Book Riot Quarterly

One of my favorite reading sites, Book Riot, has a new service where every quarter they mail you a box of bookish goodies. In their words: “The theme of our mailings is The Reading Life. Being a reader is about loving books, but it’s also about a lot more than books. Each of our boxes will contain an awesome book and a bunch of other bookish stuff we love, and that we think you’ll love too.”

My first thought was SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! My second thought was, The Reading Life? That’s a pretty broad theme. So I decided I’d take a crack at some themes that will more than likely not make Book Riot’s Cut.

David GilmourGilmour, a novelist and visiting lecturer at the University of Toronto, recently set the Internet on fire by stating that he was "not interested in teaching books by women.". Please don't confuse him with the Pink Floyd guitarist. Grab Bag

- An advanced reader’s copy of Gilmour’s new book, Fantastic Female Authors and Where to Find Them: A Guided Tour of Virginia Woolf’s House. BJOD Press. 11 pgs.

- A one year membership to G.R.O.S.S.(Get Rid Of Slimy GirlS). Tree house access and free bumper sticker included.

-A one size fits all Read Like it’s 1799 t-shirt.

-An excerpt from Gilmour’s upcoming memoir, Won’t Get Fooled Again: How George Eliot Broke my Heart. BJOD Press. 967 pgs.

Book Riot Potpourri

- Start Here Vol. 5507Out Winter Quarter 2087. In the meantime click here to buy Start Here Volume 1.: Just when you thought we were out of authors. Featuring chapters on

• Christie Sims and Alara Branwen: “I’d recommend starting with Taken by the Pterodactyl. When you go Jurassic you definitely want to start small and work your way up. You can’t just walk into a prehistoric jungle and try and tame the T-Rex if you know what I mean” - Rebecca Schinsky

• E.L. James: “Yes everyone thought I was trolling the Internet when I added 50 Shades to my Well Read list. But you just can’t beat paring 50 Shades Freed with a nice bottle of Red Satin50 Shades themed wine is a real and non-ironic thing. I double dog dare you to google it.. If Johann Thorsson lets you use his bathtub so much the better” – Jeff O’Neal

-Amanda Nelson’s entire animated gif collection (comes formatted on a 3 Yottabyte hard drive).

-Exclusive A Good Day To Read Hard T-Shirt. Back reads “And Alexander wept for there were no more books to conquer”.

Blue Marble Books

This past Saturday my wife and I took our two year old son and eleven month old daughter to Blue Marble Books in Fort Thomas, Kentucky. I have very fond memories of my mother taking my sister and I to Blue Marble when we were kids so I was excited to share the same experience with my kids. I also couldn’t wait for my son to see one of Blue Marble’s main attractions: a room made to look exactly like the room in Margaret Wise Brown’s Goodnight Moon.

I have to admit I was worried that the book store wouldn’t live up to my childhood memories but I’m happy to report it was even greater than I remembered. The minute we walked in the door my son’s eyes lit up, he yelled, “BOOKS!”, and sprinted to the first rack of books he saw. Before we started browsing the books I asked the owner, Peter Moore, to direct us to the Goodnight Moon room. Mr. Moore was kind enough to run upstairs and move some furniture (earlier in the day there was a book signing in the Goodnight Moon room) to get the room ready. My son loved it! We sat and read Goodnight Moon while he ran around the room pointing out all the objects. “Daddy! Mush!”. We also played one of our favorite games: finding the mouse that moves around the room (today he was sitting on the fire place).

After we finished Goodnight Moon we headed back downstairs. Both kids immediately keyed in on this:

My son loves trains and his little sister loves whatever he is playing with so they immediately set to work shunting trucks and hauling freight with Thomas and his friends.

Meanwhile my wife and I started looking around, reliving our childhoods. There was an entire section devoted to Eric Carle, and when I saw this Brown Bear Brown Bear puzzle I knew my son (and his Daddy) had to have it.

I turned, immediately found an entire side of a spinning rack devoted to books about trains, and started sorting through to find the perfect train storyWhich ended up being Patricia Hubbell's Trains: Steaming! Pulling! Huffing! mainly because it has a caboose with a moose. Nothing beats a moose in a caboose in my son's eyes. . On the other side of the store my wife was mowing through the Berenstain Bears section. We picked up The Birds, The Bees, and the Berenstain Bears just in case we decide to have Baby #3 and also added The Messy Room, which was somehow missing from the set of Berenstain Bears books from my childhood we have. This version of The Messy Room was new and improved! It had stickers! I was immediately filled with a jealous rage. Messy Room stickers would have been the bomb digity.

Next, my wife and I hit the Halloween section, trying to add to our existing Halloween books. We settled on I’m the Scariest Thing in the Castle a tale of a vampire bat who might not be as scary as he thinks he is and You Are My Little Pumpkin Pie which is supposed to be a sweet tale comparing children to standard fall food fare, but contains creepy lines like “You are so delicious – The star of any feast”.

At this point my wife decided to try and find some books for our daughter that had strong female characters. She said she wanted a book where our daughter could be the hero instead of a damsel in distress. Mr. Moore overheard and said, “I have just the book” and handed us The Paper Bag Princess, a story of a Princess whose castle is burned down by a dragon who also abducts her prince. The Princess outsmarts the dragon and saves the Prince, only to be chastised for her lack of fashion (as the dragon had burned up all her clothes). The Princess then proceeds to lay the smackdown on Prince Ronald: “Your clothes are really pretty and your hair is very neat. You look like a real prince, but you are a bum”When I read this part to my son he turns, points to me, and says "Daddy - Bum!" Not cool son. Not cool. and instead of marrying him she skips off happily into the sunset. Well done Mr. Moore. We also added Michelle Sinclair Colman’s Not that Tutu – the story of a girl who refuses to take off her favorite piece of clothing.

Finally, since my son is really into space and astronauts right now, I asked Mr. Moore if he had any books about space. He led me to an entire shelf filled with space books. After flipping through them I came across Brian Floca’s Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11. My son absolutely loves watching Saturn V rocket launches on youtubeWe've watched this video approximately 10,000 times. and this book does a great job illustrating the entire Apollo 11 mission. The countdown sequence is particularly well done and my son’s face just brims with excitement as the countdown starts and you can just feel his anticipation to see the rocket liftoff on the next page. This book is not only perfectly illustrated but also historically accurate. Everything the Apollo 11 astronauts did and said is there. The book covers how Armstrong had to search and search for an appropriate landing site and almost ran out of fuel. It describes all the stages of the Saturn V as well as both the Columbia and the Eagle. I can’t wait to find more non-fiction children’s books like this oneAdult Apollo 11 fans should give Craig Nelson's Rocket Men a try.. I bet Mr. Moore has a recommendation.

When it came time to checkout and we had to leave Blue Marble (and its awesome train table) my son started to melt down. Once again Mr. Moore came to the rescue. Before you could blink he had calmed my son down with some stickers and we were on our way, our wallets lighter but our memories fuller.

The Playroom Mural

As you can see with the new header, I'm finally starting to make this blog look a little nicer. It took awhile to implement the functionalityGetting the sidenotes to work in blogger was not fun. and I have been hesitant to mess with the look for fear of messing up the formatting. The new header is a panoramic shot of our kids' playroom! When my wife and I first purchased our home I don't think we quite knew what to do with this extra room without a closet.

