tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-77433465091618274152024-03-05T01:02:37.668-05:00Writing Bout Readingkbehymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17058841172745163625noreply@blogger.comBlogger43125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743346509161827415.post-85323707739104742822015-09-16T21:27:00.001-04:002015-09-16T21:27:47.254-04:002010 Reading ListFrom the archive: <br />
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Since 2008 I've kept track of the books I've read and I'm happy to report that in 2010 I read 41 books, which is a substantial jump from the 25 in 2009 and the 29 in 2008. I attribute the increase to the amount of business travel I did this year. All the travel led to a lot of time sitting in the airport, the airplane, and the hotel in the evening where I could get some reading done.<br />
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And before we get to the books... here's a breakdown I did because I'm a nerd:<br />
<ul>
<li>26 Fiction 15 Non-Fiction</li>
<li>29 different Authors (8 - Kage Baker, 4 David Mitchell, 2 Stephen King, 2 Joe Hill)</li>
<li>Author Nationality Breakdown: 31 American, 5 English (4 David Mitchell, 1 Jacobs), 1 Irish (Murray), 1 Canadian (Sawyer), 1 Lebanese (Talib), 1 Zimbabwe/Rhodesian (Rogers), 1 Russia (Petrushevskaya, which was also the only translated book I read)</li>
<li>10 books by women, although 8 were by Kage Baker (Julie Klausner and Ludmilla Petrushevskaya were the other two)</li>
<li>Publish Date skewed very recent, with 14 published in 2010, 6 in 2009, 1 in 2008, 6 in 2007, 4 in 2006, 1 2005, and 2 in 2004. The rest was 2 in 1999 and 1 each in 2001, 2000, 1997, 1990, and 1969 (the outlier here being Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut</li>
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<strong>Goals for Next Year</strong>: Seek more diversity. More international, more women, more minorities. Also, maybe try and read another classic or two.<br />
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<strong>Best Fiction of the Year</strong>: Despite a late charge from<strong> Paul Murray's Skippy Dies</strong>, the fiction book that captivated my imagination and sent me on a mad dash to read everything the author has written was <strong>David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas. </strong>The book has six different stories that are nested within each other. For example, the 1st story is in the form of a journal article that the protagonist of the 2nd story comes across. The book is structured so that each part is abruptly stopped and you move to the second story and so on and then it picks up on the other side (I know this is confusing but it goes 1,2,3,4,5,6,5,4,3,2,1 and when you are reading it is very fluid and totally awesome... still confused Wiki does a better job than me explaining it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_Atlas_%28novel%29). I'd recommend this book to almost anyone who enjoys a good book, with the exception of people who only like thrillers or who have short attention spans.<br />
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<strong>Best Nonfiction of the Year: Zeitoun by Dave Eggers</strong><br />
What happened to the Zeitoun family during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is both horrifying and fascinating. Eggers provides an exceptionally well written book detailing Zeitoun's efforts to help his neighbors and his "I can't believe this happened in America" ordeal after being arrested for looting.<br />
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This book truly illustrates how tenuous civil society is and how it can go to hell in a heartbeat. However, despite my empathy towards Zeitoun, I can also understand the perspective of the individuals who arrested him. The city was under a mandatory evacuation and Zeitoun was found with several other individuals, one who had 10,000 of cash on him and another (Ronnie) who may have indeed been involved in some looting. This in no way excuses the treatment Zeitoun was subjected to during his incarceration. An American citizen should never be treated like that. And it is a testament to Zeitoun's strength and character that he decided to remain in New Orleans and rebuild after this ordeal.<br />
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Also, Eggers points out the fact that while individuals were still stranded on rooftops and in their home surrounded by water, a prison was being constructed, a prison equipped with portable toilets and MREs, only a few blocks from the desperate scene at the convention center and Superdome. It's clear that, as President Bush said, the system failed New Orleans at every level of government.<br />
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<strong>Worst Fiction of the Year:</strong><br />
When I first heard the title of this book I thought for sure it would be great. Who isn't instantly drawn to a book that has <strong>"There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor's Baby"</strong> as a title? Then I read some reviews and I was even more excited.<br />
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Sigh.<br />
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Maybe I was expecting too much, but I was let down. Many of the stories seemed to be VERY similar. I would say 75% of the stories had the same basic twist. The titular story was a big letdown. There were a few stories toward the end in the Requiems section that were okay, but I think they stood out because some of the others weren't as great. Perhaps something was lost in translation, but I didn't quite get was the fuss was about for this one. Other than "The Black Coat" all the stories were pretty forgettable.<br />
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<strong>Worst Non-Fiction of the Year: </strong><br />
<strong>I Don't Care About Your Band: What I Learned from Indie Rockers, Trust Funders, Pornographers, Felons, Faux-Sensitive Hipsters, and Other Guys I've Dated by Julie Klausner</strong><br />
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This book was an easy read. However, it wasn't as funny as I thought it was going to be. In fact, it was very hard to feel anything other than pity for the author, who despite her professed dislike of Midwestern values, seems in constant search of them as she is crushed by guy after guy after guy. The entire book consists of her meeting some guy, explaining how horrible the guy treated her on their first "maybe" date, sleeping with him anyway, and then being crushed when the guy dumps her. So by the time page 200 rolls around and she describes meeting a guy, who on their very first meal together, discusses how he just ended a relationship with a woman who had an abortion after he got her pregnant and how he was once arrested on charges of DUI, Grand Theft Auto, and Kidnapping, you know how it is going to play out. At this point any sane person would be running away as fast as they could. But as I had read the previous 200 pages I knew what Ms. Klausner would be doing... and yup, she provides a nice description of how she ended up teabagging the guy.<br />
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I was expecting a fun read about horrible relationships and I got that...sort of. But I didn't understand how someone could keep making the same mistake over and over and over. Also, I have no problem with the sexual escapades, live it up! But, if you know how horrible the guys are then why get depressed when after sex they don't call, they have another girlfriend, etc. etc.<br />
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Finally at the end of the book we get a "I met a guy who was married and instead of banging him I turned him down, look at how grown up I am" moment. But really... too little too late. Ms. Klausner proclaims "What I Learned!" I'm not sure I know what she learned, and I don't think she knows either.<br />
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<strong>Best New Find: Kage Baker</strong><br />
One of the best surprises of this year was a great little story in the <strong>Wizards </strong>anthology by <strong>Kage Baker, </strong><em>The Ruby Incomparable</em>. I found this tale of the daughter of an evil overlord and his empathic do-gooder wife to be well told, original, and fascinating. In fact, I decided I needed more Kage Baker and quickly devoured the 8 books in her Company series. Though parts of the Company series were not my favorite, overall the entire concept of a Company developing time travel and creating immortal cyborgs to save items of historical importance that would otherwise be lost (think Roman libraries before the barbarian invasions etc.) was fascinating and obviously I couldn't get enough. It was sad to find out Baker had died of pancreatic cancer earlier this year.<br />
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<strong>Complete List(Books in bold I rated as 5 Stars on Goodreads, Books in Italics are books I wouldn't recommend to anyone):</strong><br />
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<strong>1. The Magicians by Lev Grossman 1/2/10</strong><br />
<strong>2. The Last Resort: A Memoir of Zimbabwe by Douglas Rogers 1/8/10</strong><br />
3. Strange Maps: An Atlas of Catographic Curiosities by Frank Jacobs 1/10/10<br />
<em>4. There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor's Baby: Scary Fairy Tales by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya 1/15/10</em><br />
<strong>5. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell 1/25/10</strong><br />
<em>6. The Thief at the End of the World: Rubber, Power, and the Seeds of Empire by Joe Jackson 2/16/10</em><br />
7. Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime by John Heilemann & Mark Halperin 2/21/10<br />
8. World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks 2/28/10<br />
9. Horns by Joe Hill 3/9/10<br />
10. Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill 3/18/10<br />
<strong>11. The Genius in All of Us: Why Everything You've Been Told About Genetics, Talent, and IQ is Wrong by David Shenk 3/31/10</strong><br />
12. Next by James Hynes 4/4/10<br />
13. Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children's Crusade A Duty-Dance with Death by Kurt Vonnegut 4/16/10<br />
<em>14. I Don't Care About Your Band: What I Learned from Indie Rockers, Trust Funders, Pornographers, Felons, Faux-Sensitive Hipsters, and Other Guys I've Dated by Julie Klausner 4/19/10</em><br />
<strong>15. Ghostwritten by David Mitchell 5/16/10</strong><br />
16. Blockade Billy by Stephen King 6/3/10<br />
17. William James: In the Maelstrom of American Modernism by Robert Richardson 6/29/10<br />
18. Stumbling on Wins: Two Economists Expose the Pitfalls on the Road to Victory in Professional Sports by David Berri & Martin Schmidt 6/29/30<br />
<strong>19. Zeitoun by Dave Eggers 6/30/10</strong><br />
20. Ultramarathon Man: Confessions of an All-Night Runner by Dean Karnazes 7/5/10<br />
21. Black Swan Green by David Mitchell 7/20/10<br />
22. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell 8/7/10<br />
23. The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb 8/19/10<br />
24. In the Garden of Iden by Kage Baker 9/1/10<br />
25. Sky Coyote by Kage Baker 9/2/10<br />
26. Mendoza in Hollywood by Kage Bake 9/11/10<br />
27. The Graveyard Game by Kage Baker 9/20/10<br />
28. The Life of the World to Come by Kage Baker 10/2/10<br />
<em>29. Invasions by Eugene Izzi 10/7/10</em><br />
30. The Children of the Company by Kage Baker 10/14/10<br />
31. Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation by Steven Johnson 10/21/10<br />
32. The Machine's Child by Kage Baker 10/28/10<br />
33. Mustaine: A Heavy Metal Memoir by Dave Mustaine with Joe Layden 10/31/10<br />
34. Wizards: Magical Tales From the Masters of Modern Fantasy edited by Jack Dann 11/10/10<br />
35. How to Live Safely in a Science Ficitonal Universe by Charles Yu 11/12/10<br />
36. The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande 11/16/10<br />
37. Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King 11/20/10<br />
38. The Sons of Heaven by Kage Baker 12/3/10<br />
39. Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer 12/6/10<br />
<strong>40. Skippy Dies by Paul Murray 12/24/10</strong><br />
41. FreeDarko Presents: The Undisputed Guide to Pro Basketball History by Bethlehem Shoals et al. 12/27/10<br />
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And if anyone actually made it all the way down here I'd love to have your recommendations for what I should check out in 2011. And I'd be happy to expand on any of the books in the list if you are on the fence about giving it a shot.<br />
kbehymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17058841172745163625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743346509161827415.post-11627572081858895772014-01-30T20:02:00.001-05:002014-01-30T20:02:06.776-05:00The Quest for Silence<div class="entry-content">
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<p align="justify">A <a href="http://libraries.pewinternet.org/2013/12/11/libraries-in-communities/">recently published study</a> notes that one of the things people value most about libraries are the quiet space they provide. Having a quiet safe space to read or just think was viewed as more important than research resources and internet access. It was only after reading this study that I really considered how much I too value quiet.</p><br>
<p align="justify">Growing up, I was always trying to find a quiet place to continue my adventures in Narnia, to help Encyclopedia Brown get his man, or to keep Wayside School from falling down. I remember sneaking out of the house on cold crisp days, laying in the backseat of my parent's car, kept warm by the sun shining through the windows. On warmer days I would just head off into the woods with a book in my hand. I found a perfect place next to a very small stream underneath several large trees. I built a bridge over the stream and I would sit on it listening to the water run beneath me as I turned page after page. At night, I would lay in the bathtub long after the water had grown cold getting one last chapter in, periodically answering my Mother's knock on the door, assuring her that I had not drowned. I loved spending time with my extended family over the holidays, but whenever we visited Mamaw's I would bring a book along. As the evening hours crept in I would sneak to the back of the house and make my way upstairs to continue my reading.
