Thoughts on the Day After

Yesterday was a whirlwind of activity and emotion. Nearly from the time I woke up to when I went to bed, the Amazon/Pedophilia case consumed me. I was hooked up to the phone, email, Twitter, and Facebook without pause (except for a quick trip for groceries), talking and writing to anyone and everyone who would listen (and to many who wouldn't).

The number of people around the world who were horrified and ready to act grew exponentially by the hour, everyone waging their own grassroots-level activism against Amazon's unethical behavior. Individually, our voices were being dismissed by Amazon one by one, but as the number of us grew, we became a nuisance to Amazon's customer reps (whose hands were quite tied). Two Facebook pages of people ready to boycott Amazon, and Twitter full of enraged customers, and people bombarding newsmakers with requests for coverage finally began to turn the tide. Our voices combined finally began to reach the ears of those with real clout — big-named journalists with respected news outlets.

After CNN's Anderson Cooper reported on the matter last night (see two clips at http://www.cnn.com/video/), interviewing Dr. Phil, under the title of "Peddling Pedophilia", Amazon suddenly and silently removed the book from both its US and UK Kindle stores. It took a while before most of us could believe it, and many reloadings of the page, but sure enough, the book was gone. I received an email from Amazon at 3:25am ET/2:25 CT, stating simply "Hello. This book is no longer available for sale." Clearly, Amazon still has a long way to go in the PR department. Even a two-liner stating: "Thank you for your concerns over [Book Title]. We have reviewed the matter and the book has been removed from our site," would have been smoother.

Considering the hours and hours we spent trying to effect that result — the shock, horror, disgust, anger, and even grief most of us felt throughout the process — would, in my opinion, have merited a better statement from Amazon. It would have been nice, even if they were not sincere, to issue an apology to their customers for having to wage the battle in the first place, for leaving us feeling betrayed, and for the outrage they made us feel over their first, callous responses. Where was the PR? Why did a company with Amazon's revenue not hire a special Damage Control PR Team?

The book is gone. That is the result we wanted and achieved. And while most of us will probably slowly trickle back to Amazon over time, their handling of the entire process, ending with a surreptitious concession without gracious apology... leaves a bad taste in the mouths of many, myself included.

For over a decade, Amazon has been my go-to online store. All of my experiences have been positive ones — until yesterday. And yesterday, they irreparably damaged my image of the company and, more importantly, my feelings toward them as a customer. Many of our buying decisions, where the product and price are near equivalent from one store to the next, are based on emotion: "I'll get it through Amazon because I've always had a good experience with them and I like them." They've damaged my trust, and damaged the relationship.

I will not be moving my baby registry back to Amazon, even though most items are a few dollars cheaper there. I don't know when I'll be buying books or other items from them again. Someday, certainly, but not in the near future. Their behavior throughout the whole issue was... sleazy... underhanded. It will be a long time before I can forgive, and even longer for me to forget.

I want to thank everyone who called or emailed Amazon, everyone who tweeted and retweeted, everyone who got up in arms, everyone who did their own, particular, important part. Individually, our voices might have been too weak to reach the necessary ears, but together, we little mice made a mighty roar!

Thank you.

Anniina
 

Image tinkered by "Yours, Truly" from a royalty free Image Zoo Illustration

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Open Letter to Amazon.com Re: "The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure"

I was appalled to find out you sell a book promoting pedophilia in your Kindle store. The book in question is The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure by Phillip R Greaves II. I immediately called customer service (1-800-201-7575) to complain, and the first customer service representative was appalled right along with me. I was sent an email saying Amazon is looking into the matter and I will be notified of developments.

Some hours later, I called again. This customer service representative said "Amazon has a policy of non-censorship." I answered her that, while the First Amendment protects the author's right to say, write, and even publish his thoughts, the First Amendment makes no requirement for booksellers to sell any given book.

Booksellers have free reign in what they choose or do not choose to sell. There are many books on, for example, Medieval Literature which Amazon does not carry, not because they are offensive or poor in quality, but simply because they are not found appealing or marketable. Nobody is raising a question of censorship in that case. A bookseller can choose not to stock his shelves with books on birds, if he finds birds repulsive. Or he can choose not to order a book on Linguistics, if he thinks it is not interesting or will not sell. Similarly, a bookseller has the right to not order books he personally finds offensive. There is no law, no amendment to the Constitution that requires a bookseller to sell every book ever published.