But once James arrived and began acquiring toys at an alarming rate it was fairly obvious that this little room would be the perfect playroom. I've always loved the cartoon murals I've seen at day care centers so I thought it would be neat to make a storybook mural for their playroom, with some of the characters from their Mine! favorite children's books.

My wife did a bunch of the legwork for finding an artist capable of bringing what was in my head to life. She contacted a company called Lettuce Paint and we had an initial meeting where I conveyed to them what I was looking for. My initial guidance was vague (Castles! Dragons! Enchanted Forest!) but things really took off once I saw Lettuce Paint's initial sketch.

After taking a look at the initial sketch I knew I liked the overall themes and ideas. However, I wanted a more detailed scene. In my head, in addition to having a castle and sea on one side leading to a forest scene on the other (like the sketch has) it would also have a bunch of "easter egg" type details within. I also decided that the castle was obviously Narnia's Cair Paravel, and the ship must be The Dawn Treader.

Then I imagined there could be a transition to the woods (similar to the book We're Going on a Bear Hunt) with a field of grass, then some mud, then a river and then the forest. Within the forest there would be details like the below sign post (with James' Room added).

Then I suggested a bunch of other ideas: a cave and a bear (Bear Hunt), a lamp post (Narnia), the big bad wolf and little red riding hood, a beanstalk reaching into the sky. Maybe a hot air balloon with the Wizard of Oz floating by? Dorothy's house? Aladdin on a flying carpet? Harry Potter on a broom chasing a golden snitch?

Lettuce Paint took these ideas and ran with them. They made some really cool mockups to show me and I was blown away! Now I could really see where touches could be added to really make the mural a mash-up of James'Mine! favorite children's books! The cave had to have a bear in it. The tree in the foreground could be used to incorporate The Very Hungry Caterpillar. The path leading into the woods? Well it had to be made of yellow bricks right? And the dragon had to be EustaceNarnia again. But you knew that right? didn't he?

After this final round of feedback, Lettuce Paint went to work:

They had some great ideas, like using chalkboard paint on the signpost so we could change the names:

and decoupaging the fruit from The Very Hungry Caterpillar into the scene:

We couldn't be happier with how it turned out, and James loved it!

Here are a few more shots so you can really see the detail:

The Three Little Pigs

My son loves tractors. It began the first time he saw me mowing and only grew once I started taking him on tractor rides. This information spread through our extended family and before you know it James had four different toy tractors. Of course, you can’t just stop with the farm equipment. Toy barns and toy animals soon followed and James' small toy farm quickly grew into a giant toy agribusiness.

One day while looking at his four toy pigs and the nearby pile of megablocks I thought, “Man if I had a toy wolf I could act out The Three Little Pigs.” I scurried over to Amazon and typed in Toy Wolf Toddler and the first thing that popped up was this cool looking playset from Melissa and Doug:

Wow! A toy wolf, three little pigs, and the houses? Sign me up! After a quick search through the reviews I knew I also needed to get a Three Little Pigs board book. After viewing several options I decided to go with Three Little Pigs illustrated by Thea Kliros.Which is mostly great except there is only a Mother Pig. Perhaps Lazy Pig #1 and Playful Pig #2 would have made better housing choices if they had a father figure in their lives. When James and I read it, I replace “Mother” with “The little piggy’s parents”. We started reading the book to James a few nights before Easter and on Easter Morning the Easter Bunny left the playset in his basket. James absolutely loves the book; he’ll bring you the book and then go and gather up every piece of the playset. To be honest, I absolutely love it too. I get to howl like a wolf, add “And your little dog too” when the wolf says “I’ll get you little piggies”Which totally makes sense because the Piggy family seems to own a dog in this version., start the book in my best Stephen Sondheim impression, tickle James’ chiny chin chin while doing a horrible impression of this song,

and act out the entire story with an awesome playset.

Also, with this story the foundation has been set for me to get all postmodern with James once he gets older. “James… did you ever think about the wolf’s side of the story? According to the wolf, he just had a bad cold!”

Or “Hey James! Let me tell you about breaking the 4th wall!”

Or "Did you ever wonder what would happen if the Three Little Pigs met Snow White?"

The possibilities are endless!

The Age of Innocence

“Not to understand the doer is to have no certain knowledge of what has been done, or why it was undertaken” – Philip Wylie, The Disappearance

In the last chapterWarning! I am about to spoil the ending of a book published in 1920! of Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence Newland Archer, after the death of his wife, has traveled to Paris, where his true love Ellen Olenska, who he has not seen in over 30 years, resides. When Archer arrives he finds himself paralyzed, only able to look up at Ellen’s window on the fifth floor:

Archer sat down on the bench and continued to gaze at the awninged balcony. He calculated the time it would take his son to be carried up in the lift to the fifth floor, to ring the bell, and be admitted to the hall, and then ushered into the drawing-room. He pictured [his son] entering that room with his quick assured step and his delightful smile, and wondered if the people were right who said that his boy "took after him."

Then he tried to see the persons already in the room--for probably at that sociable hour there would be more than one--and among them a dark lady, pale and dark, who would look up quickly, half rise, and hold out a long thin hand with three rings on it. . . . He thought she would be sitting in a sofa-corner near the fire, with azaleas banked behind her on a table.

"It's more real to me here than if I went up," he suddenly heard himself say; and the fear lest that last shadow of reality should lose its edge kept him rooted to his seat as the minutes succeeded each other.

He sat for a long time on the bench in the thickening dusk, his eyes never turning from the balcony. At length a light shone through the windows, and a moment later a man-servant came out on the balcony, drew up the awnings, and closed the shutters.

At that, as if it had been the signal he waited for, Newland Archer got up slowly and walked back alone to his hotel.

On its own, this passage is powerful enough, a tragic ending for the reader who has been hoping against hope that true love would finally triumph and Newland and Ellen would be united. But a little more insight into Wharton's possible source for this scene truly makes this passage tragic. Wharton named Archer after two characters in novels by her good friend Henry James: Christopher Newman (The American) and Isabel Archer (The Portrait of a LadyDiscussed in depth here.). In fact, a character in The Age of Innocence says to Archer, “You’re like the pictures on the wall of a deserted house: ‘The Portrait of a Gentleman.’”.

Wharton goes even further than referencing James’ work. In his wonderful examination of The Portrait of a Lady and its relation to Henry James’ lifePortrait of a Novel: Henry James and the Making of an American Masterpiece., Michael Gorra describes this heartbreaking story:

“[James] had once stood at dusk on a city street, watching “for the lighting of a lamp in a window on the third storey. And the lamp blazed out, and through bursting tears he strained to see what was behind it, the unapproachable face.” James had stayed there for hours, wet from the rain and repeatedly jostled by the hurrying crowd, ‘and never from behind the lamp was for one moment visible the face.”

