Nia's Book #10: This one makes up for the audio book

For book club #1, I read The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. It was quite long, but quite good.

Due to an overload of other work, it took me forever to read this thing, but during the times that I had available, I was thoroughly engrossed. Granted, I was a little annoyed at the information that was presented as requiring extensive research, since I knew a lot about Vlad Dracula from a vampire phase I went through in my younger days. Although, I was rather surprised to learn that, in the end, he was just an evil librarian.

Sometimes, the style got a little convoluted, because it was presented largely in the form of letters and notes from the 3 main historians involved. After a while, it got hard for me to keep track of who was going through some bizarre research-related ordeal. I guess it is in the style of the original Dracula, but I didn't really like that book. It revealed the details in the right way, but it still could have been done a little bit more coherantly.

All in all, I really liked the book, it was very interesting.

Nia's Book #9: Ok, ok, so it was an audio book...

A few weeks ago, I listened to A Cook's Tour: In Search of the Perfect Meal by Anthony Bourdain while at work. It was loaned to me by a coworker who once told me "I'd eat a dog's ass if it was prepared well," and in that sense I feel he shared a lot with Anthony.

Basically, Anthony spent some time traveling around the world (particularly focusing on Asian countries), eating local cuisine in 4-star restaurants, hovels, and everything in between. He dealt with the western disconnect between eating meat and realizing how you get meat, and took on vegetarians at every turn. Speaking as someone who doesn't eat any meat that remotely indicates that it was once an animal (this weekend, facing the scales on a salmon fillet I was cooking almost made me throw the whole thing away), I felt that I would have resorted to full-on veganism within a couple hours of this journey. However, Anthony was there for the whole experience, from the slaughter of whatever was on the menu to the usually delicious end.

Something that he pointed out, and I have often noticed is the predominance of foods in Asia that are intended to "make you strong like bull." I have often wondered over the apparently-urgent need to do something for their wangs (hehe, I typed "wang"). There is no real explanation, just more food for thought.

The most extreme experience he had, from my perspective, was eating the still-beating heart of a cobra. That was one of those "strong like bull" dishes. Don't worry, though, the rest of the snake was not wasted. Everything was eaten, including the bones.

In summary, I felt a little ill while listening to it, but it was quite fascinating and worthwhile. I have the MP3s if anyone is interested in the experience.

I am currently reading a very long book for my book club. I hope to have it done next week, otherwise there will be a fine. Wish me luck.

Nia's Book #8: Hey, haven't I read this review already?

And the answer is a resounding "yes, now stop bitching about it!" Tommy's Tale by Alan Cumming was originally reviewed by WWB&B's own extreme reader Skippity Dee-bop about a month ago, and after finding out the my one true love, Alan Cumming (shut up about me and the gay boys), has written a book, I was so enthralled that she brought it in so I could share in the drug addled joy of it all.

As I just stated, most of this book is pure, drug-induced glee. It also includes a lot of good and amusing snogging and shagging. I really enjoyed the bond that our dear, confused Tommy shared with his flatmates. It made me long for the days of living with great friends and sharing in traditions and jokes that nobody else can possibly understand, because they probably wouldn't want to. Not to mention the annotated photographs and magazine ads covering our bathroom walls and elaborate written and practical tests that we put eachother's boyfriends through.

But I digress.


Tommy's fairy tale laced descent into drugs and sex is a fantastic read, but it really did seem like the ending was a total cop-out. Like he had just made everything more and more complicated, overwhelming, and horrible, and then he couldn't figure out how to write Tommy out of this hole in a proper fashion, so he just skipped over all that stuff and made everything better. A very disappointing ending to an otherwise worthwhile book.

Perhaps we should try writing "The true ending to Tommy's Tale"? It would probably help restore my faith in vice.

Nia's Book #7: Fairy Tales for the Over Disney-fied

I finally got my hands on Black Swan, White Raven edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, so I am very, very happy! They have edited 4 (at least) other collections of fairy tales like this, and I was delighted to find that this one measured up to my memories of the other 4 (especially considering some recent disappointments with sequels).