By Amazon.com not pulling the book in question off their shelves means implicit endorsement of the subject matter. It means this bookseller, Amazon.com, finds some merit in the book; does not find it morally repugnant.

Thus, it begs the question: would Amazon.com similarly choose to offer for sale books with titles such as "How to Torture Animals: Step-by-Step Instructional Manual", "Serial Killer 101", "The Rapist's Guide: How to Excel", or "School Shootings: How to Kill as Many People as Possible in the Least Amount of Time"? If someone wanted to self-publish such titles through Amazon Kindle, would Amazon just shrug and say "We don't want to be accused of censorship", as they have so far done in the case of "The Pedophile's Guide", or would Amazon actually show some ethical backbone?

I have been an Amazon.com customer since the first day Amazon opened its website over a decade ago. I buy everything from books to Kindle books, from shower heads to decalcifiers for my coffee maker, from birthday presents to Christmas presents. I've been part of Amazon Prime from almost its inception and our family spends hundreds, some years thousands, of dollars through Amazon.com. Currently, even my entire baby registry is through Amazon. Please feel free to check my purchase history for the last decade.

I am distressed and grieved that Amazon would hesitate for a minute to pull this title. Where does it say it is acceptable in the name of profit to throw ethics and basic human decency out the window?

Sincerely,
Anniina Jokinen (anniina@luminarium.org)



*** UPDATED TO ADD (5:30pm ET/4:30pm CT) ***

Immediately after posting, I sent this over to Amazon as an email. When I got back from getting groceries, I had a reply awaiting. Here it is in its entirety:

On 11/10/2010 3:25 PM, Amazon.com Customer Service wrote:

"Hello,

As a retailer, our goal is to provide customers with the broadest selection possible so they can find, discover, and buy any item they might be seeking. That selection includes some items which many people may find objectionable. Therefore, the items offered on our website represent a wide spectrum of opinions on a variety of topics.

Let me assure you that Amazon.com does not support or promote hatred or criminal acts; we do support the right of every individual to make their own purchasing decisions.

Amazon.com believes it is censorship not to sell certain titles because we believe their message is objectionable. Therefore, we'll continue to make controversial works available in the United States and everywhere else, except where they're prohibited by law. We also allow readers, authors, and publishers to express their views freely about these titles and other products we offer on our website. However, Amazon.com doesn't endorse opinions expressed by individual authors, musical artists, or filmmakers.

We value all feedback from our customers, and I thank you again for taking the time to send us your comments about this issue. Although we won't be able to comment further on this topic, we hope you'll allow us to continue to serve you.

Best regards,

Prince A.
Amazon.com"

!!!

I, of course, wrote right back:

On 11/10/2010 4:17 PM, Anniina Jokinen wrote:

"Hello,

Your reply is a form letter and it is woefully inadequate. It does not respond to the specific points I've brought up in my letter to Amazon (see http://alaydhien.blogspot.com/2010/11/open-letter-to-amazoncom-re-pedophiles.html). This is not a case of "gray area" or run-of-the-mill objectionable or offensive content. This is content that directly promotes crimes against children. This is a black or white issue and as such there are only two options here: 1) Amazon keeps selling it, which means Amazon thinks promoting child rape is acceptable; 2) Amazon pulls it, thereby clarifying its position and sending a message saying child rape is not right. How does your CEO, Jeff Bezos, feel about this matter? Are all the stockholders also quite alright with Amazon selling a book that is a guidebook on how to successfully rape children?

Anniina Jokinen

No response as yet.




*** UPDATED TO ADD (6:45pm ET/5:45pm CT) ***

Amazon terminated the customer service email thread. I called them again just now and spoke with two people. The first was a woman who had no idea such a book was being sold by Amazon and who was, understandably, horrified. She transferred me to the Kindle department. The gentleman told me he was not allowed to say anything more than what Amazon had released in their formal statement (which is nearly verbatim to the email they sent me). See MSNBC's article:

Amazon defends 'Pedophile's Guide'

He made it clear no further statement would be made by Amazon, but agreed to forward my further complaints.



*** UPDATED TO ADD (7:55pm ET/6:55pm CT) ***

I have removed my baby registry from Amazon.com. I can't have people purchasing gifts for my baby from a company who at the same time sells a book on how to molest that same baby. This whole thing makes me want to vomit.