The similarities between this story and Newland Archer’s vigil seem so clear that one assumes James told this story to Wharton as well. We do not know for sure who James was looking for in the window. Perhaps it was Paul Zhukovsky, a Russian who James had developed “a most tender affection for”As described in Gorra's book. as Colm Toibin in his fictionalized version of James’ life, The Master, speculates. Whoever it was, it is almost a certainty that it was someone James loved, a love that due to the social norms of the day was doomed to be unrequited. In this wondrous passage Wharton has not only captures the emotion James must have felt standing there, paralyzed in the rain, but has passed it along to us, her readers. For three hundred pages we have yearned for Newland and Ellen to finally be together. And we, like Newland, like James, are left wanting.

Notes

As I’ve previously mentioned I am very particular about the appearance of my books. After I’ve read them I still want them looking brand new when I put them up on the shelf. So, instead of writing notes in the book like a lot of people do I prefer to write notes separately. Here’s a look at the different types of notes I take.

Standard
Whenever I read a passage that really makes me think for whatever reason I write it down. Also, if I’m reading a novel and a family tree starts to grow and all of a sudden there are tons of cousins to keep track of I start a family tree. Here’s an example from Henry James The Portrait of a Lady:

Of course this method does has its drawbacks. As you can see there’s a big gap between pg. 65 and 325. I’m fairly certain there was something worth writing down in there. Unfortunately, what tends to happen is I end up bringing the book places but forgetting the note book. I have every intention of going back and writing stuff down later but hey, life happens.

Vocabulary Words
This doesn’t happen much, but this particular book of critical essays on the work of David Mitchell proved to be a doozy My handwriting sucks but yes that is the phrase "deleuzian rhizome" you see.:

Oh, and speaking of David Mitchell...

Keeping track of the connections in David Mitchell's books Very much deserving of its own category.
One of these days I’m going to make a map-based graphic representation of this. One of these days.

Recommendations

Many of my friends know that I read a lot, so I get asked to make recommendations on a frequent basis. Unfortunately I’ve always found it very difficult to decide what book to recommend. Usually, the person asking isn’t a very frequent reader, and upon finishing The Hunger Games has decided that maybe this reading thing isn’t too bad and wants more. Often this person was soured on reading during their high school English class, when Mrs. Master of Fine Arts made them write a twenty five page paper on the symbolism of the rose bush in The Scarlet LetterYes I'm speaking from personal experience. The mere mention of Nathaniel Hawthorne makes me break out into a cold sweat.. Basically, this person almost drowned when they were a kid and after cautiously dipping their toe back in the water they are now about to jump off the high dive. And you’re the lifeguard. Do you just say hell with it and throw them Dan Brown or Ender’s Game? Or do you throw caution to the wind and recommend a book that you love? I once recommended Cloud Atlas to someone that unbeknownst to me had PTSD from an English 101 paper on Moby Dick. This person has stopped answering their phone and I think unfriended me on Facebook.

All of this is a very long way to say that recommending books is a difficult and dangerous thing. Thankfully there are a few individuals who accept this challenge, even from people they have never even met. Who are these fearless literary warriors?

Up first is John Warner, the Biblioracle. Every so often the Biblioracle comes out of hiding and offers to make recommendations based solely on the five previous books that a person has read. I’ve always found this fascinating because the Biblioracle doesn’t care if you liked the books or not. He does not ask for this information. All he cares about is the last five books you’ve read. I’ve taken him up on this offer on several occasions. Here’s how it turned out:

The first time I used the Biblioracle, I followed the letter of the law and provided the following books which were the exact five books I had read previously: Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami, The Magician King by Lev Grossman, If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino, and A Planet of Viruses by Carl Zimmer. Now I don’t know what went through the Biblioracle’s head, but I imagine this one was tough. Two of the books are non-fiction and I’m fairly certain the Biblioracle usually recommends novels. Luckily he could probably infer from my double dose of Murakami that I’m a fan of his other stuffBased on this information the perfect book would be about cats making pasta in an old well while listening to classical music and talking about ears.. With only this information the Biblioracle, before I could even blink, recommended Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon.

A few mouse clicks later and the book was on its way. The premise sounded interesting with three different stories gradually coming together, and I thought the Biblioracle might have nailed it. Ultimately however, I was disappointed. The characters were not well developed and the plot twist was not enough to overcome what I felt was boring prose.

But hey, the first time I tried Thai food I didn’t like it but I gave it another shot and now it’s one of my favorite cuisines. So when I heard the Biblioracle was back in business I went to wait in line with all the other desperate readers looking for something new. This time I decided to game the system a bit. I lied to the Biblioracle. I eliminated the non-ficition and tossed away any book I didn’t likeSuck it Jonathon Franzen.. This time I told him the last five fiction books that I had enjoyed: number9dream by David Mitchell, Skippy Dies by Paul Murray, Dark Places by Gillian Flynn, The Fates Will Find Their Way by Hannah Pittard, and The Man in My Basement by Walter Mosley.

This time the Biblioracle hit a home run. I may not like postmodern art but I love postmodern literature. Give me multiple perspectives, jumping around in time, and fragments to put together and I am a happy person. So Much Pretty by Cara Hoffman had all this and also a cherry on top... it really surprised me. I don't want to give too much away, because slowly figuring out exactly what was going on is one of the pleasures of reading this novel. In fact, for me, this book was muddling along until all of a sudden the pieces came together and I was blown away. The multiple perspectives and style were a bit slow in the beginning, but wow is the payoff worth it. I can see how perfect a recommendation this was. The multiple perspectives of Mitchell, Murray, and Flynn are there, as well the horrific elements present in Dark Places. A missing girl drives the story, much like Pittard's novel, and ethics are at the center just like Mosley's. Well done Biblioracle. Well done.

Next up was a new service from a bookstore called Paperback to the Future. For $20, an employee of the bookstore will interact with you via e-mail and then mail you a book that suits your reading tastes (and promises it will be a book you haven’t read). As finding and enjoying a good book is well worth $20 I went ahead and signed up. First, the employee who contacted me asked me to name three of my favorite books (I went with Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, Replay by Ken Grimwood, and Skippy Dies by Paul Murray), one book I read recently and loved (The Way Through Doors by Jesse Ball), and one book I read recently and hated (Freedom by Jonathan Franzen). After this exchange the employee sent me an email with a simple question: Burroughs, Bolano, or Calvino. Definitely Calvino, as If on a Winter's Night a Traveler is awesome and Invisible Cities has some of the most beautiful writing I’ve ever readIt also didn't hurt that I've never read anything by Burroughs or Bolano..

About two weeks later The Facts of Winter by Paul La Farge arrived. I had never heard of the book (as the store's website suggested) but I immediately loved that it was published by McSweeney'sWho also publish the awesome looking Grantland quarterlies.. The author, Paul La Farge claims this book is a translation of a book written in the early 20th century by a Frenchman named Paul Poissel about dreams people had in Paris in 1881. The first 3/4 of this short book consists of Poissel's french on the left and La Farge's "translation"Obviously La Farge is the true author.on the right describing a dream that may last only a few sentences and at most several paragraphs. Though I couldn't quite understand the thread that tied all these short dreams together, the afterword is what really made the book intriguing. I also enjoyed the second person plural point of view as it is a technique of Calvino's I mentioned enjoying in my response to Paperback to the Future. And the reasoning behind the structure of the dream parts is satisfying. However, I do like my disparate threads to have some underlying connections and the ones underlying these short dreams is much more tenuous than say the threads in Mitchell's Ghostwritten, Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveler, or Ball's The Way Through Doors. Overall this recommendation ended up somewhere between the two by Biblioracle.