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<p align="justify">Perhaps this love of quiet places explains my fascination with Jean Craighead George's <i>My Side of the Mountain</i>, a book about a boy who escapes from his eight brothers and sisters to live in the wilderness of Upper State New York. If I could find a hollowed out tree like Sam Gribley, I thought, I bet I could get some reading done. Every time my mother took my sister and I to the Cincinnati Museum of Natural History I tried to figure out how I could live there like Claudia Kincaid did in <i> From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler</i>. How nice and quiet it would be at night. </p><br>
<p align="justify">I remember waking up by myself in the house one day during summer vacation. I took a book outside on the porch and just sat and listened to the quiet. It was so quiet I felt like I might be the only person left in the world<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">I always thought it would be cool to be in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAxARJyaTEA">this guy's</a> shoes, especially as I have 20/20 vision.</span>. It was perfect.</p><br>
<p align="justify">Nowadays my house is filled with the screams and laughter of two perfect little children. I can't begin to describe the joy they have brought to my life. And yet, I think I might be overdue for a trip to the library. </p><br>
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</div><!-- .entry-content --> kbehymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17058841172745163625noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743346509161827415.post-48518243948981301092014-01-05T22:20:00.000-05:002014-01-05T22:29:58.171-05:00So Much for My Happy Ending
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<p align="justify"><b>DISCLAIMER:</b> <i>This post discusses key plot points of Into the Woods (the musical), Twin Peaks (the tv show), The Bourne Supremacy (the movie), and the following novels: Max Barry's Lexicon, Henry James' The Portrait of a Lady, and Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence. If you don't want any of these spoiled I would probably skip this post.</i></p><br>
<p align="justify">One of my favorite musicals is Into the Woods, a fairy tale mash-up in which Jack<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">From Jack and the Beanstalk.</span>, Cinderella, Rapunzel, a Baker and his wife, and even the Witch find their happy ending before intermission. The Baker and his wife are able to break the curse the Witch placed upon their home and conceive a child. Cinderella goes to the festival and marries Prince Charming. Jack becomes rich beyond his wildest dreams. The Witch’s youth and beauty are restored.</p><br>
<p align="justify">But despite all the hilarity and good times in Act I, Into the Woods is my favorite musical because Act II shows what happens after Happily Ever After. The wife of the giant Jack slew follows him down the beanstalk and begins wreaking havoc. The Baker’s wife is seduced by a straying Prince Charming. The latter abandons Cinderella (he was raised to be charming, not sincere) and the former is killed by the Giant. Jack’s mother is killed. In other words, shit gets real<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">Act II starts with the characters singing a song entitled <i>So Happy</i>, which ends abruptly when the giant's wife starts raising hell. The song can be found <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPUQ7ctJ_iY">here</a>. Shit gets real at 1:58.</span>.</p><br>
<p align="justify">My wife loves Act I and wants to leave at Intermission. I love Act I, but I have to admit I’m always anxiously awaiting the carnage that awaits in Act II. For whatever reason, the unhappy ending is what seems most powerful to me. The stories that resonate with me are the ones that are not wrapped up in a nice tidy bow at the end. I don’t want the star-crossed lovers to overcome the obstacles placed in their way and live happily ever after. I want <a href="http://writingboutreading.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-age-of-innocence.html">Newland Archer, sitting on the park bench looking up at Madame Olenska’s apartment unable to knock on her door</a>. I want <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rjJ51N7qZY">Agent Cooper slamming his head into bathroom mirror, possessed by the evil demon BOB</a>. I want <a href="http://writingboutreading.blogspot.com/2013/04/my-protagonist-has-husband-and-she_29.html">Isabel Archer getting on that train and heading back to her son of a bitch husband</a>. Endings like this just seem to have a greater impact on me. They have more emotional kick. I think about them long after I've finished reading them. They feel more real.
</p><br>
<p align="justify">Which bring me Max Barry’s <i>Lexicon</i>. The book is one helluva ride. The first chapter starts with two guys kidnapping a man named Wil and the reader has absolutely no idea what is going on. The next chapter focuses on a sixteen year old girl named Emily who is recruited to join a special school<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">Like Hogwarts or Xavier Institute For Higher Learning but this school teaches kids how to use special words to persuade people to do almost anything they tell them to do.</span>. Wil and Emily’s stories continue to alternate chapters and part of the fun is figuring out just how their stories relate. When I realized that Emily was the bad guy hunting down Wil I was blown away. I felt it was an awesome choice for Barry to make. Instead of retelling Harry Potter’s story he was giving us Voldemort’s origin. But then it was all a lie. Emily had unwillingly been under the control of Stock Villain #1 (creepy old man who wants to remake the world in his image). Ugh. Then I thought Barry salvaged it by having Emily sacrifice herself by persuading Wil to shoot her to save the world<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">It’s complicated, just roll with me here.</span>. That’s a powerful ending right there.</p><br>
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Then I turned the page. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. Somehow Emily survived (Wil probably just shot her in the shoulder through and through) and they are currently living happily ever after. Booo! I hope all you happy ending lovers are pleased. Just know that when Barry writes the inevitable sequel I will be rooting for Wil to get waxed <sup></sup><span class="footnote-text"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrIsPRZL578">Bourne Supremacy Style</a></span> in the first chapter so Emily can spend the next 400 pages following her current prime directive: KILL EVERYONE<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">Like I said, it’s complicated.</span>.</p><br>
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</div><!-- .entry-content --> kbehymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17058841172745163625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743346509161827415.post-41201224629702398882013-10-28T00:35:00.001-04:002014-01-05T22:30:54.464-05:00Book Riot Quarterly
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<p align="justify">One of my favorite reading sites, <a href="http://bookriot.com/">Book Riot</a>, has a <a href="http://quarterly.co/products/book-riot?utm_source=br_sponsored_content&utm_medium=native&utm_campaign=082313_etsy_giveaway">new service</a> where every quarter they mail you a box of bookish goodies. In their words: <i>“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.”</i></p><br>
<p align="justify">My first thought was <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQISgWx_-Yw">SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY!</a> 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.
</p><br>
<p align="justify"><b>David Gilmour<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">Gilmour, a novelist and visiting lecturer at the University of Toronto, recently set the Internet on fire by stating that he was <a href="http://bookriot.com/2013/09/26/david-gilmour-shallow-misguided-wrong/">"not interested in teaching books by women."</a>. Please don't confuse him with the Pink Floyd guitarist.</span> Grab Bag</b>
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<p align="justify">- An advanced reader’s copy of Gilmour’s new book, <i>Fantastic Female Authors and Where to Find Them: A Guided Tour of Virginia Woolf’s House</i>. BJOD Press. 11 pgs.</p>
<p align="justify">- A one year membership to G.R.O.S.S.<a href="http://calvinandhobbes.wikia.com/wiki/G.R.O.S.S.">(<b>G</b>et <b>R</b>id <b>O</b>f <b>S</b>limy Girl<b>S</b>)</a>. Tree house access and free bumper sticker included.</p>
<p align="justify">-A one size fits all Read Like it’s 1799 t-shirt.</p>
<p align="justify">-An excerpt from Gilmour’s upcoming memoir, <i>Won’t Get Fooled Again: How George Eliot Broke my Heart.</i> BJOD Press. 967 pgs.</p><br>
<p align="justify"><b>Book Riot Potpourri</b></p>
<p align="justify">- <i>Start Here Vol. 5507<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">Out Winter Quarter 2087. In the meantime <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Start-Here-Read-Amazing-Authors-ebook/dp/B00ARN9YKW/">click here to buy Start Here Volume 1.</a></span>: Just when you thought we were out of authors</i>. Featuring chapters on</p>
<ul><li><p align="left"><u>Christie Sims and Alara Branwen</u>: <i>“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”</i> - Rebecca Schinsky</p></li>
<li><p align="justify"><u>E.L. James</u>: <i>“Yes everyone thought I was trolling the Internet when I <a href="http://bookriot.com/2013/06/13/from-zero-to-well-read-in-100-books/">added 50 Shades to my Well Read list</a>. But you just can’t beat paring 50 Shades Freed with a nice bottle of Red Satin<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">50 Shades themed wine is a real and non-ironic thing. I double dog dare you to google it.</span>. If <a href="http://bookriot.com/2013/10/25/rioter-reading-places/">Johann Thorsson lets you use his bathtub</a> so much the better”</i> – Jeff O’Neal</p></li></ul>
<p align="justify">-Amanda Nelson’s entire animated gif collection (comes formatted on a 3 Yottabyte hard drive).</p>
<p align="justify">-Exclusive A Good Day To Read Hard T-Shirt. Back reads <i>“And Alexander wept for there were no more books to conquer”</i>.</p>
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</div><!-- .entry-content --> kbehymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17058841172745163625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743346509161827415.post-79048236634861692472013-10-24T21:34:00.001-04:002014-01-01T22:25:00.697-05:00Blue Marble Books
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<p align="justify">This past Saturday my wife and I took our two year old son and eleven month old daughter to <a href="http://www.bluemarblebooks.com/">Blue Marble Books</a> 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.</p><br>
<iframe src="//player.vimeo.com/video/54584011" width="500" height="281" webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen allowfullscreen></iframe><br>
<p align="justify">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). </p><br>
<p align="justify">After we finished Goodnight Moon we headed back downstairs. Both kids immediately keyed in on this:
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyUUuby6yZop_8WpL0yFUCXgPDLnC3ICttwM5ReStOzAJM5USVQzxU1LgFSHNehf8vRbENEd_MjYjvfDcqHwjLepvaPCmTGmm6FjyQ_yvWacNT4IY0_ZCfRpNu4rXlqrjQfSbJESFiEgM/s1600/480564_506947589325577_100885918_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyUUuby6yZop_8WpL0yFUCXgPDLnC3ICttwM5ReStOzAJM5USVQzxU1LgFSHNehf8vRbENEd_MjYjvfDcqHwjLepvaPCmTGmm6FjyQ_yvWacNT4IY0_ZCfRpNu4rXlqrjQfSbJESFiEgM/s400/480564_506947589325577_100885918_n.jpg" /></a><br>
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My son loves trains and his little sister loves whatever he is playing with so they immediately set to work <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hw522GIskVc">shunting trucks and hauling freight with Thomas and his friends</a>.</p><br>
<p align="justify">
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.</p><br>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheJgnzR8dvzNsmXQeNIjSrclR84U3DFs8RXpfRwy7CLZScYE4AgR7LILu6LaMt8e931iUttr0rjdleHIy07dsHEx8HI6cLW3XXPAh2Jph6kO2mV0qTeOjmb5lEMetkHf4Yak4DvOr4aD8/s1600/IMG_9772.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheJgnzR8dvzNsmXQeNIjSrclR84U3DFs8RXpfRwy7CLZScYE4AgR7LILu6LaMt8e931iUttr0rjdleHIy07dsHEx8HI6cLW3XXPAh2Jph6kO2mV0qTeOjmb5lEMetkHf4Yak4DvOr4aD8/s400/IMG_9772.JPG" /></a><br>
<p align="justify">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 story<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">Which ended up being Patricia Hubbell's <i>Trains: Steaming! Pulling! Huffing!</i> mainly because it has a caboose with a moose. Nothing beats a moose in a caboose in my son's eyes.</span> . On the other side of the store my wife was mowing through the Berenstain Bears section. We picked up <i>The Birds, The Bees, and the Berenstain Bears </i> just in case we decide to have Baby #3 and also added <i>The Messy Room</i>, which was somehow missing from the set of Berenstain Bears books from my childhood we have. This version of <i>The Messy Room</i> was new and improved! It had stickers! I was immediately filled with a jealous rage. Messy Room stickers would have been the bomb digity.</p><br>
<p align="justify">Next, my wife and I hit the Halloween section, trying to add to our existing Halloween books. We settled on <i>I’m the Scariest Thing in the Castle</i> a tale of a vampire bat who might not be as scary as he thinks he is and <i>You Are My Little Pumpkin Pie</i> 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”.