*** UPDATED TO ADD (12:45am ET/11:45pm CT, Nov 11) ***

After Anderson Cooper did a segment on this on CNN tonight,

http://www.cnn.com/video/

Amazon has quietly made the page for the book unavailable through either direct link or through their internal search engine, on both the US and UK sites.

Thank you to everyone who tirelessly campaigned for this today.



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A Book Meme

... lovingly nicked from Bart's Daze of Our Lives.



1. Hardcover or paperback, and why?
The only time I prefer paperbacks is when I'm travelling. Every other time, hardcovers win. The feel of the pages, the crisp spines, the dust jacket that you guard from harm as jealously as a mother would a newborn babe, the scent of ink and paper, the heft of the tome in your hands as your curl up to read... Hardcover.

2. If I were to own a book shop I would call it…

Words Worth Eating. And it would have a small cafe, naturally, with big arm chairs where people could just plop down and stay. I'd love for it to look just like Wordsworth's house:



3. My favorite quote from a book is…
Okay, I protest — this is like asking one to choose a favorite child. But the first quote I ever copied from a book was when I was 12:

"I love him; and that, not because he's handsome, Nelly, but because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same."
— Emily Brontë, The Wuthering Heights

That quote still informs my life.


4. The author (alive or deceased) I would love to have lunch with would be …

My boy Bill of course! D'uh! I'd probably feel like a right dolt, but it would be an opportunity not to be passed up.



5. If I was going to a deserted island and could only bring one book, except the SAS survival guide, it would be…

My Riverside Shakespeare. Everything one could wish for in entertainment can be gleaned from the pages of that book. And I don't think I could survive without it.

6. I would love someone to invent a bookish gadget that…

dusted the books without damaging them. A little robot vacuum that was lighter than air that would just "zwoompf" the dust off throughout the bookcase.

7. The smell of an old book reminds me of…

afternoons spent with my dad in antiquarian bookstores, rummaging through shelves and boxes for books he was collecting, the sunlight shining through dingy windows, the dust motes floating lazily in the air.

8. If I could be the lead character in a book, it would be…

Frodo in The Lord of the Rings.



9. The most overestimated book of all time is…

James Joyce's Ulysses. Funny, I didn't have to think about this answer for even a second. Brand me a heathen, but I think that book is unintelligible drivel, pseudo-genius stroking, afforded far too much adulation by the Pretenderati.

10. I hate it when a book…

ENDS. After a good book ends, I go through a mourning period, grieving the fact that the book is over. And though I know I can always read it again, I'm grieving that I can never read it again,
for the first time.


If anyone would like to do the meme, please do so! I love little better than finding out what others love about books.

Hyperliterature Book Reading Club

We're starting Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake at Mark's blog Hyperliterature, if anyone wants to join in. It's really relaxed. At the moment there's a handful of us, we read about halfway in the book, discuss our initial reactions and surmises, then do more in-depth discussions once we get deeper into the book. Or, you can just wait till the next book and just 'lurk' for now and see what it's about, but don't feel too shy to join in. There's people with English degrees and people without, native speakers and a few of us 'foreigners' — we read Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go last month, and SzélsőFa read it in Hungarian translation which even worked, so don't be shy — you'll miss out on a nice experience otherwise.

xo,
A

"Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict" by Laurie Viera Rigler: A Review

As a fan of Jane Austen who has, on occasion, been disappointed by Austen adaptations or re-imaginings, I approached this book with reservations. No-one can be more pleased than I am to say my skepticism proved undeserved. Here is a book that any lover of the books of Jane Austen is sure to relish and appreciate!

What would happen if a recently and multiply heart-broken modern-day woman, who has fallen asleep drinking vodka and reading Pride and Prejudice while mourning her broken engagement, were to wake up in Jane Austen's England? This is how the book begins. Courtney wakes up to find everyone calling her Jane Mansfield, doctors wishing to bleed ill humors out of her, and a marriage-obsessed mother threatening to put her into an asylum if she keeps insisting she is not, indeed, Jane. Courtney decides to play along convinced she'll soon wake up back in modern day Los Angeles, until she realizes perhaps it isn't a dream after all.

The reader gets to experience the early nineteenth-century English countryside, Bath, and London through eyes at once modern and Austenian. Throw in a bit of pride, a bit of prejudice, and a host of characters, plots, and subplots, and it all melds into a wonderful kaleidoscope of Austen.