Basically, the idea for these books was to have current fantasy writers reimagine fairy tales, which have been sanitized and Disney-fied for hundreds of years. There are occasional stories contained in the book that are friendly to everyone, but the majority of these fairy tales are not for kids, whether due to violence, sex, or general "adult themes."

This particular collection seems to have more modern versions of the tales than I recalled from the other collections, but it has been years since I read them (this one is out of print, and I had a hard time finding a copy). There were only a couple of poems included, which was good, because those usually are disappointments.

Among my favorite stories were:

"Three Dwarves and 2000 Maniacs" - A version of Cinderella involving a somewhat unstable high school geek turned millionaire psychotropic drug creator, his slightly masochistic lady love, an asylum full of the last 2000 crazy people in the world, gorey movies, and a treatment to end all treatments. Pure, demented awesomeness.

"The Reverend's Wife" - Based on a folk tale that I don't know, but very amusing. A couple of neglected wives back in the times of yore (sometime in the past, I don't know when) scheme to get what they want from eachother's husbands. Kinda sexy. The funny bits are due to the total ignorance these guys have in relation to the female reproductive system and the kind of BS they will believe to rationalize cheating on their wives.

"True Thomas" - Based on a poem I don't know and an account of a 13th century girl being taken away by fairies. Very interesting. Thomas happens upon some fairies and is taken in by their queen after his body has been subjected to a number of procedures to enhance his ability to understand their non-verbal Language. Whe he returns to the human world (150 years later), he has amazing abilities to see the truth of people. It has interesting paralells to modern-day alien abduction stories.

"The True Story" - The truth of the Snow White story, from the perspective of the evil stepmother. Vastly different from any version I have heard before, but I really liked it. Probably because there is finally a mother figure in a fairy tale who seems to have a child's best interests in mind. It is a nice change of pace.

That's all for this one. Vacation time is good, I can read again. I will plan to bring this in for Skippity on Thursday, I hope you like it, too! And if you do, I have the other 4 books on my shelf.

Nia's Book #6 - It's a work thing

Thanks to the kindness of Skippity, Nattie, and Stinky, I am allowed to count the 68 page document of Acceptance Test Cases written by our 3rd party programmers that I had to read on Friday as a book. Whee!

My review: It sucked. I nodded off at least 3 times that morning, and I would never ever read this for any other reason. The really sad thing is that this is at least the second time that I have had to read this crap. Yeah. I had to review these specifications for a project, because it is being transferred to a new version of the technology, and I have to make sure the specifications are accurate to how the site actually works. Argh!!

Please, for your own sake, don't read the Acceptance Test Cases for NAI!! They are crap.

I am also reading a good book of reimagined fairy tales. I hope to be able to report on those soon.

Nia's book #5: Elphaba should be allowed to rest in peace

It took me over 2 weeks to read this book (I actually started it before I read The Glass Castle), but as you may be able to guess, I had a hard time reading it. And no, it wasn't because of the big words. So, I read Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire, after having read his other 4 books, and I was sorely disappointed.

Liir was raised by Elphaba (the Wicked Witch of the West, to those unfamiliar with Wicked, his earlier novel), but throughout the book, he is not sure if he is actually her son or not. Generally, I found him to be an unlikable character, whining that he can't be of any use because he lost her flying broom. He is generally lame and ineffectual and I had no sympathy for him.

Even Liir's savior, Candle, was boring and entirely unsympathetic. Towards the end, she was hugely pregnant, had been abandoned in a run-down barn for 6 months, and was endlessly imposed upon by a tribe that suddenly appeared in the farmyard, and it was still written in a way that I really didn't feel bad for her. I guess I just couldn't care about these characters at all.

Despite the fact that Elphaba met her final bucket of water before this book even began, she played a significant role in this book. The poor, poor girl, hadn't she suffered enough? And the final reveal, the secret of her connection to the bland Liir (couldn't even be spiced up by a gay relationship, jeez) simply elicited a "well, duh" from me. Very big disappointment, since I enjoyed the story of her life so much.