</p><br>
<p align="justify">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 <i>The Paper Bag Princess</i>, 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”<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">When I read this part to my son he turns, points to me, and says "Daddy - Bum!" Not cool son. Not cool.</span> and instead of marrying him she skips off happily into the sunset. Well done Mr. Moore. We also added Michelle Sinclair Colman’s <i>Not that Tutu</i> – the story of a girl who refuses to take off her favorite piece of clothing.</p><br>
<p align="justify">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 <i>Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11</i>. My son absolutely loves watching Saturn V rocket launches on youtube<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">We've watched <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzCsDVfPQqk">this video</a> approximately 10,000 times.</span> 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 one<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">Adult Apollo 11 fans should give Craig Nelson's <i>Rocket Men</i> a try.</span>. I bet Mr. Moore has a recommendation.
</p><br>
<p align="justify">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.
</p><br>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg6mvj_Pg_1jJ1ivJjTnmnwZFjW9-NvKrk6z37k9GmWQAzscPj8q4NDA8vCaxvrbupl_np5UsBSFWRXEpRA4uY84xceNeoxIvPcTIkKS6xHVhqx24uDoBSaeaO0YFXiKWX8arlkO1frBg/s1600/IMG_9773.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg6mvj_Pg_1jJ1ivJjTnmnwZFjW9-NvKrk6z37k9GmWQAzscPj8q4NDA8vCaxvrbupl_np5UsBSFWRXEpRA4uY84xceNeoxIvPcTIkKS6xHVhqx24uDoBSaeaO0YFXiKWX8arlkO1frBg/s400/IMG_9773.JPG" /></a>
</article>
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</div><!-- .entry-content --> kbehymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17058841172745163625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743346509161827415.post-45226697863266143972013-07-22T10:09:00.000-04:002013-07-22T10:10:49.466-04:00The Playroom Mural
<div class="entry-content">
<article class="main-article">
<p align="justify">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 functionality<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">Getting the sidenotes to work in blogger was not fun.</span> 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.
</p><br>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4LTd0BioiGmp_tWyhSmzCdMhQIOknVevp5GxgN6yYhBGdIOPp1tJ2xKpvGLIOV0_PYEDeHonVPR9g0oHEcwQipnW0Skc9JMz7fAldUMBOfUs4C0N9Xc-7v8oGReS8fqE9ctOgLUad6z0/s1600/222389_1025975938607_1325_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4LTd0BioiGmp_tWyhSmzCdMhQIOknVevp5GxgN6yYhBGdIOPp1tJ2xKpvGLIOV0_PYEDeHonVPR9g0oHEcwQipnW0Skc9JMz7fAldUMBOfUs4C0N9Xc-7v8oGReS8fqE9ctOgLUad6z0/s320/222389_1025975938607_1325_n.jpg" /></a>
<p align="justify">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
<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">Mine!</span> favorite children's books.
</p><br>
<p align="justify">
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 <a href="http://www.lettucepaint.net/">Lettuce Paint</a> 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.
</p><br>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI6MUN733JrEBffBR2Q4VNJEOXZV91o0rg9LkggNFbyYzEbhEyHTErGdLL0pHEGmx1ReZjLtOi2UCno_rYkuCgoVjS9xqUH6FgGB2OYuuR6UjRFlJkkwtzh0AFDDtO3c4taVRQ8YoS1sY/s1600/sketch.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI6MUN733JrEBffBR2Q4VNJEOXZV91o0rg9LkggNFbyYzEbhEyHTErGdLL0pHEGmx1ReZjLtOi2UCno_rYkuCgoVjS9xqUH6FgGB2OYuuR6UjRFlJkkwtzh0AFDDtO3c4taVRQ8YoS1sY/s320/sketch.png" /></a>
<p align="justify">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.
</p><br>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiXImblAHXnxv8pVPhPgFSkVTHCV-3vRpINO8rNp2da7gnN-jz9grZv-c4Sll-imHX6gI5VpeTYVV85axypHWxaudlM2ZZPOG9V0yTJNg5wMJYmCuC57QhMCq4P5TgQYZNZaNXapoJ-Ts/s1600/cair+paravel.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiiXImblAHXnxv8pVPhPgFSkVTHCV-3vRpINO8rNp2da7gnN-jz9grZv-c4Sll-imHX6gI5VpeTYVV85axypHWxaudlM2ZZPOG9V0yTJNg5wMJYmCuC57QhMCq4P5TgQYZNZaNXapoJ-Ts/s320/cair+paravel.png" /></a>
<p align="justify">Then I imagined there could be a transition to the woods (similar to the book <i>We're Going on a Bear Hunt</i>) 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).</p><br>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEietBiUWSgoVJPCS94H944025lLug_SDGCcSnis1rWgLri7cBMI9JAGfQUcKQ-1GpqC49Z6XdMmydRxC29TUOm2dbTkaJlmU24eLM9i1I2VdD6ifGfsZ-vNc-cJRGTFrg-8JdNprG3X8TU/s1600/sign.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEietBiUWSgoVJPCS94H944025lLug_SDGCcSnis1rWgLri7cBMI9JAGfQUcKQ-1GpqC49Z6XdMmydRxC29TUOm2dbTkaJlmU24eLM9i1I2VdD6ifGfsZ-vNc-cJRGTFrg-8JdNprG3X8TU/s320/sign.png" /></a>
<p align="justify">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?</p><br>
<p align="justify">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'<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">Mine!</span> favorite children's books! The cave had to have a bear in it. The tree in the foreground could be used to incorporate <i>The Very Hungry Caterpillar</i>. The path leading into the woods? Well it had to be made of yellow bricks right? And the dragon had to be Eustace<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">Narnia again. But you knew that right?</span> didn't he?</p><br>
<p align="justify">After this final round of feedback, Lettuce Paint went to work:</p><br>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZdsnskuyGLLpp6GYzSnHXbXtJ4uOxniJx6ia9iIOGO49aSXFjsDiwuUkt7OSQteN3zd-Ot4K6IZLG7015o_BBB_4e2HO4CI908RFlkq6IL0SeKZiVfuc_7xemHQogIZ85-xOsmeds_lc/s1600/IMG_7405.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZdsnskuyGLLpp6GYzSnHXbXtJ4uOxniJx6ia9iIOGO49aSXFjsDiwuUkt7OSQteN3zd-Ot4K6IZLG7015o_BBB_4e2HO4CI908RFlkq6IL0SeKZiVfuc_7xemHQogIZ85-xOsmeds_lc/s320/IMG_7405.JPG" /></a>
<p align="justify">They had some great ideas, like using chalkboard paint on the signpost so we could change the names:</p><br>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif0thX6DVrDr3Q2yL1YrCk4FzY3kW5U1m3DawLMFRqJzWirzLVIFp3nv_JmN1vfTi8O0EZNbaXglieT9YHPnIS8v-McwXbOJRJ_MzjukBcD_mLi9kW9b2FtexRKDYfsYdlfqN0WifKesI/s1600/IMG_7408.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEif0thX6DVrDr3Q2yL1YrCk4FzY3kW5U1m3DawLMFRqJzWirzLVIFp3nv_JmN1vfTi8O0EZNbaXglieT9YHPnIS8v-McwXbOJRJ_MzjukBcD_mLi9kW9b2FtexRKDYfsYdlfqN0WifKesI/s400/IMG_7408.JPG" /></a>
<p align="justify">and decoupaging the fruit from The Very Hungry Caterpillar into the scene:</p><br>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2AGCmdi3Przxje5Ai6gowd_8A3coIuKBoRHYs8dXa2SKy8uJoSGYK5QoVv3c1LQ886lP97Suc4fDokdqA0uYbC7WdpQt-G8Y2ZmAMpDE59-hZKjm0fPbcp1WW8LHTpKpMz2q5Zd1VrSQ/s1600/IMG_7418.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2AGCmdi3Przxje5Ai6gowd_8A3coIuKBoRHYs8dXa2SKy8uJoSGYK5QoVv3c1LQ886lP97Suc4fDokdqA0uYbC7WdpQt-G8Y2ZmAMpDE59-hZKjm0fPbcp1WW8LHTpKpMz2q5Zd1VrSQ/s640/IMG_7418.JPG" /></a>
<p align="justify">We couldn't be happier with how it turned out, and James loved it!</p><br>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm3Sb5p7pi_iAE0ui90zZqEdQSFHCv-7_YFfATTzmHiO8gj2WquFUsKCPb0KUcX7svJYYwMqe74vR2ldy_jV1GKcDh_Kenv9BJJRLgqO8U-CKoptYFI1p9-A19Ia-kwHIl8Vbq5ihsnvY/s1600/IMG_7413.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm3Sb5p7pi_iAE0ui90zZqEdQSFHCv-7_YFfATTzmHiO8gj2WquFUsKCPb0KUcX7svJYYwMqe74vR2ldy_jV1GKcDh_Kenv9BJJRLgqO8U-CKoptYFI1p9-A19Ia-kwHIl8Vbq5ihsnvY/s640/IMG_7413.JPG" /></a>