The story is so deftly plotted, simultaneously familiar and new, the characters so likeable (and dislikeable), the prose so fluid and fresh, that the book goes by in a flash. Austen's words and world are ever-present, without weighing the story down. Laurie Viera Rigler has accomplished a marvel—a delicately-mastered fusion of the beloved and known with the sure-to-be-loved, not-yet-known.

I meant to read a few chapters before bed and ended up foregoing sleep, staying up all night, to read the book in one sitting. Whether you are a die-hard "Austen addict" or just discovering Austen's world, this book is sure to delight.
 

Harry Potter Final Book - I Love Amazon

Amazon brought me the book as promised today so guess what I'll be doing until it's finished. Nothing else! Wheee!

The last few days I've been working feverishly on getting the main updates done at Luminarium which has been tedious and repetitive, but since it can't be avoided, might as well get it done right? :)

I have so many books I need to do write-ups on but I'll get to them after HP. Saw the movie last night and loved it. Dumbledore's Army, peeps!

OK, I'm off to read. Stay good!

Hugs, A

2007 Best Fantasy : "The Name of the Wind"

Once in a rare while a book comes along that is so good one almost dare not review it, knowing it cannot be done justice by a mere few lines of praise. Patrick Rothfuss' debut, The Name of the Wind is just such a book: a delight for a jaded fantasy reader, who thinks perhaps the best have all come and gone, but to his/her surprise finds a new star in the fantasy constellation.

Without giving away the plot, this book is the first "chapter" in the story of Kvothe, a legendary hero presumed dead by many. From his childhood with his parents' travelling theatre troupe to his time learning magic at the University (a place with ten thousand times ten thousand books), with street children, thieves, whores, storytellers and musicians, and the threat of the Chandrian, a mythical (or are they?) people set on destruction, the book has everything any fantasy lover could desire. The system of magic is inventive and appealing, the plot moves believably, and the characters are complex and engaging. The voice of the narrator, Kvothe, is entrancing throughout and the reader's empathy and identification take place quickly.

This is one of those books one would read cover to cover in one sitting, if one could stay awake long enough. This is a book one wants to curl up with, maybe with a hearty bowl of stew... I actually read it a second time right after finishing it—something I haven't done with a single book in over 10 years—THAT's how good it was.

If you love Robin Hobb, Raymond E. Feist, or Terry Brooks, then chances are this book is just waiting for you to read it. Published in March 2007, the next book in the trilogy is not out for another year, so we can commiserate together once you've read it and begun anxiously awaiting the next chapter.

Here's what Fantasy Biggies had to say:

"Because the characters are real and the magic is true to its own world, I closed this book feeling as if I'd been on a journey with an entertaining new friend, rather than sitting alone looking at words on a page.

"This one is well worth some of your precious reading time. I'll wager that the books to follow it will also be."
—Robin Hobb

"THE NAME OF THE WIND marks the debut of a writer we would all do well to watch. Patrick Rothfuss has real talent, and his tale of Kvothe is deep and intricate and wondrous."
—Terry Brooks

"THE NAME OF THE WIND has everything fantasy readers like, magic and mysteries and ancient evil, but it's also humorous and terrifying and completely believable. As with all the very best books in our field, it's not the fantasy trappings (wonderful as they are) that make this novel so good, but what the author has to say about true, common things, about ambition and failure, art, love, and loss."
—Tad Williams

Technorati Tags: patrick rothfuss

Hyperliterature Reading Group

Mark at Hyperliterature is starting up a reading group. Check it out, see if you'd like to join in too :)
 

Slain by a Book

Has it ever happened to you?

You know how I was already feeling down (cf. last post)? I thought
I'd read my book, which has been really good, the name of which I can't tell you so I don't spoil it for you—I'm about 4/5ths of the way through when the narrator, the person I've been identifying with and rooting for, DIES. You heard it, DIES! And now there's 80-some pages to go and my imaginary friend is dead.
I know she wasn't real, but I'm all weepy now.

Is it bad to let a book get to you that much? Or a sign that the author really knows what she's doing? Either way, the most coherent thing I can utter right now is "Major Bummer, Dude!"
 

Famous First Lines - Quiz on Books & Literature

I finally made my first own quiz. It's on first lines of classic (and less-classic) works of literature. Some of the questions are easy, some of them might be quite hard.