I think that at least a portion of the problem I had with this book was due to the fact that it had been so long since I had read the original Wicked, having come out 10 years ago. In so many ways, I felt like I was totally missing something.

By the way, the anti-dragon message in the book hurt me deeply. It is just wrong. Some of my best friends are dragons, and none of them behave in any way like the way they are portrayed in the book.

Disappointment all around.

By Popular Request....

Ok, it was just Nattie Hattie. Here's the Under-30 essay I wrote on the topic of "History of blogging: 2000 - 2020":

Roots of the Modern Internet: The Blog Revolution

The Blog Revolution was one of the most significant technological events at the turn of the millennium. Though the actual events occurred in the opening years of the 21st century, its roots go much deeper than that.

In fact, the beginnings of this revolution go back to the 20th century when the people were increasingly turning to the internet to get their information and entertainment. During that time, such services as Tripod and AOL Hometown started appearing, offering free web space and user-friendly tools for creating basic homepages. This allowed even low-level users without any HTML knowledge to have the opportunity to mark their own little corner of cyberspace.

Soon, most of the regular internet users had their very own poorly-designed homepages filled with interesting facts about themselves, animated GIFs, hit counters, and guest books. The main problem with these homepage services is that though they made it much easier to create HTML pages without ever touching actual HTML code, it still wasn't easy enough. These homepages were usually fairly unappealing aesthetically, and when a page was created it was still just a flat page, no real opportunity for interacting with others through the page.

Then, in the closing years of the millennium, a small community of what were eventually labeled "weblogs" ("blogs"), began to spring up among some of the more technically-savvy web enthusiasts. Like the higher-end personal websites that the followers of the homepage craze wanted to emulate, these original bloggers set up their own sites, updating them regularly either directly by HTML code or via their own interface.

As this community grew, new tools for easily starting and running a blog started appearing, including Blogger, and LiveJournal. The original form for blogs was focused more on cataloging content found elsewhere on the web, then giving it some context, additional information, or simply pithy commentary. This evolved as people started creating original content with blogging tools.

Blogging tools created a homepage that was easy to update, which allowed for regular (daily, hourly, constant) updates by multiple users. Many blogging tools also had "comment" features built in, which produced something that was an integration of the homepage and guestbook concepts, allowing the blog's readers to make comments on individual posts. That increased the interactivity of the site and allowed for more collaboration.

The revolution grew users were attracted to the increasingly simple tools for updating their blogs. They could make updates from any computer via email, and even could create moblogs from their mobile phones and PDAs. This ability to add new content from any location, and nearly any electronic device caused blogs to explode across the internet. Users started maintaining multiple blogs, and were writing about anything, from the minutia of daily life, to hobbies, to global politics.

As the Blog Revolution came to a peak around 2006, mainstream media started to take notice of the would-be reporters and authors that the blogging community had created. Blogging was an official part of news networks' 24/7 coverage of the party conventions before the 2004 US election. Bloggers who gained a following and sparked the interest of mainstream media started getting book deals, which drew more wanna-be writers into the fray.

Around 2009, the Blog Revolution itself was effectively over. Blogs had so saturated people's lives that "check out my blog, I just wrote about that" became an acceptable response in social situations to the question "how are you?" Thus began the Blog Reconstruction period of technological history. During this time, the blogging technology and some of its related outgrowths, like RSS feeds, podcasts, and video podcasts, had spread far beyond the hands of web enthusiasts, and into the standard repertoire of traditional media outlets and corporations.

During the reconstruction phase, everything had a blog attached to it. Labels on products listed the blogs of the product developers and marketers responsible for it. Consumers could read all the details of how the product was developed and learn funny things that happened at 3 a.m. when on a deadline for completing the project.

When the blogs on the web had grown so numerous that they were choking all of the other content, a movement of people realized that it was unnecessary for everyone to have a blog about everything and it lead to an overload of information. They banded together and formed large, collaborative communities centered on a single portal for information.