<p align="justify">Here are a few more shots so you can really see the detail:</p><br>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjjl38SgrsMBsiPgJd2wjPsLY3OBGG7lKGNv_2GGI6GPxixdBPMSHBYL8IPVWL48Hr3HTOecx8gbhVtvz40r0phCcOTxyLz8cc5lA2p6qlj7KyubrTN26xt-tOv5eCoS-UowOQiKFRytM/s1600/IMG_7422.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjjl38SgrsMBsiPgJd2wjPsLY3OBGG7lKGNv_2GGI6GPxixdBPMSHBYL8IPVWL48Hr3HTOecx8gbhVtvz40r0phCcOTxyLz8cc5lA2p6qlj7KyubrTN26xt-tOv5eCoS-UowOQiKFRytM/s640/IMG_7422.JPG" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHQVIRl_wN4k2ckqvzRzw679MpgogvBeXd9m1xp81cCDsm9Sa-NBS78SZ-hHER-PPBovrkaShutYmSUWHMmZuOedMQzUw7gSq1GRpGH9DmRDqH25X_JLZy1rg3-A0IBwncupfp0Xxi2Wk/s1600/IMG_7425.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHQVIRl_wN4k2ckqvzRzw679MpgogvBeXd9m1xp81cCDsm9Sa-NBS78SZ-hHER-PPBovrkaShutYmSUWHMmZuOedMQzUw7gSq1GRpGH9DmRDqH25X_JLZy1rg3-A0IBwncupfp0Xxi2Wk/s640/IMG_7425.JPG" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqnjTnS3jLQ2QqHY2nVwaIbq8_3UGBHrre8plDEgU-AuJdr6mNO0XirpLZJ7WBkRm97UpFL6B0Q0vyr7a9-XwLD7rVr0-r_vMduloIm1j_SQcNvKIciZbFUlIKVf6sn89DAOUT51d2n7s/s1600/IMG_7427.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqnjTnS3jLQ2QqHY2nVwaIbq8_3UGBHrre8plDEgU-AuJdr6mNO0XirpLZJ7WBkRm97UpFL6B0Q0vyr7a9-XwLD7rVr0-r_vMduloIm1j_SQcNvKIciZbFUlIKVf6sn89DAOUT51d2n7s/s640/IMG_7427.JPG" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiItYrO9NbKQE8kj1x0J5LhjVWWEDDKNLN2VNgUsCbLNaKiRyoSc4_ZRi08y_d-X-9YLc6xgO72yE-tx9FQPGXAv1Eyc9jBv9GBcL3RBW-CjIaLFSyaadcDr3TVu77nx4AsZOEvnP_ywM/s1600/IMG_7429.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiItYrO9NbKQE8kj1x0J5LhjVWWEDDKNLN2VNgUsCbLNaKiRyoSc4_ZRi08y_d-X-9YLc6xgO72yE-tx9FQPGXAv1Eyc9jBv9GBcL3RBW-CjIaLFSyaadcDr3TVu77nx4AsZOEvnP_ywM/s640/IMG_7429.JPG" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg86q8No5Jx8wWZXDFKpA9CCVijtDPJ7wSHHb8-DyLuIdVmolqXVCVgdli2L6QJFkqTqlUOsTr73rlwrCzK2RqzP4Bpfe-f4XYeoy5CJI0aYvswwWn1JIjpmhB7_ty4u2v57_YGtdVnaQo/s1600/IMG_7430.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg86q8No5Jx8wWZXDFKpA9CCVijtDPJ7wSHHb8-DyLuIdVmolqXVCVgdli2L6QJFkqTqlUOsTr73rlwrCzK2RqzP4Bpfe-f4XYeoy5CJI0aYvswwWn1JIjpmhB7_ty4u2v57_YGtdVnaQo/s640/IMG_7430.JPG" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYBNLuPdV_b1DZ97dZXTKSjDnVNJOJ71W8wKdCTSJxNpVuxL24shFvsb8uZUCHFmD-bx1EE7W9GGkZ7qO6QDwm0ewTulE6TDdSHagr3mHVW2jSDTUKruF60UhHLCdPr2g26kvKq4wTbj8/s1600/IMG_7432.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYBNLuPdV_b1DZ97dZXTKSjDnVNJOJ71W8wKdCTSJxNpVuxL24shFvsb8uZUCHFmD-bx1EE7W9GGkZ7qO6QDwm0ewTulE6TDdSHagr3mHVW2jSDTUKruF60UhHLCdPr2g26kvKq4wTbj8/s640/IMG_7432.JPG" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9wUr1MPC26cFqetdvcnEqUalm1iu0cm2rcUnYIfvvRkf_P9-M2UcOS_Tc7itkG7MJNDhB-CRZap6ng1Mzp5zLzc-FZuDSLJ9tmj8DOqcG7Gax8mx7PYr_lqOXHXBnnWAqGOSkUyJXH64/s1600/IMG_7433.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9wUr1MPC26cFqetdvcnEqUalm1iu0cm2rcUnYIfvvRkf_P9-M2UcOS_Tc7itkG7MJNDhB-CRZap6ng1Mzp5zLzc-FZuDSLJ9tmj8DOqcG7Gax8mx7PYr_lqOXHXBnnWAqGOSkUyJXH64/s640/IMG_7433.JPG" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJmVMSMC-jtQYI20KdfNklV7WeWuHn7OIDTRcle0wH7lcXNIdyxUEPng98IUt65bVlQmDRTVjRZdJ6jYj_KRY9wlfBZMGukopnqBl-EEEzLIBJpSf0WevZa3CIYy9qFGJ8ENJqMxQ04gM/s1600/IMG_7434.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJmVMSMC-jtQYI20KdfNklV7WeWuHn7OIDTRcle0wH7lcXNIdyxUEPng98IUt65bVlQmDRTVjRZdJ6jYj_KRY9wlfBZMGukopnqBl-EEEzLIBJpSf0WevZa3CIYy9qFGJ8ENJqMxQ04gM/s640/IMG_7434.JPG" /></a>
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</div><!-- .entry-content --> kbehymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17058841172745163625noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743346509161827415.post-53957183857804877002013-07-21T20:33:00.000-04:002013-07-21T21:43:29.864-04:00The Three Little Pigs
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<p align="justify">
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.
</p><br>
<p align="justify">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:
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Melissa-Doug-Deluxe-Three-Little/dp/B000NV6DRU/" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvpDLGS1u5zUrSvZ6wK-lEU_NzzVvaTdQZbeUg55B7G4oGEEJB6gADjQENBwc3TwwmFQpIH65lOD3uZeVBbZvlc761xpPrUZzsx21iY_TVPhHlMRrm1BJ-KZsT6jgOS0LnqTy0s7QO3bE/s320/Untitled.png" /></a>
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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 <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Three-Little-Pigs-Once-Harper/dp/0060082364/ref=pd_sim_t_3"><i>Three Little Pigs</i> illustrated by Thea Kliros</a>.<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">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”.</span> 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”<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">Which totally makes sense because the Piggy family seems to own a dog in this version.</span>, start the book in my best Stephen Sondheim impression, tickle James’ chiny chin chin while doing a horrible impression of this song,<br> <iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/_CYwNWHZuT0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br> and act out the entire story with an awesome playset.
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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!”
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/True-Story-Three-Little-Pigs/dp/0140544518/" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdvuDcrmw-IS_DzKmZdbMLAd3Q-GYAnPStNminKRDNJ1zp1BqaaxuJKU-crf4mqT4IQq0rriv3jll-_CjjQy3oLZDOhSv5FkjJhRYuEk4BM0JgXlfutSrOsylHc95rgVnRZmJmScs5F5Y/s320/imagqweqes.jpg" /></a><br><br>
<p align="justify">Or “Hey James! Let me tell you about breaking the 4th wall!”
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Three-Pigs-David-Wiesner/dp/0618007016/" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm0L_MolrdREBBL99mOuD90z1c9TaPurzqpZqz7OCr0rLxlYJZwaHaY3iZ5I7m8eppl-k-k5abuqlDefNsUtQWLRHJNLfqKCiVg_d3NBCkLewpAO1d4H4sacYM4-8LJrmvSCAZBt9r6U0/s320/weisner_3pigs4.jpg" /></a><br><br>
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Or "Did you ever wonder what would happen if the Three Little Pigs met Snow White?"
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Fables-Vol-Animal-Graphic-Novels/dp/140120077X/" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvvAjR-JWAwZe_PwEgrr9oDwa8O3N7-dKgByWqShRhyphenhyphendG5aRH_MmkaM0CObqSINpbkGOjI8WG2bp_ggXnsS1ElSF6ZYHpkadUaHzBe5XHILYk0tnvTE1XdUjCA0VrhNJkvNJ0oxfF_Uq8/s320/Three_Pigs.png" /></a><br><br>
<p align="justify">The possibilities are endless!</p><br>
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</div><!-- .entry-content --> kbehymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17058841172745163625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743346509161827415.post-78474918314693407612013-06-23T20:16:00.001-04:002014-01-01T22:26:29.024-05:00The Age of Innocence
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<p align="justify"><i>“Not to understand the doer is to have no certain knowledge of what has been done, or why it was undertaken”</i> – Philip Wylie, <i>The Disappearance</i>
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<p align="justify">In the last chapter<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">Warning! I am about to spoil the ending of a book published in 1920!</span> of Edith Wharton’s <i>The Age of Innocence</i> 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:
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<p align="justify"><i>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."<br><br>
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.<br><br>
"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.<br><br>
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.
<br><br>At that, as if it had been the signal he waited for, Newland Archer got up slowly and walked back alone to his hotel.</i>
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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 (<i>The American</i>) and Isabel Archer (<i>The Portrait of a Lady</i><sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">Discussed in depth <a href="http://writingboutreading.blogspot.com/2013/04/my-protagonist-has-husband-and-she_29.html">here</a>.</span>). In fact, a character in <i>The Age of Innocence</i> says to Archer, “You’re like the pictures on the wall of a deserted house: ‘The Portrait of a Gentleman.’”.
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Wharton goes even further than referencing James’ work. In his wonderful examination of The Portrait of a Lady and its relation to Henry James’ life<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text"><i>Portrait of a Novel: Henry James and the Making of an American Masterpiece.</i></span>, Michael Gorra describes this heartbreaking story: <br><br><i> “[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.” </i><br><br> 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”<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">As described in Gorra's book.</span> as Colm Toibin in his fictionalized version of James’ life, <i>The Master</i>, 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.
