Tag: books

Now that I have your attention 🙂

I just finished reading Harry Potter 7 (and thus proving my daughter wrong, who didn’t think I would finish it before she got back home). No, I’m not going to spoil it. Rather, I’m going to ask about reading styles.

When I first got Harry Potter 7, I turned to the end and read the ending first. This didn’t bother me at all; in fact, it made it more enjoyable, as I read watching for hints of what was to come. For me, what makes the book is the journey the author takes you on, not the ending.

However, I know for others they didn’t want any spoilers at all. For them, it seems the ending is what is significant, not the journal.

So where do you fit on this? How do you read a book?

This weekend, I started reading a new book. I hesitate to tell you about it, because everyone seems to be avoiding spoilers, but I can’t help myself. The author has such a way with words, such a way of building picturesque phrases, that I’m verklempt. I just have to share some examples with you:

• “He picks up a shot glass that he is currently dating, a souvenir of the World’s Fair of 1977.”
• “According to doctors, therapists, and his ex-wife, Landsman drinks to medicate himself, tuning the tubes and crystals of his moods with a crude hammer of hundred-proof plum brandy.”
• “Night is an orange smear over Sitka, a compound of fog and the light of sodium-vapor streetlamps. It has the translucence of onions cooked in chicken fat.”
• “An old man, pushing himself like a rickety handcart, weaves a course toward the door of the hotel. A short man, under five feet, dragging a large valise. […] The valise is an ancient chimera of stained brocade and scratched hide. The whole right side of the man’s body sags five degrees lower than the left, where the suitcase, which must contain the old boy’s entire collection of lead ingots, weighs it down.”
• “Now the kid was going to be sleeping in the bedroom that had once served Meyer and Naomi’s father as Klein bottle for the infinite loop of his insomnia”.
• “The break room has also long housed a thriving colony of spores that, at a point in the remote past, spontaneously evolved the form and appearance of a love seat.”
• “They walk past the Pearl of Manila, though its Filipino-style Chinese donuts beckon like glittering sugar-dusted tokens of a better existance.”
• “They leave Brennan standing outside the Front Page, with his necktie smacking him on the forehead like a remorseful palm…”
• “Landsman would love a beer. […] In the meantime, the one that Ester-Malke gave him has yet to leave his body, but Landsman is getting indications that it has its bags packed and is ready to go.”

Such purty words.

By now, you’ve guessed that I’m not talking about Harry Potter 7. That’s next on the queue. This book is “The Yiddish Policeman’s Union” by Michael Chabon. So far, it is quite a remarkable book.

On the van ride in this morning, my co-rider, who also happens to be a librarian here at Circle-A ranch, pointed me to a wonderful editorial in today’s Los Angeles Times by Greg Maguire, author of Wicked on the importance of reading to our children, and of reading the best books to them. He writes of how books create for us a common language, even across cultures, providing known points of reference. I love his line: “Hell, the Wicked Witch of the West scares all of us long before any dangerously out-of-touch foreign policy advisors can.” Read it. Enjoy.

Read More …

… or at least to Pasadena

A quick update, as this morning is really busy. Last night we went to see Greg Maguire do a book signing for “Son of a Witch” at Vromans in Pasadena. It was really fun: he explained where the notion for the book came from (not what you would expect), did some readings from both “Wicked” and “Son of…”, and answered various questions. My daughter had a wonderful time, as did we.

Now, back to work…