These community logs (or "clogs") had members from across the globe who shared news and information, making them a more reliable and balanced source of information than traditional media. Eventually, the old mode of local news broadcasts and papers became obsolete, because more interactions were based on clogs, not geography.

One by one, the 24-hour news networks shut down and the talking heads of the evening news disappeared, as people turned to their new community for information. Television itself was eventually abandoned completely, in favor of the daily human drama that played across the clogs. Podcasts and video podcasts became the new entertainment and news sources.

The influence of celebrities and political figures from the physical world waned as the individual gained power in the clogs. A single person sending out the right message at the right time could start a revolution; of thinking and ideals on the clogs or of people and guns in the physical world.

Strengthening the connection between the physical world and the clogs, and breaking political and social ties based solely on geographic location were the beginning steps towards the world we live in now. Now, the "old guard" of the clogs that remain after the Clog Revolution govern the people. With the reapplication of another technology from the time period of the blogs, virtual reality, life in the physical world and wired world have been blended together into a single experience, the true reality.

Book #4: If These Walls Could Talk...

This book is one I actually read in one night (Tuesday, been too busy to blog this week). One really long night. Hooray for insomnia!

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is a memoir about her very dysfunctional family. I have gathered that Jeannette is currently a correspondent for MSNBC.com, so the comfort throughout all of this insanity is that you know she gets out alright and is able to do well for herself, in spite of the bizarre circumstances of her upbringing.

Generally, I am not a fan of memoirs, but this kept me engrossed from beginning to end. I think it was so fascinating because I kept wondering "how can things get any worse than this?", while knowing all the time that there really was no great revelation in store where Jeannette's parents realized they were destroying their children's lives and finally, everyone would be able to live happily ever after in a nice desert home. Yeah, I know that I said it is a foregone conclusion that Jeannette ends up ok, but the first chapter of the book begins with Jeannette on her way to some fancy party in NYC, and looking out a cab window to see her mother rooting around in the trash. Basically, that says to me that her parents are not going to be improving their (or their children's) situation any time soon.

The beginning years of Jeannette's life were kind of a wonderful adventure for her. Her family moved from place to place, occasionally living outside in the desert, occasionally sneaking out of their current homes in the middle of the night to avoid the "Gestapo" or whatever other names her parents had for people they owed money to. They made plans to build a glass castle in the desert, but first their father needed to finish building the Prospector (a machine that would help him mine for gold) or whatever other money-making idea he had at the time. Her father taught Jeannette and her siblings (2 sisters, 1 brother) about the wonders of mathematics, physics, and reading at very young ages, and in spite of occasionally catching on fire, falling out of moving cars in the middle of nowhere, or taking multi-state trips in the back of a U-Haul, things were relatively happy for the family.

As the years wore on, her father's inability to hold a job and her mother's unwillingness to make use of her teaching degree (because she was going to be an artist) began to put the children into increasingly dangerous situations. Jeannette was sexually victimized at least 3 times in the book. When Jeannette tried to talk to her mother about it, she asked if Jeannette was ok, and said she knew she had raised her to be stronger than to be bothered by being groped by her uncle while he masturbated. Then she said "that poor man, he is so lonely". That kind of pissed me off. Her parents were also angry that the children objected when they discovered their grandmother molesting the brother, because that made it harder for them to keep living off of her (highly questionable) good will. Up until that point in the book, Jeanette's parents were weird, but at the very least, they were protective of their children. After that, all bets were off, and they lost every ounce of sympathy I had for them.

Her father descended into drinking, and repeatedly stole money from the family. Once, he even had Jeannette dress up real nice and took her down to the pool hall to flirt with some of the men he was trying to hustle. Then he sent her upstairs with one, who tried to have sex with her (she was in her mid-teens), and on the way home, her father compared her experience to being taught to swim by being thrown into the middle of a deep spring (his actual method, by the way).

From time to time, her mother would take up a teaching job, always with the help of her children to get all of the work and grading done. However, once she got sick enough of it (a school year or less), she would quit, declaring that she had spent all of her life doing things for other people, and it was time that she did something for herself for a change. Then she would spend a few years devoted to making her art career take off in whatever small, mining town they happened to be living in at the time.