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</div><!-- .entry-content --> kbehymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17058841172745163625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743346509161827415.post-55947919518245491812013-06-09T22:32:00.001-04:002013-06-09T22:36:09.823-04:00Notes
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<p align="justify">As I’ve previously mentioned <a href="http://writingboutreading.blogspot.com/2013/05/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-love.html">I am very particular about the appearance of my books</a>. 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.
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<p align="justify"><b>Standard</b><br>
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:
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/26391312@N08/9001835829/" title="002 by dtjunkie, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3803/9001835829_cffeb82769_c.jpg" width="582" height="800" alt="002"></a>
<p align="justify">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.
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<p align="justify"><b>Vocabulary Words</b><br> This doesn’t happen much, but this particular book of critical essays on the work of David Mitchell proved to be a doozy
<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">My handwriting sucks but yes that is the phrase "deleuzian rhizome" you see.</span>:
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/26391312@N08/9001834795/" title="003 by dtjunkie, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7409/9001834795_bb74369283_c.jpg" width="582" height="800" alt="003"></a>
<p align="justify">Oh, and speaking of David Mitchell...
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<p align="justify"><b>Keeping track of the connections in David Mitchell's books </b><sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">Very much deserving of its own category.</span> <br>One of these days I’m going to make a map-based graphic representation of this. One of these days.
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<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/26391312@N08/9001833245/" title="001 by dtjunkie, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2846/9001833245_c36c5b381a_c.jpg" width="582" height="800" alt="001"></a>
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</div><!-- .entry-content --> kbehymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17058841172745163625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743346509161827415.post-54611165230422140212013-06-02T22:41:00.001-04:002013-06-02T22:41:21.056-04:00Recommendations
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<p align="justify">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 <i>The Hunger Games</i> 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 <i>The Scarlet Letter</i><sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">Yes I'm speaking from personal experience. The mere mention of Nathaniel Hawthorne makes me break out into a cold sweat.</span>. 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 <i>Ender’s Game</i>? Or do you throw caution to the wind and recommend a book that you love? I once recommended <i>Cloud Atlas</i> to someone that unbeknownst to me had PTSD from an English 101 paper on <i>Moby Dick</i>. This person has stopped answering their phone and I think unfriended me on Facebook.
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<p align="justify">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?
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<p align="justify">Up first is <a href="https://twitter.com/biblioracle">John Warner, the Biblioracle</a>. 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:
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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: <i>Never Let Me Go</i> by Kazuo Ishiguro, <i>What I Talk About When I Talk About Running</i> by Haruki Murakami, <i>The Magician King</i> by Lev Grossman, <i>If on a Winter's Night a Traveler</i> by Italo Calvino, and <i>A Planet of Viruses</i> 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 stuff<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">Based 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.</span>. With only this information the Biblioracle, before I could even blink, recommended <i>Await Your Reply</i> by Dan Chaon.
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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. </p><br>
<p align="justify">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 like<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">Suck it Jonathon Franzen.</span>. This time I told him the last five fiction books that I had enjoyed: <i>number9dream</i> by David Mitchell, <i>Skippy Dies</i> by Paul Murray, <i>Dark Places</i> by Gillian Flynn, <i>The Fates Will Find Their Way</i> by Hannah Pittard, and <i>The Man in My Basement by Walter Mosley</i>.
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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. <i>So Much Pretty</i> 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 <i>Dark Places</i>. 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.
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Next up was a new service from a bookstore called <a href="http://www.riverrunbookstore.com/paperback-to-the-future">Paperback to the Future</a>. 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 <i>Cloud Atlas</i> by David Mitchell, <i>Replay</i> by Ken Grimwood, and <i>Skippy Dies</i> by Paul Murray), one book I read recently and loved (<i>The Way Through Doors</i> by Jesse Ball), and one book I read recently and hated (<i>Freedom</i> by Jonathan Franzen). After this exchange the employee sent me an email with a simple question: Burroughs, Bolano, or Calvino. Definitely Calvino, as <i>If on a Winter's Night a Traveler</i> is awesome and <i>Invisible Cities</i> has some of the most beautiful writing I’ve ever read<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">It also didn't hurt that I've never read anything by Burroughs or Bolano.</span>.
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About two weeks later <i>The Facts of Winter</i> 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's<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">Who also publish the awesome looking Grantland quarterlies.</span>. 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"<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">Obviously La Farge is the true author.</span>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 <i>Ghostwritten</i>, Calvino's <i>If on a Winter's Night a Traveler</i>, or Ball's <i>The Way Through Doors</i>. Overall this recommendation ended up somewhere between the two by Biblioracle.
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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.
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</div><!-- .entry-content --> kbehymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17058841172745163625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743346509161827415.post-86336375025441584932013-05-27T22:22:00.000-04:002013-05-27T22:26:08.623-04:00Tennis Anyone?
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<p align="justify">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.
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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.
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<p align="justify"><b>Start with Some History:</b><br>
I have two books that have "the Greatest Match Ever Played” in the title. The first, <i>Strokes of Genius: Federer, Nadal, and the Greatest Match Ever Played</i> 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 time<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">With 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.</span>) 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 <i>A Terrible Splendor: Three Extraordinary Men, A World Poised for War, and the Greatest Tennis Match Ever Played.</i> 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.<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">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!</span>
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<p align="justify"><b>Then get into a Player’s Head:</b><br>
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 <i>Open</i>. 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.
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<b>Then improve your own game:</b><br>
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 <i>Winning Ugly: Mental Warfare in Tennis--Lessons from a Master.</i> 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.
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</div><!-- .entry-content --> kbehymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17058841172745163625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743346509161827415.post-83307306077048206142013-05-27T20:59:00.000-04:002013-05-27T21:13:06.577-04:00On Practice
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<b>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.</b><sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">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.</span> </p><br>
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<i>“Genius can appear anywhere, but the origins of Carlsen's talent are particularly mysterious.”</i>
<a href="http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1950939,00.html">Time Magazine</a>
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<p align="justify">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.
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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”?<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text"> <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103109001267">Jia (2009)</a> for example.</span> 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.
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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 ceremony<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">Quotes in this paragraph are from<a href="http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1138936/3/index.htm"> this Sports Illustrated article</a> by Chris Ballard</span>. 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 moves<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">LeBron James made a trip to Olajuwon University two seasons ago and the <a href="http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/9109245/how-lebron-james-transformed-game-become-highly-efficient-scoring-machine">results speak for themselves</a></span>, adding yet another skill to his bag of tricks.
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The old joke goes something like this:<br>
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<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text"> <a href="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/blogs/freakonomics/pdf/DeliberatePractice%28PsychologicalReview%29.pdf">Erickson (1993)</a></span>. 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)<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">Yes that Lehrer. The <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/06/20/jonah-lehrer-s-self-plagiarism-scandal-rocks-the-new-yorker.html">self-plagiarizing</a>, <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/06/20/jonah-lehrer-s-self-plagiarism-scandal-rocks-the-new-yorker.html">Bob-Dylan quote fabricating</a>, 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.</span> 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<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text"> A quick Google search suggests Bohr did indeed make this statement. With Lehrer, you have to check.</span>: 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.
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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:
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<i>“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.”</i><sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">From that Chris Ballard article. No I ain't hyperlinking it again. Scroll up!</span>
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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: <i>“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.”</i>
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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 Grit<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text"><a href="http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~duckwort/images/Grit%20JPSP.pdf">Duckworth (2007)</a></span> and is the second key component of developing any skill, including creativity.
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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.
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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.
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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,<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">Off to a great start there bucko! This entry is turning into a manifesto!</span> and provides opportunities and encouragement for reader engagement. I hope you decide to stick around for the ride!
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</div><!-- .entry-content --> kbehymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17058841172745163625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743346509161827415.post-90175666750615185842013-05-19T20:00:00.001-04:002013-05-29T13:43:00.317-04:00So You Like The Hunger Games?
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About a year ago I finally gave in to the hype and ended up reading <i>The Hunger Games</i>. Though the prose didn't blow me away, I thought the book was well plotted and entertaining. If you enjoyed <i>The Hunger Games</i> but aren’t sure what to read next, here are some suggestions based on some opinions you may have had after finishing the series.
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<p align="justify"><b>I totally think Gogo Yubari would whip Katniss’ ass.</b>
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Me too. I mean she was <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9iIKn1Bl6c">thisclose</a> to taking care of the bride in Kill Bill. The actress who plays Yubari, Chiaki Kuriyama, is in the film version of <i>Battle Royale</i>, a novel by Koushun Takami which is basically the earlier, more violent, Japanese version of The Hunger Games.
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<p align="justify"><b>You know this whole forcing teenagers to kill each other is so distasteful. I wish they were volunteers or something.</b>
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Then you’ll want to read Stephen King’s <i>The Long Walk</i>, 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.
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<p align="justify"><b>I love all the blood and guts and even the forced participation is fun. But the age of the participants makes me feel bad.</b>
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<p align="justify">No worries I’ve got you covered. In fact, you can stay right here with Stephen King with another story in The Bachman Books, <i>The Running Man</i>. 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.
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<p align="justify"><b>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?</b>
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<p align="justify">Well I suggest you take a trip back to sophomore year and check out <i>Lord of the Flies</i> 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!
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<p align="justify"><b>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!</b>
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<p align="justify">Well there’s this obvious Hunger Games rip-off called <i>Avengers Arena</i> 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.
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<p align="justify"><b>NOOOOOOOOOOOO! Those dingbats killed my favorite character!</b>
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<p align="justify">Well then I have to recommend <i>Strikeforce Morituri</i>, a late 1980s Marvel comic book with the tagline: <i>We Who Are About to Die!</i>. 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.<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">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 <a href="http://writingboutreading.blogspot.com/2013/04/getting-jobbed.html">Thor jobs</a>.</span>
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<p align="justify"><b>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!</b>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS2sz6hJOUcRQCUnlBg8cODsbryLNkl8U3bfz1TFDG53ZZWVq6tXrVu_WxkMtVcetR16F1TjVYnHG0AeCVc5rW4QP2pr8EKqsHM5ZIvaUem9RJGKjuyeQaO7gjyKCf3XqkKy4b8YCtapg/s1600/dgame.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgS2sz6hJOUcRQCUnlBg8cODsbryLNkl8U3bfz1TFDG53ZZWVq6tXrVu_WxkMtVcetR16F1TjVYnHG0AeCVc5rW4QP2pr8EKqsHM5ZIvaUem9RJGKjuyeQaO7gjyKCf3XqkKy4b8YCtapg/s320/dgame.jpg" /></a>
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Then you have to check out <a href="http://fiction.eserver.org/short/the_most_dangerous_game.html">this short story</a> by Richard Connell called <i>The Most Dangerous Game</i> 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.