So there you go! Don’t bother me anymore. You want a recommendation? Go ask Biblioracle or Paperback to the Future. They’ve got the life preserver you need. Me? All I’ve got is silent film actor biographies and the latest Henry James novel I’ve fallen in love with.

Tennis Anyone?

No sport is more isolating than tennis. There are no teammates to rely on and no timeouts to halt your opponents momentum. You have no corner to retreat to and you are not allowed to consult with your coach during a match. It's just you and the person on the other side of the net. This is why so many tennis players go absolutely insane. Playing tennis in high school I would just live for the moment when I broke the person I was playing against. The minute they started slamming their racket on the ground in frustration and muttering to themselves I knew I had them. And nothing was worse when it happened to you.

Tennis is also a beautiful game to watch. I am fortunate enough to live near the Cincinnati ATP tournament so every year I get to watch the best players in the world. In the last three years I’ve seen Roger Federer vs. Mardi Fish, Novak Djokovic vs. Andy Murray, and Federer vs. Djokovic. It’s just amazing watching how good these guys are and you have to wonder how they became so skilled. The short answer is of course hours and hours and hours and hours of practice. Want to know the long answer? Here’s where to go.

Start with Some History:
I have two books that have "the Greatest Match Ever Played” in the title. The first, Strokes of Genius: Federer, Nadal, and the Greatest Match Ever Played by L. Jon Wertheim intersperses a description of the 2008 Wimbledon finals between Rafa Nadal and Roger Federer (considered by many to be the best players of all timeWith Federer the clear #1. Yes Nadal owns an advantage in their one on one battles, but here’s the statistic that is mind blowing. The record for most consecutive Grand Slam finals appearances is Federer with 10. Second place? Federer with 8. The next highest? Nadal with 5. Nadal is the greatest on clay, but Fed is still the GOAT.) with biographical information about the two men. But despite the greatness of Federer and Nadal, and what a great tennis match the 2008 Wimbledon finals was it pales in comparison to the key match of the 1937 Davis Cup match between Don Budge (USA) and Baron Gottfried von Cramm (Germany), set on the eve of WWII with implications far greater than tennis. Marshall Jon Fisher describes the stakes of this match in his wonderful book A Terrible Splendor: Three Extraordinary Men, A World Poised for War, and the Greatest Tennis Match Ever Played. The book does a great job demonstrating how the events of the day affected the men on the court and gives you a great lesson about the early days of tennis.And leaves you wondering just how many Grand Slams Don Budge could had won if professionals could have competed in them. Perhaps he would be in the GOAT discussion. And what about Big Bill Tilden? Seriously Brian Phillips, write the Book of Tennis already!

Then get into a Player’s Head:
I have read a bunch of sports autobiographies and most are fairly average. They meander in clichés and mainly seem designed to further the athlete’s brand. Not so with Andre Agassi’s Open. From his bad boy image is everything Brooke Shields loving early years to the physical specimen workman of his later career Agassi is a fascinating person. Agassi is candid and his memoirs are engrossing. It was amazing how much he hated tennis and it was almost painful to read how much tough losses impacted him. After reading this book you get a sense of how unfair it is that the losses are always remembered more vividly than the wins. Despite the career grand slam, 8 slam titles, and Olympic gold Agassi probably wakes up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat thinking about those matches with Sampras he let get away. The book conveys just how hard it is to become great at tennis, and just how cruel the sport of tennis can be.

Then improve your own game:
If you play tennis you will eventually find yourself on the court with someone who is just flat out better than you. They will be able to do things with a tennis racket that you can only dream of. Fortunately, this doesn’t necessarily mean you are going to lose. One of the best strategies to adopt in these situations is pushing: don’t try to hit winners, just minimize unforced errors, focus on hitting the ball back and try to extend the point. The idea is that hopefully, the guy you are playing against will get increasingly frustrated with how long the point is taking and will start taking more and more chances until he hits an unforced error. After repeating this process over and over sometimes you can get a player to snap and it’s game over. Obviously this won’t work against Roger Federer, but against that 4.5 player when you are a 3.5? It gives you a punchers chance. If you want a how-to guide for this strategy you can do no better than Brad Gilbert’s Winning Ugly: Mental Warfare in Tennis--Lessons from a Master. In Gilbert’s playing days he was a master of finding and exploiting his opponent’s weaknesses and it was under his tutelage that Andre Agassi reached his full potential. In the book Gilbert provides some great lessons on how you too can use strategy to bring down better players.

On Practice

An essay on the importance of practice, extraneous to the goal of this blog and yet its foundation, which the impatient may skip and the reflective might enjoy.This essay, the title of which pays homage to the title of Ch. 13 from Philip Wylie’s The Disappearance, was originally written as one of my many aborted attempts at starting my dissertation.

“Genius can appear anywhere, but the origins of Carlsen's talent are particularly mysterious.” Time Magazine

A 2010 article in Time Magazine profiled Magnus Carlsen, a Norwegian who at 18 became the youngest world No. 1 chess player in history. Carlsen, who became a grandmaster at 13, has been coached by Garry Kasparov who has stated of Carlsen’s play, “Before he is done, Carlsen will have changed our ancient game considerably.” As Kasparov is considered by many to be the greatest chess player of all time this is very high praise. According to Kasparov, Carlsen “has a natural feel for where to place the pieces”. Experts watching him play are often surprised by his selection of moves and only after the fact realize his choice was perfect. Even Carlsen himself has a difficult time describing his ability: “It’s hard to explain, sometimes a move just feels right”. The take away message from the Time's article is clear: Carlsen’s genius is an innate ability and the origin of his innovative and creative play will remain an unsolved mystery.

Recent research has attempted to shine a light into the black box of innovation and creativity. The majority of this research has focused on answering the question, “When are people most creative”? Jia (2009) for example. The research has spawned an impressive list of items that may promote creativity: mood, intrinsic/extrinsic rewards, regulatory focus, bodily cues, temporal distance, spatial distance, and even sexual imagery. Though quite an impressive list, a laundry list of potential factors does not improve our conceptual understanding of creativity. Throughout the course of a tournament, Carlsen’s mood, his focus on intrinsic/extrinsic rewards, and his temporal distance from the chessboard most likely vary, and though these variations may impact his performance to a certain extent, his creativity and innovation on the chessboard remain consistent. Rather than focus on when Carlsen is creative, research must focus on why Carlsen is creative to uncover the mystery.