Yeah, as I said, of course things turned out well for Jeannette (and most of her siblings, too), but through no help from their parents. They end up living in New York, the kids in apartments, going to school or with jobs, and their parents lived on the streets, refusing any help from their kids and declaring that they were finally living the life they wanted.

One of the many things in this book that disturbed me was that the whole time, her family didn't have to live like that. They had many ways that could have allowed them to live a life they way they wanted, but with such luxuries as non-maggoty food and houses that you didn't occasionally fall through the floor of.

My thoughts: I recommend this book. She managed to write it in a way that was honest and straightforward, and still packed an emotional punch for the reader. It didn't come off like a whiny "poor li'l ol' me" kind of story. She didn't vilify her parents to the level that I think they could have been because, in the end, she still loves them and wants to try to take care of them. As time progresses in the book, she goes from early childhood, where her life looks like an adventure, and her dad is really going to do everything he talks about to gradually recognizing the faults of her family and realizing that this isn't how they should live, to finally doing something to change it.

This was read for my book club, and it was the first book in a long time that I hadn't read previously and ended up liking.

Book #3: A touching romance

Ok, so who guessed that the book that I read that was later made into a movie with Helena Bonham Carter was Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk? Anyone? Aww, come on.

Anyway, I recently saw the movie for the first time. It has only been out for 6-7 years now, you know. I mean, I was aware of the phenomenon at the time of the movie's release. My best friend's teenage brother and his friends spent the next couple of years beating the crap out of eachother and trying to build things to bring the school down. I even knew the first 2 rules of fight club, but I figured that the whole thing was just another marketing ploy directed at angry, adolescent males without any other value. After seeing it, I felt that though I absolutely loved it, it probably would have connected on a more personal level if I had fewer X chromosomes. But I liked it enough to be interested in the book that started it, which I picked up on my recent "using up my holiday gift cards" shopping day.

So, on to the book. I think it added to the whole experience. It really expanded on Tyler and the Narrator's philosophy of destruction and clarified a few bits that I was kind of fuzzy on from the movie. In some ways, it was even more violent, because you got more of a description of the pain and injuries, and the ever-widening hole in the narrator's cheek. It kind of turned my stomach, and I had to read through it because I couldn't just look away and wait until the scene changed. So it ended up being a more intense experience in some ways. The story ended differently in the different tellings, and I think that I definately liked the movie ending better, as it gave more ambiguity to it. In the book, it felt a little trite and maybe a little like a twilight zone episode. Still worth the read, though.

You may be wondering why I describe this book as a romance in the title. In the afterward, Chuck discusses the aftermath of the book's publication and movie's release, and how other people described his book to him. Some of the the ideas were outlandish, but I thought it was interesting that he really only describes the book as a romance. I guess it just made me think of when a friend described the movie Unbreakable as a romance, too. In both cases, I have thought about it and come to the conclusion "huh, I guess you're right". My question is, though, were they envisioned that way from the start? It would be interesting to find out if he thought "Ok, so there are 2 people in love, but let's make one of them suicidal with a tendency for self-mutillation and the other have a friend who is shoving him towards hitting rock bottom and is hell-bent on destroying civilisation as we know it. Oh, and they should meet by pretending to have various horrible diseases and attending support groups for them. That sounds nice."

In summary: liked the book, want to watch the movie again.

Book #2 - Naked Barbie Torsos?

Ok, ok, so it isn't really called Naked Barbie Torsos, but I think that would be a pretty clever title, an homage to a friend I had in high school. But I digress.

What I actually read for my second book was Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris. Yeah, I realize that I ended 2005 with a Gaiman/Sedaris combo, but I really needed to read myself a path through the pile of books next to my bed. Also, I really like them both, so there. Stop trying to spoil my joy!!!

Anyway, I really enjoyed this book as well, it had more craziness with his family than the previous one I read. I especially liked the description of his oldest sister's home: "...the house itself had a way of aging things. Stand outside and you looked, if not young, then at least relatively carefree. Step indoors and you automatically put on twenty years and a 401(k) plan." In this book, we got to spend significant time with most of his family members and like whenever I visit my family, it made me think that though I like to visit, I don't know that my sanity could take it if I lived there.