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<p align="justify"><b>Ya know I really don’t even like reading and barely got through <i>The Hunger Games</i>. Any TV Shows?</b>
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<p align="justify">Well in the ‘90s there was a TV show called <i>Sliders</i>, 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.<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">Like Quantum Leap but different worlds instead of different times.</span> 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.
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<p align="justify"><b>Whoops, that was my bad. I meant any TV shows not starring the fat kid from <i>Stand By Me</i>.</b>
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<p align="justify">Hey Jerry O’Connell is a stud muffin! You’ve gone too far! I’m out of here!
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</div><!-- .entry-content --> kbehymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17058841172745163625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743346509161827415.post-1381276839850391442013-05-16T19:15:00.002-04:002013-05-16T19:15:48.246-04:00The Wikipedia Hole
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<p align="justify">Yesterday I briefly alluded to falling into Wikipedia holes and I thought today I would describe the process visually. </p><br>
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/26391312@N08/8744886837/" title="Presentation1 by dtjunkie, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8271/8744886837_9f41c77b57_z.jpg" width="640" height="480" alt="Presentation1"></a>
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Where do you end up when you fall into a Wikipedia hole? Is it even possible to stay on task when reading Wikipedia articles?
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</div><!-- .entry-content --> kbehymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17058841172745163625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743346509161827415.post-7008298301507146422013-05-15T22:16:00.001-04:002013-05-15T22:20:16.235-04:00Falling Down the Rabbit Hole
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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 me<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text"><i>Out</i> by Natsuo Kirino, Volume 5 of <i>Grantland Quarterly</i>, and <i>20th Century Ghosts</i> by Joe Hill which for some reason I just can’t seem to finish.</span>. 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 <i>Wizards</i> 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 authors<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text"><a href="http://writingboutreading.blogspot.com/2013/04/its-not-you-its-me.html">We've since had a messy breakup.</a></span>, 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.
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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 <i>The Ruby Incomparable</i> 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?
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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 <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fG51nwQsfAA#t=1m03s">put an arrow through my heart</a><sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">Big Hair!</span>. I immediately hopped on Amazon and ordered the first book in the series, <i>In the Garden of Iden</i>, 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 <i>Sky Coyote</i>, sitting there on the shelf, the only Baker book in the store.
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I powered through <i>Sky Coyote</i> and found myself reading the 3rd book in the series, <i>Mendoza in Hollywood</i>. 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 <i>Intolerance</i>. Perhaps best known for <i>Birth of a Nation</i><sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">Which after watching you could see just how racist people were in 1915, even people like D.W. Griffith who didn’t think they were.</span>, Griffith’s <i>Intolerance</i> was a both a masterpiece and a disaster. After reading this chapter I had to see the film.
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxSH_tuTRd8qrHVZ-0WHYc04XWeEpMrH4B5jt8vtblSQM8qzvOv57fQwbGDOenQ43JhnLZMzRLEkvLeOky6AhjgrhHiVh-ZvWV8PWN5P0A7SEi2G2i32ZYVXOIyGvATotQAlPOLndp5fA/s1600/annex-griffith-d-w-intolerance_02.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxSH_tuTRd8qrHVZ-0WHYc04XWeEpMrH4B5jt8vtblSQM8qzvOv57fQwbGDOenQ43JhnLZMzRLEkvLeOky6AhjgrhHiVh-ZvWV8PWN5P0A7SEi2G2i32ZYVXOIyGvATotQAlPOLndp5fA/s320/annex-griffith-d-w-intolerance_02.jpg" /></a>
<p align="justify">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 <i>D. W. Griffith's Intolerance: Its Genesis and Its Vision by William M. Drew</i> 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 <i>Lillian Gish: The Movies, Mr. Griffith, and Me</i> and <i>Dark Lady of the Silents</i> by Miriam Cooper.
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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. <sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">Wikipedia hole: When you start off by looking up something work related like cognitive systems engineering and end up reading about shark attacks. </span>
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</div><!-- .entry-content --> kbehymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17058841172745163625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743346509161827415.post-29577535445238564442013-05-14T22:36:00.000-04:002013-05-14T22:36:04.181-04:00Authors as Musicians
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Today we look at the musical equivalents for some famous authors.
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh70pCOq7Pbz3cq2wIm_CT2WkC4iri-k_N2r4rcqIRCyTp1UuQ44tRVSk2IFBo3LmfNJgOr27vSL-N5dNiC6dkH_5Yf2bSY97v1o-6XlvhU_Z5J5iXlWD_gDDn_vwKp_vsGfwZShYKC8h8/s1600/nuge+osc.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh70pCOq7Pbz3cq2wIm_CT2WkC4iri-k_N2r4rcqIRCyTp1UuQ44tRVSk2IFBo3LmfNJgOr27vSL-N5dNiC6dkH_5Yf2bSY97v1o-6XlvhU_Z5J5iXlWD_gDDn_vwKp_vsGfwZShYKC8h8/s320/nuge+osc.png" /></a>
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<b>Stephen King – Ozzy Osbourne</b>: 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.
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEdue8e7RlGUJ9jr32yogYUT-aayDjPoZoipfheX5ZmCvAxll90Gx5hwTV-Zh3uYrN6u53k3bepi35auwDCTOQor-jvTz-mkmMoPZ89PFFuMh1bzaW1r5f8HvZA819SntqVwjlC1sTkng/s1600/nuge+osc.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEdue8e7RlGUJ9jr32yogYUT-aayDjPoZoipfheX5ZmCvAxll90Gx5hwTV-Zh3uYrN6u53k3bepi35auwDCTOQor-jvTz-mkmMoPZ89PFFuMh1bzaW1r5f8HvZA819SntqVwjlC1sTkng/s320/nuge+osc.png" /></a>
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<b>Dan Brown – Nickelback:</b> 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”.<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">Which was subsequently liked by 15 people.</span> Nickelback is just a band, <a href="http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7846322/taking-concert-doubleheader-creed-nickelback-world-most-hated-bands">as Chuck Klosterman points out</a>, 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.
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcoYCTTq0Mqce7KOXdy96MIIuzuxpgZaXkr58_-QIZk6Jwy2CZJm5FAetPO78M614vSu2oamOe-ilEwZN247SNdZCf3AG4yXdZnD-mRFlki3GYiKp2NtO-t_Zod6dMw1QuzHMxPq-W7Dw/s1600/nuge+osc.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcoYCTTq0Mqce7KOXdy96MIIuzuxpgZaXkr58_-QIZk6Jwy2CZJm5FAetPO78M614vSu2oamOe-ilEwZN247SNdZCf3AG4yXdZnD-mRFlki3GYiKp2NtO-t_Zod6dMw1QuzHMxPq-W7Dw/s320/nuge+osc.png" /></a>
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<b>Gillian Flynn – Halestorm</b>: 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 <i>Gone Girl</i> which <strike>is going to win</strike> should have won<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text"><a href="http://www.themorningnews.org/tob/the-orphan-masters-son-v-gone-girl.php">Gone Girl lost in the Zombie Round to The Orphan Master's Son</a>. Damn you Lev Grossman.</span> <a href="http://www.themorningnews.org/tob/">The Morning News Tournament of Books</a>. Here’s the lyrics to Halestorm’s I Miss the Misery:
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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!
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Boy does that sound like Nick and Amy’s relationship in <i>Gone Girl</i> or what?
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxzZsw4WxNo363kFAxK568A74A7isxro_cML41svbyqbec0ZCYkZCo6hwM6URVXT0dQD-pwA593JmlKluZ15k2j_lQxYwYvsj39kPIfLeZ46TRCxjVwwQHFuB3kOm6CI3qn5bYpFBjRkA/s1600/nuge+osc.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxzZsw4WxNo363kFAxK568A74A7isxro_cML41svbyqbec0ZCYkZCo6hwM6URVXT0dQD-pwA593JmlKluZ15k2j_lQxYwYvsj39kPIfLeZ46TRCxjVwwQHFuB3kOm6CI3qn5bYpFBjRkA/s320/nuge+osc.png" /></a>
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<b>Orson Scott Card – Ted Nugent</b>: Both achieved early success with big hits (<i>Ender’s Game</i> 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.
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</div><!-- .entry-content --> kbehymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17058841172745163625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743346509161827415.post-34877933203342876662013-05-13T20:48:00.002-04:002013-05-13T20:48:55.912-04:00Hidden Gems: Elementary Edition
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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.
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<p align="justify">Coville, the author of dozens of children and young adult books, is most well known for his <i>My Teacher is an Alien series</i>. 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 Tanleven<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">I mean cmon! What a great pun name! Nine Ten Eleven!</span> series.
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9JayHUzoZxeLxFCcqYDD2YjTsLcJBeIygR4TO7U4dYVTf8Kz2mxjuc6MhW-P0l_RLpHNKV1UjBbqXlFxIG-nCpFioScCdalMQQlgZiEPHc1LYVNQDtiTdE0ECyjdCQD8qfF8kaxFRh00/s1600/TheGhostInTheBigBrassBed.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9JayHUzoZxeLxFCcqYDD2YjTsLcJBeIygR4TO7U4dYVTf8Kz2mxjuc6MhW-P0l_RLpHNKV1UjBbqXlFxIG-nCpFioScCdalMQQlgZiEPHc1LYVNQDtiTdE0ECyjdCQD8qfF8kaxFRh00/s320/TheGhostInTheBigBrassBed.jpg" /></a>
<p align="justify">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, <i>The Ghost in the Third Row</i> and <i>The Ghost Wore Gray</i> are great, but the third book, <i>The Ghost in the Big Brass Bed</i> 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 <i>Early Harvest</i>:
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<p align="justify"><i>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.</i>
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<p align="justify">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 <i>Early Harvest</i>, 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, <i>The Ghost in the Big Brass Bed</i> is Coville’s masterpiece.
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</div><!-- .entry-content --> kbehymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17058841172745163625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743346509161827415.post-19993335667586274902013-05-12T15:23:00.001-04:002013-05-12T15:28:07.865-04:00Reading Pathways: Steven Johnson
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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.
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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 <i>Future Perfect</i> 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.
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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.<br><br><b>
Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic--and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World</b>
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<p align="justify">We’re starting off with a bang as this book is a page turner on par with the best thrillers and mystery novels. <i>Ghost Map</i> 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.
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<p align="justify">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?
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<p align="justify"><b>Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation</b>
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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 <i>“is not to sit around in glorious isolation and try to think big thoughts. The trick is to get more parts on the table”.</i> After reading this you should have plenty of tricks up your sleeve.
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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 <i>Game of Thrones</i> and before you know it you’ve just wasted an entire Saturday morning. Wasted? Mr. Johnson would beg to disagree.
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Everything Bad is Good For You: How Today’s Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter
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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 <i>Gilligan’s Island</i>. 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 <i>Lost</i> or <i>The Wire</i>, 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!