It's geared towards the English-speaking reader, so don't feel bad if English is not your first language - you probably didn't have to read most of these books in school (which helps - some of them I probably wouldn't have read otherwise myself!). Oh, and my final comments may be gruff - I couldn't gauge.

Okay, so now that I've basically told you not to take it, please do. You don't have to tell anyone your results :)

Here is the American Book Review list of 100 Best First Lines — some of them seem a bit dubious to me. Let me in the comments about cool first lines that made an impression on you, that weren't included on that list. I'd love to hear them!


Famous First Lines Quiz

More Margaret Atwood

Whee! The new Luminarium Margaret Atwood Page has won 2 Awards already, and is a nominee for two more! Yay! Go Margaret Atwood! I'm so passionate about her books and the project was in the planning stages for ten years, so I'm extremely excited.

The Banned Books Meme

Bold the ones you've read. Italicize the ones you've read part of.

Here goes:

#1 The Bible
#2 Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
#3 Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
#4 The Koran
#5 Arabian Nights
#6 Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
#7 Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift
#8 Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
#9 Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
#10 Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
#11 Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli
#12 Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
#13 Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
#14 Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
#15 Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
#16 Les Misérables by Victor Hugo
#17 Dracula by Bram Stoker
#18 Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin
#19 Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
#20 Essays by Michel de Montaigne
#21 Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
#22 The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
#23 Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
#24 Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
#25 Ulysses by James Joyce
#26 Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
#27 Animal Farm by George Orwell
#28 Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
#29 Candide by Voltaire
#30 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
#31 Analects by Confucius
#32 Dubliners by James Joyce
#33 Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
#34 Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
#35 Red and the Black by Stendhal
#36 Capital by Karl Marx
#37 Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire
#38 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
#39 Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence
#40 Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
#41 Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
#42 Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
#43 Jungle by Upton Sinclair
#44 All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
#45 Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx
#46 Lord of the Flies by William Golding
#47 Diary by Samuel Pepys
#48 Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
#49 Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
#50 Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
#51 Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
#52 Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant
#53 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey
#54 Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmus
#55 Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
#56 Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X
#57 Color Purple by Alice Walker
#58 Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger
#59 Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke
#60 Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
#61 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
#62 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#63 East of Eden by John Steinbeck
#64 Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
#65 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
#66 Confessions by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#67 Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais
#68 Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
#69 The Talmud
#70 Social Contract by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#71 Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
#72 Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
#73 American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
#74 Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
#75 A Separate Peace by John Knowles
#76 Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
#77 Red Pony by John Steinbeck
#78 Popol Vuh
#79 Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith
#80 Satyricon by Petronius
#81 James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
#82 Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
#83 Black Boy by Richard Wright
#84 Spirit of the Laws by Charles de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu
#85 Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
#86 Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
#87 Metaphysics by Aristotle
#88 Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
#89 Institutes of the Christian Religion by Jean Calvin
#90 Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
#91 Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
#92 Sanctuary by William Faulkner
#93 As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
#94 Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
#95 Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
#96 Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
#97 General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud
#98 Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
#99 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Alexander Brown
#100 Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

Hmm, I guess I'm pretty banned, but I've a long way to go. And then there's books there that I could not finish (e.g. Whitman. Nor do I think I'll ever read the Bible or the Qu'ran in their entirety). Did you know the Harry Potter books are the most challenged books of this century so far? Go Harry!
 

Pottering Around - J. K. Rowling has Nightmares

J. K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books, has started having strange nightmares as she is nearing the end of the seventh, and final, Potter book. And no, I don't mean nightmares of Michael Gambon replacing lovable Richard Harris as Dumbledore, or meeting Emma Thompson as Professor Sybil Trelawney in a dark alley. She's actually dreaming of being Harry and the narrator at once.

In other Potter news, Harry made it once again to the Banned Books List this year, and the Potter books were also the most frequently challenged books of the 21st century (!), but readers voted it their favorite banned book on the ALA poll.

But in the biggest news of all, courtesy of Katja, the title for Harry Potter Book 7 was announced officially on December 21. It is going to be "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," a title that, according to Rowling's own website, came to her while she was in the shower. On the website, be sure to click on the magical hairbrush for some cool tidbits.

That is all we know for now, for sure that is, though speculation about everything runs rampant. How to survive till next July? Well, I'm gonna get my Potter fix on by re-reading all the books, starting right after Xmas.
 

Luminarium Margaret Atwood Site Goes Live!