We also get to learn about the gun laws around the US and the holiday traditions of various European countries that he has visited. I feel that the Christmas eve goodnight that Dutch children get is probably the most therapy-inducing: "Listen, you may want to pack a few of your things together before going to bed. The former bishop of Turkey will be coming along with 6 to 8 black men. They might put candy in your shoes, they might stuff you into a sack and take you to Spain, or they might just pretend to kick you. We don't know for sure, but we want you to be prepared." Ah, the holiday magic. It just fills the air.

He also has observed just how much his home in Tuscany looks like it could easily be occupied by a serial killer from a horror movie. Really, who hasn't thought that at one time or another?

Anyway, I'd recommend this book. 8 somethings out of 10 other things!

PS: Nope, no Gaiman or Sedaris for at least 1 book. Currently, I am reading a book that was later made into a major motion picture (because no book was ever made into a minor motion picture). Who can guess what book?

American Gods II: British and Caribbean Gods

So I have finished my first book for this experiment/resolution. As I have discussed in a couple of status reports, I read Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman.

I liked it very well, which wasn't surprising. As I mentioned in my previous post, I was a little annoyed that I saw the mid-story "twist" coming from around the time that Fat Charlie's mysterious brother, Spider, was mentioned. However, the more I think about it, the less I mind. It ended up being less important to the story as I got to know Fat Charlie and Spider, anyway.

The story is: Fat Charlie has an embarrassing father (anyone who has met my father and seen him dance knows that I empathize, deeply), Mr. Nancy, who dies in the first few pages of the book mid-Karaoki. To make matters worse, his last dying act as he reached out while falling from the stage was to rip the tube top off of a woman sitting next to the stage. But, really, it's how he would have wanted to go, anyway.

Fat Charlie (who was nicknamed that by his father at a young age, and is unable to remove the "Fat" from his name, no matter how much distance he puts between himself and his father) has been living in London, and returns to his native Florida for his father's funeral. While in Florida, he learns from an old neighbor that his father was a god (Anansi) and he has a brother he never knew about, named Spider. Fat Charlie doesn't meet Spider until he returns to London and, following his neighbor's advice, asks a spider to bring his brother by.

As you can well imagine, this was not a good choice for Charlie. Spider wreaks havoc on Fat Charlie's life, dating Charlie's oh-so-sweet fiancee (while she thinks Spider is Charlie), causing him to spend a night in jail due to suspicion of white collar crime at his workplace (an accurate assessment, but misplaced blame), and generally being a poor houseguest.

All-in-all, enjoyed the book greatly. It makes me want to go back and re-read American Gods, which I will have to do once the pile of books in my room goes down a little more. It also made me think about the parallels between this book and Neil's first adult novel, Neverwhere, a topic which I hope to discuss later, because now I am too enthralled in the tawdry details of a friend's new romance to elaborate.

Still well behind Skippity

I am now at over 2/3 through Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman. I am a little disappointed that I saw the mid-novel twist coming, but as that there is still plenty of story left I will not despair.

Neil has a great way of writing, describing the "pretending to be sick" voice that Anansi used in one of his stories as a "weenie, weedy, weaky" voice. As a Latin geek (different from a
Latin Greek) from way back, I giggled for a good couple of minutes over that.

Hopefully I will have a full report on the book tomorrow, when I intend to finish it. Tonight, however, I must pay attention to the cookies I am attempting to bake. I wonder how people like Cajun-style cookies.

Nia's Current Status

As of last night (round-bouts midnight-ish), I am about 1/3 of the way through my first book, Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman. It is a sequel (in a way, maybe more just "set in the same universe as") his previous novel, American Gods. At least once a chapter, I find myself thinking "I need to re-read American Gods," due to my previously-mentioned inability to remember anything for any reason.

All-in-all, I'm feeling on track. Except not enough alcohol so far this year. I'll need to rectify that.