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</div><!-- .entry-content --> kbehymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17058841172745163625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743346509161827415.post-52978995421490791742013-05-09T19:09:00.002-04:002013-05-09T19:10:36.752-04:00Back into the Myst
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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.
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I don't remember when I first encountered <i>The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe</i> 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.
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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:
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/8WNh3THK-bc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
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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.
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvLl5Nstf2I7hwBHQEoT7RQudq99eRqQzrAV7ETiI2AWgjVwFXHq3cvVmeQbu4RObEdcNeUcj0mOpZazILYfzvADWexVZc8BXR4djqBN4-PAzyM_d0ndVBVQu-oYQQ2JbUI-wFYk4Bl-E/s1600/myst.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvLl5Nstf2I7hwBHQEoT7RQudq99eRqQzrAV7ETiI2AWgjVwFXHq3cvVmeQbu4RObEdcNeUcj0mOpZazILYfzvADWexVZc8BXR4djqBN4-PAzyM_d0ndVBVQu-oYQQ2JbUI-wFYk4Bl-E/s320/myst.png" /></a>
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It was so exciting because unlike most books<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">The 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.</span> 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.
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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.
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</div><!-- .entry-content --> kbehymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17058841172745163625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743346509161827415.post-72265395344132018522013-05-08T19:40:00.001-04:002013-05-08T19:42:16.051-04:00After the Masterpiece
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I recently watched an interview with former NBA player Charles Barkley on the eve of his 50th birthday
<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWVru3T0R_U">Sir Charles at 50</a></span>. One of the hardest things for Barkley was <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWVru3T0R_U&t=28m8s">coming to terms with how getting old impacted his athletic performance</a>. 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.</p><br>
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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<i> Carrie</i> 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 <i>The Stand</i> (published in 1978) or<i> It </i>(published in 1986) on top<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text"><a href="http://www.vulture.com/2012/04/ranking-all-62-stephen-king-books.html">Vulture.com ranks all 62 Stephen King Books</a></span>. 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 <i> To Kill a Mockingbird </i>received and thought, well no way in hell I can top this. Why bother? Better to leave then wanting more than leaving them disappointed.
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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 <i>Calvin and Hobbes</i> and hasn’t released anything since. He explains it in this way:
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<i>"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."</i>
<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text"><a href="http://www.cleveland.com/living/index.ssf/2010/02/bill_watterson_creator_of_belo.html">2010 Cleveland Plains Dealer Interview with Watterson</a></span>
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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?
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</div><!-- .entry-content --> kbehymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17058841172745163625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743346509161827415.post-14486496227999631202013-05-07T20:07:00.000-04:002013-05-12T15:34:58.990-04:00Pluto Got What It Deserved
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7ry31bPJPDPhNkfWokxrQBLqrt0geNENx3lxoxqU62jJ-ILQKvgiXoxGKmkjGmQphjxxgbKvapZrsXJj5P3yVNqUTtHeK560twOh7Q9TOvqPpADhiOW_V2LzrLL56DayMOhnkIBSA6OE/s1600/new-hubble-supercomputer-pictures_12678_600x450.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7ry31bPJPDPhNkfWokxrQBLqrt0geNENx3lxoxqU62jJ-ILQKvgiXoxGKmkjGmQphjxxgbKvapZrsXJj5P3yVNqUTtHeK560twOh7Q9TOvqPpADhiOW_V2LzrLL56DayMOhnkIBSA6OE/s320/new-hubble-supercomputer-pictures_12678_600x450.jpg" /></a><sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">This picture, taken by the Hubble telescope, is the best we have of Pluto until the <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/newhorizons/main/index.html">New Horizons</a> probe arrives in 2015.</span>
<p align="justify">My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas. In grade school I learned this mnemonic for remembering the nine planets in the solar system: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. If you didn’t pick it up at school you might have heard it in song form playing over the speakers at Chuck E Cheese.<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text"> My first job was working at Chuck E. Cheese. In addition to hearing the planet song 500 times a day, I also danced the Macarena in a rat suit for $4.50 an hour. I lasted about five weeks.</span> But something happened a few years ago to change this... in large part thanks to research by astronomer Mike Brown, Pluto was downgraded to a dwarf planet. When I heard about this I was sad and confused. How could Pluto no longer be a planet? What was next? Would the Pyramids no longer be considered an Ancient Wonder of the World? And how was it fair? How does indigo get to remain in the Roy G. Biv lineup but Pluto no longer gets to be a planet? I mean indigo doesn't even have a crayon in the rich kid 120 box of crayolas<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">Yes Yes indigo is there now. Evidently it was added in 2000 when someone noticed one of the 7 colors in the rainbow wasn't in the 120 color box. It wasn't there when I was a kid hot dammit! Boo indigo. Boo! Somebody sick Mike Brown on indigo!</span> but Pluto gets kicked out of the planet club? So when I saw that Mike Brown had written a book called <i>How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming</i> I knew I had to read it. I was ready to disagree vehemently with this Mike Brown and trash him for offing poor Pluto.</p><br>
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And then within the first 30 pages I agreed 100% with him. Pluto had it coming. Did you know in the 1800s people decided there were 12 planets? It all happened when astronomers detected the largest asteroids in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. These objects were first classified as planets. It turns out they were just the largest objects in the asteroid belt. Similarly, it turns out Pluto is just one of the largest objects in the Kuiper belt, a bunch of objects orbiting the sun out past Neptune. Pluto just doesn't cut it as a planet, and so Brown teaches us a new hilarious (but not particularly accurate) mnemonic device: Mean Very Evil Men Just Shortened Up Nature.
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Brown's description of his search for a new planet in the solar system was fascinating and definitely a page turner. I really do need to start looking at the night sky more and will be busting out the binoculars as soon as we get a new moon. I also enjoyed the discussion of how his personal family life impacted his professional life. His story of how his daughter thanked him after he turned the moon back on (it had gone behind a cloud) was very touching.
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</div><!-- .entry-content --> kbehymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17058841172745163625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743346509161827415.post-6147465137435916892013-05-06T19:35:00.002-04:002013-05-06T19:35:37.498-04:00How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Book Embosser
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I am particular about my books. Actually, that is a pretty big understatement. I am VERY particular about my books. If you are the kind of person who bends the cover backward, leaves the book open and face-down, or dogears pages for bookmarks I don’t think we can be friends. In fact, I like my books to look like I haven’t actually read them. Every time I drop a book I gasp in horror, frantically searching and fretting over every spine crease or corner scuff. I am on a constant alert for wet surfaces, small children, and careless adults<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">Such as my beautiful wife, a chronic destroyer of books.</span>.
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I loathe lending books to people because I know that they do not value a book’s appearance like I do, but I love sharing books I think other people will love. To solve this conundrum, for certain books (like Ken Grimwood’s <i>Replay</i>), I have my own pristine copy and a lending copy (usually purchased in already poor condition from a used book store). I also cannot stand it when people write notes in books or highlight passages but I love taking notes. Instead of defacing my precious books, I keep paper with me while reading and take notes separately and tuck the notes into the book when I am finished reading.
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And yet... I use a book embosser that stamps my name and initials into each book I read. It would seem that an embosser should horrify me. I think it sort of did when I received it many years ago as a birthday present. I know it certainly horrifies book collectors who are always searching for pristine 1st editions. I thought for sure I was going to end up just like them. I wanted a library filled with books in perfect condition. But then I came across this:
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUTD_ahd7VlS7fUTmJqGA_dl87vZOqwTL1nVSIb_6uqr5S-w81n0IbnsxCCCdz4S0Gqav3xlb-6PoG0jY1kI0grQwD9h-beYzyx3x4_kuoNPoSXV-TULxspP8Br2rV01_tO7Z0_BltL78/s1600/Untitled.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUTD_ahd7VlS7fUTmJqGA_dl87vZOqwTL1nVSIb_6uqr5S-w81n0IbnsxCCCdz4S0Gqav3xlb-6PoG0jY1kI0grQwD9h-beYzyx3x4_kuoNPoSXV-TULxspP8Br2rV01_tO7Z0_BltL78/s320/Untitled.png" /></a>
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I remembered how excited I was as a kid when I got those labels. I think the minute I opened them I ran to <i>The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe</i>, my favorite book at the time, and stuck the label in there as fast as possible. 15 years later seeing that label brought back a flood of great memories and it made me think about how cool it was when I would check out books from the library as a kid and see the names of other people who had also checked it out in the back. “Wow! Look at the cool older kid who read the same book as me!”.
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So despite my obsession with keeping books in perfect condition I decided to emboss them anyways. It comes in handy when I’ve lent a book to a friend and they forget (“Hey isn’t that my book on your shelf over there” “No I don’t think so” “Oh really let’s look... well look at that!) or when I am trying to remember if I ever got around to reading a book or not (I always stamp them when I finish them). But really what it boils down to is I hope that some day, when I’m freshly dead in the ground, and my family has the arduous task of figuring out what to do with my thousands of books, I hope they keep a couple for themselves. And when they open up that book they’ll see ole Grandpa’s name in it and maybe (hopefully!) have some of their own memories kick in.
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</div><!-- .entry-content --> kbehymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17058841172745163625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743346509161827415.post-68534829529259853692013-05-05T20:02:00.002-04:002013-05-05T20:06:56.789-04:00On Books That If You Had More Than One Life You Would Certainly Also Read But Unfortunately Your Days Are Numbered1
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<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">Not to be confused with Books You Haven’t Read, Books You Needn’t Read, Books Made for Purposes Other Than Reading, Books Read Even Before You Open Them Since They Belong to the Category of Books Read Before Being Written, Books You Mean to Read But There Are Others You Must Read First, Books Too Expensive Now and You’ll Wait ‘Til They’re Remaindered, Books ditto When They Come Out in Paperback, Books You Can Borrow from Somebody, Books That Everybody’s Read So It’s As If You Had Read Them, Too, Books You’ve Been Planning to Read for Ages, Books You’ve Been Hunting for Years Without Success, Books Dealing with Something You’re Working on at the Moment, Books You Want to Own So They’ll Be Handy Just in Case, Books You Could Put Aside Maybe to Read This Summer, Books You Need to Go with Other Books on Your Shelves, Books That Fill You with Sudden Inexplicable Curiosity, Not Easily Justified, Books Read Long Ago Which It’s Now Time to Re-read, or Books You’ve Always Pretended to Have Read and Now It’s Time to Sit Down and Really Read Them</span>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhntYXWsZ7G5A6pfQF1e7JP-2gdSObzFguOdR6X_qUX2j2YOu5vdyGVMSJM9Rsjvan9VeWkENkhS9a1rIA3HnbRryypnM9zpaqVAUyheOEY6rr3Yb48tJDoi7XMDZh6w7QlXiBDqPIyNTA/s1600/ifonawintersnight.gif" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhntYXWsZ7G5A6pfQF1e7JP-2gdSObzFguOdR6X_qUX2j2YOu5vdyGVMSJM9Rsjvan9VeWkENkhS9a1rIA3HnbRryypnM9zpaqVAUyheOEY6rr3Yb48tJDoi7XMDZh6w7QlXiBDqPIyNTA/s320/ifonawintersnight.gif" /></a>
<p align="justify">Italo Calvino's <i>If on a winter's night a traveler</i> has a great description of the conflicting emotions a booklover feels when they walk into a bookstore (see footnote 1) which boils down to a simple depressing fact: so many books so little time. It boggles my mind that at some point in the not so distant past it was possible to have read every book ever published. Nowadays you probably couldn’t read all the books published in a single month. With almost infinite possibilities, I sometimes find it almost paralyzing trying to decide what book to read next. Should I finally read the classic I've been putting off or should I read the new bestseller everyone is raving about? What about the earlier work of an author whose third book was awesome? How can I decide when there are so many choices and my days are numbered?!?!?