Ladies and Gentlemen: after a month's worth of relentless work, the Luminarium Margaret Atwood Site is finally live. I've enjoyed making the site very much, since Atwood is an author I never tire of reading. If you're an Atwood fan, check it out:

Luminarium Margaret Atwood Page

 

2006 Reading Recap

Okay, considering my previous post on book addiction, it probably goes without saying that I read quite a bit. So I'm not gonna rehash everything I read, the Medieval and Renaissance texts or studies, the chick lit I read while on vacation, or the ones I've already forgotten I ever read. I'm also not gonna include the books that don't deserve their 15 seconds of fame. But here's a few folks might like to know about, as they're thinking about what books to grab while they're browsing the stores for holiday reading:

The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana
by Umberto Eco
In the book, an Italian bookseller wakes up in the hospital after a stroke, and he cannot remember anyone or anything from his past — but he can remember intimately everything he has ever read. He goes to the old family house, reading through everything he can find there, while slowly piecing together the mystery that surrounds certain parts of his past, which nobody else can tell him about. It's written as only Eco can, and illustrated with book covers, magazine covers, newspaper articles, etc. Geoffrey Brock's translation is absolutely brilliant, leaving just a few hints of French, German, Italian, Spanish, when appropriate. This is a literate, scrumptious read. I wish I hadn't read it yet, so I could read it for the first time.

Roaring Boys: Shakespeare's Rat Pack
by Judith Cook
This one, as the title implies, covers the heyday of Elizabethan theatre: Cook provides a wonderfully interwoven narrative of the lives of all the main players, the world of late 16th century London, how the people influenced each other, etc. She covers virtually all of the current knowledge about these guys, and provides the context. And yet, it feels like reading a novel almost — none of that dry, pretentious, important-sounding stuff. For those intimately familiar with the subject matter, it's a fun read; for those who aren't familiar, it's a fantastic introduction and explanation. I was thoroughly pleased with the book.


The Labyrinth
by Kate Mosse
This book consumed me — I could barely eat or sleep, I had to get to the end. There are two storylines intertwined in this book; that of Alice, on an archaeological dig in Southern France in 2005, and of Alaïs in the nearby medieval town of Carcassonne, in 1209. The women are connected somehow through a drawing of a labyrinth, which leads Alice on a quest to find out the secrets surrounding the Albigensian Crusades of 1209-1229; the first time the Catholic church sent crusaders to eradicate other Christians, on European soil. Chilling and thrilling, immaculately researched, yet at the same time a passionate and adventure-filled novel, I can't think of a better way to pass the time than this book. I can't wait to return to Carcassonne (near Toulouse, France), to see the places with different eyes.

Now, my loves, my eyes are closing, so you'll get more another day :)
Night, night!
 

A Book Addict Comes Out

Hi, my name is Anniina, and I'm a book addict.

It's true. I just didn't quite realize it until tonight, when I spent the whole night cataloging my books on LibraryThing — there's nearly 400 there now, and that's not half of them.

Want to hear something even scarier? I checked out my wishlist on Amazon — there's 88 books on it at present. I don't think this is normal. Does anyone else have this problem?
 

******** edited an hour later******
Umm, I should also probably mention that I have several in my shopping cart on abebooks.com

HELP!
 

Insomniac Surfs the Blogosphere

Blogger is finally back up after a full day's worth of "technical difficulties" — secretly, I'm convinced it was my excessive blogging and blogsurfing activity which did it, but shhh! don't tell Blogger.

So in my sweep through the many sites on which I regularly lurk, I found many things strange and marvelous, but this one takes the cake: on "Such Shakespeare Stuff," Duane has a YouTube clip of, wait for it....

*Drumroll*

The Beatles doing 'Pyramus and Thisbe' from Midsummer Night's Dream.

The most hilarious Shakespeare
moment I've seen in YEARS.



On Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog, GC decided he'd "wolde teste out sum newe materiale" which he thinks "has legges":THE MOOST
THRILLINGE ROMAUNCE OF THE CIPHRE OF LEONARDO

I was howling, I tell ya! I also like Chaucer's blog t-shirts... I'm adding the "Ich am a gentil harlot and a kynde" on my 'I want'-list, te-hee!



On About Texts, there is a retrospective on Calvin and Hobbes which makes for a nice read — so miss seeing the strip in the paper.  But, of course I own all the books, sooo.


More later. Might try that sleeping thing. I hear it's good for you.


Tags: Shakespeare | Books