By all accounts Kobe Bryant is one of the best basketball players on the planet; Bill Simmons, author of The Book of Basketball, states that if Kobe maintains his current pace he will end his career with five championship rings, 34,000 points (3rd all time), 10 first team all-NBAs, and would be the 3rd or 4th greatest player in the history of the league. Most people attribute his success to “god-given ability” and obviously it helps your NBA chances if you are 6’6. However, if size and athletic ability were all that mattered, as Chris Ballard puts it, Eddie Curry would be all-NBA and Derrick Coleman would be getting ready for his hall of fame induction ceremonyQuotes in this paragraph are from this Sports Illustrated article by Chris Ballard. The reason Kobe has been so successful is that he works harder off the court than anyone else. Every day he makes (not takes) 700 to 1,000 shots, in addition to 4 hours of weight trainings and conditioning. Kobe’s method is consistency; in his words, “You have a program, and a schedule, and you have to abide by that, religiously. You just stick to it, and it's the consistency that pays off.” Additionally at the end of each season, Kobe sits down with his coaches to break down the season and establish goals and a plan for improvement over the off-season. This past off season while the majority of his peers were relaxing on the beach or even focused on their training, Kobe was working with Hall of Famer Hakeem Olajuwon to improve his post-up movesLeBron James made a trip to Olajuwon University two seasons ago and the results speak for themselves, adding yet another skill to his bag of tricks.

The old joke goes something like this:
A tourist is wandering around New York City and he is clearly lost. He walks up to a local and asks, “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?”. “Practice, Man, Practice” responds the local. If you want to be good at something you have to practice. The key to achieving mastery in a specific area is the amount of deliberate practice an individual performs Erickson (1993). Though it is easy to attribute Kobe’s success to his “god-given talent”, the amount of hours he has put in the gym are just as crucial if not more so to his success. Similarly, the genius and creativity Magnus Carlsen displays while playing chess are attributed to mysterious factors such as intuition or innate talent. However a closer look at Carlsen’s daily routine sheds light on the origin of his talent. Carlsen, Lehrer (2010)Yes that Lehrer. The self-plagiarizing, Bob-Dylan quote fabricating, lying while his hand was in the cookie jar former wunderkind who has only recently emerged from wherever he has been hiding. This essay was written several years before the scandal broke and I think the ideas are still good despite Lehrer's actions. writes, has taken advantage of something his predecessors like Kasparov didn't have, computer chess. He typically plays multiple games at once against sophisticated chess playing algorithms allowing him an unprecedented amount of deliberate practice. While previous generations of Chess players were limited by the the number and stamina of quality opponents they could find, Carlsen had played more games by the age of 13 than many grandmasters had their entire lives. Lehrer goes on to explain the how this practice allowed Carlsen to develop his famed intuition. All the games Carlsen has played allowed him the chance to make more mistakes than other players. Lehrer quotes Neils Bohr A quick Google search suggests Bohr did indeed make this statement. With Lehrer, you have to check.: an expert is, “a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.” Carlsen has been able to make more mistakes, and learn from them, providing him with so much experience that he is able to utilize the knowledge he gained through deliberate practice at a level so automatic it appears intuitive.

Thus, deliberate practice is key when you want to improve a skill. This seems like an obvious point, and most people grasp this idea when you are discussing an activity like driving a car or solving math problems. However, there seems to be a block when we encounter someone like Carlsen. Carlsen must be an innate genius is often the default mode of thinking. Why is this? Obviously, if we place the reason on innate talent it lets us off the hook. If we had only been blessed with “god-given ability” we too could be a chess master or an NBA superstar. To consider the role that deliberate practice plays might place the blame to close to our own doorstep. As Erickson states, there is nothing fun about deliberate practice. In fact, the desire to practice, even though practice is not fun, is another characteristic that is important in the development of any skill:

“There’s a difference between loving basketball and liking basketball. There are only about 30 guys in the league who love it, who play year round. Allen Iverson loves to play when the lights come on. Kobe loves doing the shit before the lights comes on. This thing, this freakish compulsion, may be the hardest element of the game to quantify. There are no plus-minus stats to measure a player’s ruthlessness, his desire to beat his opponent so badly he’ll need therapy to recover.”From that Chris Ballard article. No I ain't hyperlinking it again. Scroll up!

Carlsen provides similar statements. When asked by Time magazine if he saw chess as a game or combat or a game of art Carlsen replied: “Combat. I am trying to beat the guy sitting across from me and trying to choose the moves that are most unpleasant for him and his style. Of course some really beautiful games feel like they are art, but that's not my goal.”

The will to succeed and win is so dominant in both Kobe and Carlsen that they are able to overcome the negatives associated with deliberate practice. In fact, both men continuously work on their skill through deliberate practice. Like Kobe seeking out Hakeem, Carlsen has began working with Kasparov. This perseverance and passion of long-term goals has been referred to as GritDuckworth (2007) and is the second key component of developing any skill, including creativity.

Thus both the amount of deliberate practice and the willingness to engage in practice are critical to skill development. However there is one additional critical factor: type of practice. Bill Belichick, head coach of the New England Patriots has won three Super Bowls and was a miracle play away from the first 19-0 season in NFL History. What separated Belichick’s Patriot teams from the rest of the NFL? According to Gasper (2008) the answer is situated practice. Gasper interviewed a former Patriot who described his first day of training camp under Belichick. The head coach created the following situation: it was late in the game, the Pats are down by a field goal and had the ball at their own 17 yard line with 1:21 left and zero timeouts. This was a recreation of the Patriots drive to win Super Bowl XXXVI. Belichick had his players practice these scenarios in training camp so they could make mistakes and learn from them so that by the time they needed to perform perfectly in the post-season they would be ready. Belichick understood that in addition to drills and conditioning, players needed to practice the skills they would need during games.

In order to design successful deliberate practice you have to understand the constraints of the task you are trying to practice for. Additionally, it is vital to understand that simply practicing the exact task is not enough. Edward Zagorski has spent the last thirty years teaching industrial design at the University of Illinois. After attempting to teach his students how to design he learned that it was more critical that he learned how to effectively teach students to design. He mentions how he once asked students to design a toy for a 5-12 year old child. The results, according to Zagorski, resulted in “push-pull, bland, and tired solutions”. The next time he asked the students to design a toy that would render a random decision. This resulted in much more creative designs. Hence, the nature of the task and the task's constraints are important to understand when designing deliberate practice to improve a skill. Zagorksi’s method focused on providing enough constraints to allow the student to focus, but not so many that they were constrained.

In conclusion, any skill can be improved through deliberate practice, as long as the individual is able to commit to a significant amount of deliberate practice and that deliberate practice has been tailored to hone the critical skills needed to succeed at the target task. I will be using this blog as a way to engage in deliberate practice to get better at writing about reading in a style that is hopefully witty, not too lengthy,Off to a great start there bucko! This entry is turning into a manifesto! and provides opportunities and encouragement for reader engagement. I hope you decide to stick around for the ride!

So You Like The Hunger Games?

About a year ago I finally gave in to the hype and ended up reading The Hunger Games. Though the prose didn't blow me away, I thought the book was well plotted and entertaining. If you enjoyed The Hunger Games but aren’t sure what to read next, here are some suggestions based on some opinions you may have had after finishing the series.

I totally think Gogo Yubari would whip Katniss’ ass.

Me too. I mean she was thisclose to taking care of the bride in Kill Bill. The actress who plays Yubari, Chiaki Kuriyama, is in the film version of Battle Royale, a novel by Koushun Takami which is basically the earlier, more violent, Japanese version of The Hunger Games.

