hope to see you there! Following the discussion, I'll post some highlights.....

And the winner is........

2009-02-26T12:44:00.000-08:00

We've unanimously decided to read "Little Brother!" If anyone still needs a copy, let me know so I can order more! Let's set our discussion date for Sunday, March 29th--that should give everyone plenty of time to read and contemplate. Don't forget to post comments in the meantime (but no spoilers, please)!

2009-01-14T10:17:00.000-08:00

Well, our first meeting was a success! We now have a list of titles to ponder......

1) Little Brother by Cory Doctorow (this is the front runner)

2) Collapse by Jared Diamond

3) Grayson by Lynne Cox

4) Suit Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky and Sandra Smith

5) A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute

6) Geek Love by Katherine Dunn

7) Our Kind by Marvin Harris

8) Devil in the White City by Erik Larsen

9) The Path Between the Seas by David McCullough (and various others by this author)

10) The Sookie Stackhouse series (on which HBO's True Blood is based) by Charlaine Harris

I think 10 is a good start. Vote, veto, and keep suggestions coming for a week or two! Then we'll make a final decision and start reading......

2009-01-07T13:46:00.000-08:00

FIRST BOOK CLUB MEETING--SUNDAY, JANUARY 11TH 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM

This Sunday will be our first official (yet informal) meeting! We'll be socializing and getting to know each other over a few sips of beer and wine (or coffee if you prefer), followed by a little kicking-around of titles. Your homework assignment is to make a short list of books you've been meaning to read for a while but haven't yet made a commitment. Post your title suggestions! Once all the votes are in, the title selection will be announced and we can get going.....

Revenge of the Book Nerds

2008-10-08T14:54:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the Inner Chapters Book Club Blog! We're currently forming a reading group that will meet in the "traditional" way (at our physical location), but with a twist: members can post comments about our selection both before the meeting and after. Having a blog can also make it easier to join the discussion even if you can't make the meetings.

So what are we going to read first? We're taking suggestions from all genres, and when we have a sizable list, we'll vote on it!