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I spend way too much time thinking about this problem. I’m 32 years old. All my grandparents died before they made it to 75 so I’ll be fighting genetics to make it past 80, but let’s be optimistic and assume I have another 50 years to read. In the last five years I’ve averaged about 36 books a year. That means I’ll probably only read 1800 more books in my life. That’s all I have left! I can’t just willy nilly read whatever book strikes my fancy can I? But I do. I read a <a href="http://bookriot.com/2013/03/06/genre-kryptonite-badass-female-revenge-thrillers/">review of thrillers on Book Riot</a> recently and the next day <i>Out</i> by Natsuo Kirino arrived at my door. Is this really the best method for optimizing the 1800 books I have left? What if I never get to <i>Middlemarch</i> or <i>Infinite Jest</i> or <i>Moby Dick</i> or anything by Jane Austen, Vladimir Nabokov, Ernest Hemmingway, Salman Rushdie, or James Joyce?
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Does it make sense to go deep on authors or should I just stay shallow and read the one masterpiece? I really loved David Mitchell’s <i>Cloud Atlas</i>, but if I had stopped there I never would have discovered the even better (in my opinion) <i>number9dream</i>. <i>A Visit from the Goon Squad</i> is one of my favorite novels but I’ve never read anything else by Egan. Should I? Looking back it seems like a waste to have read all those not even written by Tom Clancy Op Center novels in my youth. How do I avoid making similar mistakes in the future?
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And what do I do about recommendations? I loved Laura Miller’s <i>The Magician’s Book</i>, but I absolutely loathed <i>In the Woods</i>, by Tana French which Miller wholeheartedly recommended. I’m very happy I gave into the peer pressure to read the Harry Potter books but I wish I would have avoided <i>The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo</i> and <i>The Hunger Games</i>. Should I finally give in to popular demand and read <i>Ready Player One</i> which many different people have recommended to me? I DON’T KNOW!
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I can't even think about re-reading books. Whenever someone tells me they've read one book twenty different times I want to scream: "What? You re-read that book every year? YOU FOOL! Don’t you know you're dying? Your days are numbered!" I know some people hate variety. For example, I know a couple who fly to Florida every few months and immediately head to a Cracker Barrel. But I just don't get it. Why wouldn’t you try something different? What are you really going to get out of reading <i>Angels and Demons</i> for the 6th time?
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Am I the only crazy person out there who thinks about this? How do you decide what book to read next? Do you re-read books? How should I allot my final 1800 books? Help!
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</div><!-- .entry-content --> kbehymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17058841172745163625noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743346509161827415.post-17247800909019840032013-05-02T19:48:00.000-04:002013-05-02T19:50:34.086-04:00Uncovered
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Recently I finished reading Natsuo Kirino’s <i>Out</i><sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">In this book a Japanese housewife strangles her no good abusive husband and enlists her co-workers to help her dispose of the body. Absolutely crazy and really disturbing hijinks ensue.</span> and as I was putting it on the huge stack of books I don’t have bookcases for, I noticed Sebastian Junger’s <i>War</i><sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">A very good book about American Soldiers in Afghanistan, by the same guy responsible for the documentary <i>Restrepo</i>.</span> sitting there. I did a triple take. Take a look:
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUMPkGGD4xG_OvAfl1HhM-QWDIghctUnlzgdwwM5A-RINT0VBsFc-LH382RHc2PlEcfc0iZZ4yxMbZ2taOxK1Q5HsVtLinlc_pqvhBcQXf7vmi3Y4F6XlTg7SYo4gBocLBGEImfw7uimw/s1600/Untitled.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUMPkGGD4xG_OvAfl1HhM-QWDIghctUnlzgdwwM5A-RINT0VBsFc-LH382RHc2PlEcfc0iZZ4yxMbZ2taOxK1Q5HsVtLinlc_pqvhBcQXf7vmi3Y4F6XlTg7SYo4gBocLBGEImfw7uimw/s320/Untitled.png" /></a><br>
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Is that the exact same cover or what? This warranted further investigation. According to <i>War’s</i> jacket it was designed by someone or something named "Flag". Well that was informative. What the hell is Flag? Is it a company or a group of people? Is it a superstar of the book cover design industry who is so awesome they only need a single name moniker? Is Flag the Madonna or Ronaldo of book design? A Google search proved fruitless.
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<i>Out</i> on the other hand was designed by a guy named John Gall. Gall has <a href="http://johngall.blogspot.com/">a blog,</a> and a <a href="http://www.johngalldesign.com/">website</a>. Just looking at the website you can tell that the guy <a href="http://www.johngalldesign.com/Map-and-Territory">loves</a> <a href="http://www.johngalldesign.com/C">half</a> <a href="http://www.johngalldesign.com/Murakami"> faces</a>. So I have to wonder… is John Gall also Flag? Did Flag copy John Gall? Is this just a freaky coincidence? Regardless, Gall should add a sixth rule <a href="http://www.designrelated.com/inspiration/view/Karen/entry/2235/the-five-rules-of-book-cover-design-by-john-gall">to his book cover design rules</a>: When in doubt, go with the half face. Especially when you can <a href="http://bookcoverarchive.com/book/lolita">make everyone feel dirty</a>.
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</div><!-- .entry-content --> kbehymerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17058841172745163625noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7743346509161827415.post-69600869794753623072013-05-01T19:52:00.000-04:002013-05-01T19:52:01.054-04:00Gone Too Soon
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn9bY9RVXn0-ojOab_B_IwSNmQNeTHbxT-qYWti-fcEKDIwT63AgcujJ-4VhO9rhio5REdJv6g3rDkjiQ_0SSPo1rkn8lVyGCgWNIZvocsIrp0P22bJIyXVQgb5F_bV0rjR6mlgVHMT3Y/s1600/gone.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn9bY9RVXn0-ojOab_B_IwSNmQNeTHbxT-qYWti-fcEKDIwT63AgcujJ-4VhO9rhio5REdJv6g3rDkjiQ_0SSPo1rkn8lVyGCgWNIZvocsIrp0P22bJIyXVQgb5F_bV0rjR6mlgVHMT3Y/s320/gone.png" /></a>
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I love the anticipation of a new book by a favorite author. For me, nothing is better than when you see that tweet, blog post, or e-mail that finally provides a release date for that new novel you’ve been craving. I love knowing that despite my impatience David Mitchell is out there, somewhere, working on his next novel<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">Or his first <a href="http://www.theartsdesk.com/film/10-questions-writer-david-mitchell">opera.</a></span>. In contrast, one of the worst feelings in the world is when you know that a beloved author will never release another book; bad enough when it’s because the author retires (Bill Watterson) or passes away at an advanced age (Ray Bradbury), but it’s the worst when an author dies young. Here are three authors whose work I love and who I wish were still here.
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<p align="justify"><b>Joseph Garber</b>
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I first encountered Garber with the novel <i>Vertical Run</i> which to this day is probably the best thriller<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">Yes, yes it <a href="http://writingboutreading.blogspot.com/2013/04/on-genre.html">appears my hypocrisy knows no bounds.</a></span> I have ever read. The protagonist, Dave Elliot, shows up at the office on what appears to be a completely normal day, at least until his boss tries to kill him. When his boss fails, the next thing you know there’s a squad of trained killers locking down Dave’s building trying to finish the job. Luckily Dave’s former life as a member of Special Forces enables him to stay one step ahead of the bad guys as he tries to figure out why everyone is suddenly trying to kill him. The cover of my copy says “Soon to be a major motion picture”. I wish this were true because while reading I kept thinking what a great movie this book would make. I’ve read Garber’s other three books (<i>Ransom Money</i>, <i>In a Perfect State</i>, and <i>Whirlwind</i>) and they are good, if slightly less impressive than Vertical Run. Regardless, it is a tragically short back catalog as Garber died of a heart attack at age 61.
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<p align="justify"><b>Ken Grimwood</b>
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Whenever someone asks me for a book recommendation I inevitably turn to Grimwood’s <i>Replay</i>. I’ve probably recommended this book to over 20 very diverse in their reading habits people and I’ve yet to hear back anything negative. The quickest way to explain the plot of <i>Replay</i> is to compare it to the movie Groundhog Day, except instead of living the same day over and over you get to live your life over and over. Jeff Winston is 43 when he suffers a heart attack and dies. He wakes up and he is 18 again, with all his memories from his previous life intact. Haven’t we all at some point wished we knew at 18 what we know now? So boy it is fun watching Jeff get this chance and seeing how he chooses to live each new life. Sadly, Grimwood himself died of a heart attack while supposedly working on a sequel to <i>Replay</i>. He has written five other novels of which I have read <i>Breakthrough</i> (which is also a great book if not as outstanding as <i>Replay</i>).
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<p align="justify"><b>Kage Baker</b>
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Unlike Grimwood and Garber, Baker was a very prolific writer, with 15 or so novels in addition to many novellas and short stories. I absolutely love Baker’s The Company series, in which a group of people in the future develop immortal cyborgs and send them back in time to preserve valuable items that are lost (think of a plant that can cure cancer that became extinct in 1430 or one of Diego Velazquez’ paintings lost in a fire in 1734). The cyborgs facilitate the acquisition of these items through undercover interaction with the mortals. Baker’s fantasy series (starting with <i>The Anvil of the World</i>) is also great and though most people know her from The Company books I think The Anvil of the World stories are, if missing the same highs The Company Books hit, more consistent. Baker, with her description of the 1916 silent film Intolerance<sup></sup><span class="footnote-text">What director D.W. Griffith was able to accomplish with 1916 technology is absolutely stunning. Seriously go <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZsFXwe-lIo">check it out.</a></span><i> Mendoza in Hollywood</i>, is also responsible for getting me interested in the silent film era. Unfortunately Baker died of uterine cancer at the age of 57.
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<p align="justify">So what about you? What other authors have died too soon?</p><br>
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