You know this whole forcing teenagers to kill each other is so distasteful. I wish they were volunteers or something.

Then you’ll want to read Stephen King’s The Long Walk, the gold standard in the teenagers fight to the death game show genre. One hundred volunteers start walking along the United States eastern seaboard at the Maine/Canada border. They have to maintain a pace of 4 miles per hour. If they fall under that mark they receive a warning (which can be reset to zero if they walk for another hour without falling below 4 mph). Once they receive 3 warnings if they fall under 4 mph again they are shot and killed. Once the long walk is started there are no breaks for sleeping, eating, or bathroom breaks... they keep walking until only one walker is left alive. The participants are not allowed to physically harm each other... but oh the mental gamesmanship is awesome. How this hasn’t been made into a film yet I have no idea.

I love all the blood and guts and even the forced participation is fun. But the age of the participants makes me feel bad.

No worries I’ve got you covered. In fact, you can stay right here with Stephen King with another story in The Bachman Books, The Running Man. Though the novel itself is fine, I highly recommend the movie, as you get not only Arnold Schwarzenegger but also former Family Feud host Richard Dawson egging on the bloodlust of the viewing audience. That blue haired freak in The Hunger Games couldn’t hold Dawson’s jockstrap.

You know I just don’t like the game show aspect. Can’t we just throw a bunch of kids into a desperate situation and see what they do by themselves? Surely they’ll all get along and build a new society right?

Well I suggest you take a trip back to sophomore year and check out Lord of the Flies by William Golding. In this novel a plane crash leaves a group of boys stranded on a deserted island without any supervision. Despite their English pedigree their attempt at creating a new civilization on the island slowly but surely descends into delicious chaos. Don’t worry about the symbolism bullshit crammed down your throat by your English teacher. Yes we get that the gradual destruction of Piggy’s glasses reflect the gradual disintegration of civilization amongst the boys. That ain’t what we're here for. On one side we’ve got Ralph and on another side we’ve got Jack. Let’s get it on! FEED THE BEAST!

I’m having a hard time visualizing all the blood and guts. Hunger Games would have been better with some illustrations. Give me some comic books!

Well there’s this obvious Hunger Games rip-off called Avengers Arena where Arcade, formerly a D-level bad guy, turns into a bad ass and kidnaps members of Avengers Academy, the Runaways, Braddock Academy, Darkhawk, etc. and forces them to fight to the death.

NOOOOOOOOOOOO! Those dingbats killed my favorite character!

Well then I have to recommend Strikeforce Morituri, a late 1980s Marvel comic book with the tagline: We Who Are About to Die!. The storyline revolved around an alien race known as the Horde that had invaded and basically conquered Earth. Humanity's only hope was the Morituri process, a process that would grant a person superpowers. However, the Morituri process also causes that person to die within a year (on average... a person could last longer or go quicker). Thus, one could gain the power to save humanity but at the cost of their own life. This lead to great stories as the heroes struggled with the fact that they were mortal and could literally die at anytime. The cast was constantly revolving due to the deaths and the creative team never failed at creating new and intriguing heroes, who gave their lives to fight the Horde.There are a TON of comics book storylines that follows The Hunger Games formula. Contest of Champions. Secret War. Almost anything that happens in the Mojoverse. The X-Force/New Warriors crossover called Child’s Play. Contest of Champions II. Marvel vs. DC. Planet Hulk. Inevitably Thor jobs.

Hunger Games had too many damn characters. Let’s get rid of the red shirts and get down to business. One dude hunting another dude. That’s what I want! And make it quick! I’ve got a short attention span and no time!

Then you have to check out this short story by Richard Connell called The Most Dangerous Game first published in 1924. A big game hunter by the name of Sanger Rainsford is shipwrecked on an island and soon finds that he himself is being hunted.

Ya know I really don’t even like reading and barely got through The Hunger Games. Any TV Shows?

Well in the ‘90s there was a TV show called Sliders, where a group of 4 people (a physics student, his professor, his girlfriend, and a musician) are stuck traveling (i.e. sliding) from dimension to dimension.Like Quantum Leap but different worlds instead of different times. For example, one of their earliest slides takes them to a dimension where the Soviet Union won the Cold War. In the first episode of the 3rd season the Sliders travel to a world where they find themselves competing in a televised game show where groups of teams try to make it to a sanctuary before other teams do. Along the way they face the dangers of the environment as well as the other teams trying to kill them.

Whoops, that was my bad. I meant any TV shows not starring the fat kid from Stand By Me.

Hey Jerry O’Connell is a stud muffin! You’ve gone too far! I’m out of here!

The Wikipedia Hole

Yesterday I briefly alluded to falling into Wikipedia holes and I thought today I would describe the process visually.

Where do you end up when you fall into a Wikipedia hole? Is it even possible to stay on task when reading Wikipedia articles?

Falling Down the Rabbit Hole

Once upon a time I was stuck in an airport without a book. This rarely happens to me. For example, while writing this entry I was stuck in an airport and had 3 books with meOut by Natsuo Kirino, Volume 5 of Grantland Quarterly, and 20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill which for some reason I just can’t seem to finish.. But for some reason I had only brought one book along on the trip and I had finished it, so I headed to the airport bookstore. Luckily I was in a large airport and the bookstore had a fairly big selection including a bargain book table. After browsing for awhile an anthology called Wizards caught my eye. What a dorky title I thought. But then I noticed the book contained short stories by Orson Scott Card, who at the time was one of my favorite authorsWe've since had a messy breakup., as well as Neil Gaiman, who I had also enjoyed in the past. So for $5.99 I thought what the hell and bought it.

While I was reading the anthology I had one of those moments every reader loves. Something new hit me upside the head and made me say, “Wow”. I fell in love with a story called The Ruby Incomparable by Kage Baker. It was fantasy story of the daughter of an evil Master of the Mountain and a good Saint of the World. The description of the world was so lyrical and I really enjoyed the daughter’s coming of age story. Baker’s sense of humor also shone through and really hooked me. I immediately wanted more. Who was Kage Baker and what else had she written?

I turned to the Contributors section in the back and read something like the following: “Baker is best known for her Company series, in which immortal cyborgs are sent back through time to secure knowledge and treasures that would otherwise have been lost”. It was like someone put an arrow through my heartBig Hair!. I immediately hopped on Amazon and ordered the first book in the series, In the Garden of Iden, which arrived at my door the next day thanks to the wonders of Amazon Prime. I finished it very quickly while on another trip, this time in San Diego. I desperately wanted to read the 2nd book in the series but I was only going to be in San Diego for a few days. I drove to a used book store not really expecting to find it, but there it was Sky Coyote, sitting there on the shelf, the only Baker book in the store.

I powered through Sky Coyote and found myself reading the 3rd book in the series, Mendoza in Hollywood. The 3rd book is set in Hollywood in the 1800s, long before the movie industry came to town. However, the cyborgs know what the area will become in the future so they have a movie night every so often. Baker, in her infinite wisdom, spends an entire chapter with the cyborgs as they Mystery Science 3000 D.W. Griffith’s 1916 epic film Intolerance. Perhaps best known for Birth of a NationWhich after watching you could see just how racist people were in 1915, even people like D.W. Griffith who didn’t think they were., Griffith’s Intolerance was a both a masterpiece and a disaster. After reading this chapter I had to see the film.

So all of a sudden I’m watching a 1916 silent film and it is completely blowing my mind. How in the world did Griffith make this film without CGI? There are literally thousands of extras and massive sets with walls hundreds of feet high. I was so amazed by the spectacle I needed to know more. I purchased D. W. Griffith's Intolerance: Its Genesis and Its Vision by William M. Drew and learned much about film including the cast, and how directors often worked with the same company of actors from film to film. The next thing you know I was reading books about Griffith actors and actresses such as Lillian Gish: The Movies, Mr. Griffith, and Me and Dark Lady of the Silents by Miriam Cooper.

And that’s the story of how I started with a $5.99 book about Wizards and ended up reading an autobiography of a silent film actress. I just always seem to fall down these rabbit holes in my reading life. One book has a brief mention of something that seems interesting and the next thing you know I’m reading an entire book about that other topic. It’s a very similar, albeit much slower process, than when I fall into a Wikipedia hole. Wikipedia hole: When you start off by looking up something work related like cognitive systems engineering and end up reading about shark attacks.

Authors as Musicians

Today we look at the musical equivalents for some famous authors.

Stephen King – Ozzy Osbourne: Born less than a year apart, the Master of Horror and the Prince of Darkness have led eerily similar lives. Both have overcome serious substance abuse problems. Both have considered retirement and then decided that retirement sucked. Both have had success in various incarnations (Ozzy with Black Sabbath and solo, King as himself and as Richard Bachman). And both continue to kickass in their mid 60s.

Dan Brown – Nickelback: I had a friend post the following message on facebook: “Hey I have two extra tickets to the Nickelback concert tonight. Anyone want them?” The first response was “No thanks, I’ll just go to hell when I die”.Which was subsequently liked by 15 people. Nickelback is just a band, as Chuck Klosterman points out, that is totally acceptable to reflexively hate. Dan Brown is the Nickelback of the literary world. He sells millions and millions of books, yet gets absolutely no respect. If you tell people Dan Brown is your favorite author you would get the exact same look as you would if you tell people Nickelback is your favorite band.

Gillian Flynn – Halestorm: In 2006 Halestorm released their first EP, in 2009 their first album, and in 2012 released their second album which won a Grammy for Best Heavy Metal/Hard Rock song. In 2007 Gillian Flynn released her first novel, her second in 2009, and in 2012 released Gone Girl which is going to win should have wonGone Girl lost in the Zombie Round to The Orphan Master's Son. Damn you Lev Grossman. The Morning News Tournament of Books. Here’s the lyrics to Halestorm’s I Miss the Misery:

I miss the bad things, The way you hate me, I miss the screaming, The way that you blame me! Miss the phone calls, When it's your fault, I miss the late nights, Don't miss you at all! I like the kick in the face, And the things you do to me! I love the way that it hurts! I don't miss you, I miss the misery!

Boy does that sound like Nick and Amy’s relationship in Gone Girl or what?

Orson Scott Card – Ted Nugent: Both achieved early success with big hits (Ender’s Game for OSC, Stranglehold and Cat Scratch Fever for the Nuge) which they have continued to milk. Both have recently gone completely overboard on a controversial political issue (OSC – gay marriage, Nugent – gun control). And both are completely washed up as artists.

Hidden Gems: Elementary Edition

Welcome to Hidden Gems, a new feature discussing some of the less famous stuff from well known authors. In this first edition we’ll start with an author I encountered very early on in my reading career: Bruce Coville.

Coville, the author of dozens of children and young adult books, is most well known for his My Teacher is an Alien series. I remember how creepy the cover of the first book was when I saw it in those scholastic reader catalogs we had in grade school. Coville’s tale of three children discovering that they must save the planet from an intergalactic counsel that doesn’t seem any redeeming qualities in barbaric humans is great, but despite being perhaps his most famous work, it just doesn’t hold a candle to the Nina TanlevenI mean cmon! What a great pun name! Nine Ten Eleven! series.

Over the course of the series’ three novels Nina and her friend Chris Gurley encounter ghosts and must determine why these ghosts are hanging around. The first two books, The Ghost in the Third Row and The Ghost Wore Gray are great, but the third book, The Ghost in the Big Brass Bed is incredible. In fact, I was paging through it while writing this entry and even though the plot details had remained hazy until I picked it up I got goosebumps the minute I read the name Cornelius Fletcher. Suddenly long forgotten neural pathways in my brain began firing and it all came back to me. I quickly flipped to the front where Nina and Chris first encounter Fletcher’s painting Early Harvest:

At first I thought it was just a pretty picture of a forest. Then I realized there were dead bodies scattered among the fallen leaves. After I spotted the first few, I couldn’t miss them. My eyes began picking out more and more, almost as if I were staring at one of those find-the-hidden object pictures. Some of the bodies were marked with terrible wounds. My head began to whirl. For a moment the painting seem to take me in. I could hear the moans of dying men, the deep thud of cannons in the distance. The air around me felt cold and wet. It was filled with the smell of fire and blood. I tried to look away. To my horror, I couldn’t move. The picture had trapped me and was forcing me to see things I didn’t want to know about.

This description, on page 22, was the passage that was responsible for the goosebumps I got from reading Fletcher’s name. I remember reading this as a kid and being immensely creeped out by the metal image this passage evoked. I’m so glad the book wasn’t illustrated because I know what I pictured in my mind was creepier than any painting could actually be. For the next 160 pages Coville keeps you on the edge of your seat as Nina and Chris unravel the history of Early Harvest, its artist Cornelius Fletcher, and how they relate to the crying ghost of a little girl who haunts the big brass bed. But I’m amazed that 20 years later one name, which I couldn’t even remember until I saw it, could bring back such a flood of memories. For that reason, for me, The Ghost in the Big Brass Bed is Coville’s masterpiece.

Reading Pathways: Steven Johnson

Admit it! There’s an entire section of the book store that might as well not even exist for you! Dostoevsky and Joyce might be intimidating but what really makes you sweat is the non-fiction section. I think this is due in part to how difficult it is to write nonfiction that appeals to a wide audience. But when people nail it (Jared Diamond, James Gleick, and Malcolm Gladwell to name a few) the results are wonderful, and Steven Johnson has been nailing it for the last 15 years.

One of Johnson’s greatest skills is his ability to explain scientific breakthroughs and new technologies by examining both their precursors and their future potential. For example, in Future Perfect Johnson has an excellent section on Kickstarter whose roots he traces to patronage systems and the establishment of government rewards to solve problems (such as the Longitude Prize). Johnson then discusses how ideas like Kickstarter could be used to address the disconnect people feel between paying taxes and the services the government provides. If people could allocate a portion of their taxes to a government program of their choice (like Kickstarter backers selecting which projects to back) they might feel better about paying them.

To help you make the leap from novels to Johnson’s nonfiction we’ll start with a book that is almost indistinguishable from a great thriller.

Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World

We’re starting off with a bang as this book is a page turner on par with the best thrillers and mystery novels. Ghost Map details the 1854 cholera epidemic in London and is a fascinating example of the struggle between science and superstition. As the outbreak continues to spread and more and more people become afflicted, a doctor named John Snow develops a theory that cholera is a waterborne disease, contradicting the prevailing opinion of the time that cholera is caused by poison in the atmosphere. Using his knowledge of the area (the outbreak occurs in Snow's neighborhood) he locates the source of the epidemic, convinces the authorities of his theory, and changes the way the modern world investigates epidemics.

Now that you’ve read the case study you are ready for one of Johnson’s main themes: where do good ideas like Snow’s concept of disease come from and how can they be fostered?

Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation

Ever wanted to take a reading sabbatical but couldn’t find a way to justify it? Well, now thanks to Johnson you have science backing you up! Reading sabbaticals are just one of the many suggestions Johnson provides on how to cultivate creativity in this fascinating book that examines how innovation has occurred over history. Johnson dispels the myth of the lone scientist slaving in the laboratory and shows how networks of people and ideas are critical for innovation. The key “is not to sit around in glorious isolation and try to think big thoughts. The trick is to get more parts on the table”. After reading this you should have plenty of tricks up your sleeve.

Okay, you're back from your reading sabbatical where you did nothing but think deep thoughts for a week. So you sit down and start catching up on Game of Thrones and before you know it you’ve just wasted an entire Saturday morning. Wasted? Mr. Johnson would beg to disagree.

Everything Bad is Good For You: How Today’s Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter

Do you feel guilty for spending too much time in front of the TV or trying to level up in Candy Crush? Worry no more! The idea of this book is that as TV shows and video games increase in complexity people are getting smarter! For example think about Gilligan’s Island. Each episode consisted of mostly one plot (here’s a new way for us to try and get off the island), had no more than seven or so one-dimensional characters to keep track of (no need for names, just stereotypes!), and at the end of each episode the status quo was mostly reset. Compare that to an episode of Lost or The Wire, which have upwards of 50 characters that matter and subplots upon subplots upon subplots. According to Johnson, having to keep track of all this complexity actually improves our mental capacity. So the next time you settle in for a Buffy the Vampire Slayer marathon, don’t worry about it! It’s good for you!

Back into the Myst

When I was growing up I would sequester myself off in the woods during the summer, burying my head in a book as I solved cases with Encyclopedia Brown and the Boxcar Children, wondered if maybe my teacher was an alien, and wished my school was as awesome as Wayside. In the winter time I would crawl into one of my parents' cars, trying to find a secluded and warm spot as I journeyed off to other worlds. And despite my love for the stories and worlds of Louis Sachar, Bruce Coville, Judy Blume, Beverly Cleary, Gertrude Chandler Warner, and Madeleine L'Engle, the world of Narnia was my favorite of all.

I don't remember when I first encountered The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis, but I do remember how long and hard I searched for that magical wardrobe that would transport me to Narnia. My grandmother's house seemed the most likely place. After all, the Pevensie children found their magical wardrobe in the Old Professor's house. My grandmother's old farm house, with its many staircases and attics seemed just the place. I still remember the disappointment I felt when I pushed past dusty clothes in an upstairs closet only to find an old, but very solid wall.

I think this disappointed is the reason why I fell in love with the video game Myst. I might have never found the door to Narnia but the opening sequence of Myst might have been the next closest thing I could have experienced as a 13 year old kid. I still have the narration from that sequence memorized:

The moment I put my cursor on that book and fell into the story of Myst I was hooked. I spent the next few months exploring the worlds of Myst and trying to solve its mysteries. My favorite place on the island of Myst was the library and it was no surprise to me that most of the time when I returned from yet another world I found myself back in the library.

It was so exciting because unlike most booksThe notable exceptions being the choose your own adventure books, but those were mostly a linear path with short side paths ending in your untimely death. where I was simply a helpless spectator (DON’T TRUST HER EDMUND! THE TURKISH DELIGHTS ARE A LIE!) I was actually driving the story. My actions, my choices (should I trust Sirrus or Achenar?), and my ability to uncover the mystery were the story. I had finally made it to another world and I was playing a part in it. It. Was. Awesome. I remember how proud I felt when I had to explain a puzzle to one of my Dad’s work friends. And when after months of playing I finally realized the treachery of Sirrus and Achenar and freed Atrus? It was such a great feeling.

Many sequels followed as well as book tie-ins, but nothing quite captured that feeling I had the first time I clicked on Atrus’ Myst book, and finally, after all those years of searching, ended up in Narnia.

After the Masterpiece

I recently watched an interview with former NBA player Charles Barkley on the eve of his 50th birthday Sir Charles at 50. One of the hardest things for Barkley was coming to terms with how getting old impacted his athletic performance. I think he summed up every athlete’s struggle with this when he said “What’s really happening is your ego is like let me have a good year then I can walk away. But you don’t have any more good years.” What really blows my mind is Barkley had to contemplate this at the age of 37. At 30 he was the MVP of the NBA; seven years later he was out of the game. Obviously athletes hit their peak performance when they are comparatively young. While most of us can expect to reach our peak performance (in terms of financial compensation) later in life, athletes hit their peak in their late 20s and early 30s. I’ve always thought it would suck having to go from being on top of the world at 30 to being retired at 37.

Authors on the other hand can often be productive throughout their lives. However, one of the challenges authors often face occurs when they write what many consider to be their best work early in their career. I often think of Stephen King, who published his first novel Carrie in 1974 and is still publishing new books almost 40 years later. I wonder what Stephen King thinks when lists ranking his books often put The Stand (published in 1978) or It (published in 1986) on topVulture.com ranks all 62 Stephen King Books. How would it feel to publish a new book almost every year for 35 years and always have to deal with comparisons to your 35 year old masterpiece? Maybe that’s why Harper Lee never wrote another novel. Perhaps she looked at the universal acclaim To Kill a Mockingbird received and thought, well no way in hell I can top this. Why bother? Better to leave then wanting more than leaving them disappointed.

I bet musicians can sympathize. How do they feel when after playing five of their greatest hits from 20 years ago an audible groan erupts from the crowd after they say, "Okay, time for some new stuff!". Perhaps it would be better to walk away on top. One of my favorite comic strip writers Bill Watterson did just that. At the age 37 Watterson walked away from Calvin and Hobbes and hasn’t released anything since. He explains it in this way:

"This isn't as hard to understand as people try to make it. By the end of ten years, I'd said pretty much everything I had come there to say. It's always better to leave the party early. If I had rolled along with the strip's popularity and repeated myself for another five, ten, or twenty years, the people now "grieving" for Calvin and Hobbes would be wishing me dead and cursing newspapers for running tedious, ancient strips like mine instead of acquiring fresher, livelier talent. And I'd be agreeing with them. I think some of the reason Calvin and Hobbes still finds an audience today is because I chose not to run the wheels off it. I've never regretted stopping when I did." 2010 Cleveland Plains Dealer Interview with Watterson

So what do you think? Is it better to retire on top or should you keep cranking out new stuff knowing full well that you’ll most likely never achieve the same heights you once did?