It’s hard to believe I’m writing another best of the month post already. Where did the month go? Thanks everyone for coming by to my little site about books and reading. Or my somewhat amusing blog and books and bookish things. What does everyone think of that title? I kind of like it but I’m starting to wonder about it’s effectiveness. Feel free to suggest something else if you’re in a naming mood. Just don’t try and smash a champagne bottle over me.

Anyway, the best of the month! Let’s go.

The Stupidest Book Ever Written

I had no idea what I was going to post the morning I put this together but judging from it’s popularity I should have searched Google a little longer for the web’s worst reviews (but guess what the number one link for “Stupidest Book Ever Written” is now). Perhaps I’ll update it one day. And remember to check out the comments for Imani’s additions to the list. Read The Stupidest Book Ever Written »

Reading Like It’s Important

They say a sharp title is important to a post’s success and a reader told me this was a good one. Maybe. Or maybe you’re all like me and think reading is more than just a way to kill a few hours. Not to say that I haven’t ever read just to kill a few hours (thanks for being there internet). Anyway, check out the post. It’s my review of Rick Warren’s (yes, that Rick Warren) reading techniques. Read Reading Like It’s Important »

Acting My Age Update

If you’re new here, well, first of all, hello. My name’s Ian Stewart and I read books. Thanks for visiting and thanks for subscribing – which is free, by the way – I really appreciate you taking the time to read what I write. I do think reading is important remember. Anyway, if you’re new here, you might want to know that I tend to read like an old man. If you want to find out why, starting here might be a good way to find out. Read Acting My Age Update »

The Close of The Book of The New Sun

If you’d like to see how to review a great book on a literature blog read Myrtias (I do). If you would like to read a rambling non-review of a great book that struggles not to reveal plot as it struggles to make sense – and apparently you did, thanks! – you might want to check this out. Read The Close of The Book of The New Sun »

Thanks again everyone

Well, there’s more somewhat amusing posts coming up but if you liked these ones you might want to add my blog to your Technorati favorites, join my MyBlogLog community, or bookmark this page on del.icio.us. All internet tools that are officially endorsed by Upper Fort Stewart. Wait, I don’t get paid for saying that do I?

As always thanks for reading, thanks for subscribing and thanks for commenting. I’m continually impressed by how great you’ve all been. Thanks for the support.

Herman Melville’s Moby Dick is one of those books that readers often give up in despair. And, apparently, it’s often the chapters on whaling that do it. I can’t remember where I gave up the first time but I’ve just finished one of those chapters, the first one, Cetology, Melville’s brief and inexhaustive, yet exhausting “systemized exhibition of the whale in his broad genera.” Sounds like a fun read, doesn’t it? Where others stop reading altogether I’ll stop briefly to let you know what’s up.

As far as plot-avoiding chapters in incredibly long classic-fiction goes, Cetology isn’t so bad. Melville is usually very entertaining. And there’s at least some foreshadowing of how our first meeting with the majestic and formidable whale will play out. By the way, the whale, Melville will have you know, is definitely not a mammal, but is, in fact, “a spouting fish with a horizontal tail.” You shouldn’t have given up so soon SuperBruinsMan.

I’m going to take a guess and say that Melville wanted this chapter to serve as the curtain that falls between acts. The exuberance of the first chapters has soured. Elijah has prophesied, Ahab has appeared and the crews dreams are getting weird. The stage setting is done, or maybe, the first act hasn’t yet begun. Anyway, things are moving now.

And the exuberant first chapters – really fun. They have an excitement and a love of thrills and novelty. Not counting the depression-fueled mania that generates them. The joy described in the opening chapters by our famous narrator, Ishmael, is sort of twofold. Firstly, there’s his joy of escaping his Manhattan depression and a certain thrill knowing he’ll embark on a three-year adventure. For a man who has “the problem of the universe revolving inside him” the greatest thrill probably comes from having a course set for you for three years. Secondly, a sort of wistful joy that comes in the unhappy ending that will befall Ahab and his ship (thanks a lot accompanying map, like, worst spoiler ever). The whole thing has a real lovely and comic fuel to it.

But like I said it’s fueled by depression and there’s a real doom and gloom to it. But even when Ishmael is being the best narrator ever and actually pointing out the symbols of death around him he seems to do it all with a wink. Like it’s only just a game.

It’s Upper Fort Stewart’s first guest post, by my wife, Kelli…

INSIDER INFO: Ian went to the Library again, with his wife (me) and child–for a Saturday family outing!

I have to agree with Ian and his low opinion on libraries. Admittedly, I spent most of my time in the children’s section, so I will try to comment only on it. I cannot believe that there are so many pointless children’s books! I am not of the opinion that a child reading is better than a child not reading. I think everyone should take the vow “First do no harm”, especially when it comes to children.

I come from a small town with a small library. It was located in a building that was built as a prototype for post offices all across Canada. It overcame this handicap however, and made the best of things, on what I could only assume was a small budget. The kids books were all displayed neatly on the shelves, covers out. There weren’t many, but they were all good. I remember my hand hovering above the row, passing the best in children’s literature; books decked out with shiny metallic stickers displaying the awards they had won, stopping over a copy of an Eric Carle book, wondering if I was old enough to touch such a pretty book. The librarians read from this small selection in an after-school program comprised mainly of their own children. The books were chosen with the foreknowledge that the selection they made would have to captivate the last little bit of attention left in a kid after a full day of school, or there would be chaos and cacophony. Undoubtedly, the librarian would be held personally accountable for the success or failure of the book. They never failed.

It was from this prime collection that the book mobile filled its load, servicing rural students unable to make it into town. It was a known fact that the bookmobile had the school library beat hands down. When it pulled its wheels into the parking lot a loud cheer rang out, jackets and boots were left undone as we raced to be the first one on, our little hands grabbing whatever was available, knowing none would disappoint. We would return victorious, books raised like a trophy lording it over the town kids. It was a good day to live in the country.

Perhaps big city libraries also need a tight budget and personal accountability for their purchases so they would never even consider purchasing a dumb book. My son and I read one such book while at the Library. At the end, I flipped through it again to look for the pages that I had missed to discover there were none– that was it, a book with no resolution, with more time spent on the formation of rhyme than plot, with characters whose only contribution was the sound at the end of their name. It was not even entertaining. This book was left on the table for children to pick up and read, along with many others of the same quality. Imagine if that was a child’s first experience reading independently. They struggle through sounding out each word and then straining their little brains to make sense of the words as a sentence and then as a story, only to discover that all that they have invested is for nothing. They would walk away thinking reading is a stupid waste of time. Or worse yet, they may think that they have missed something (being new readers and all) and think that they are the ones who are stupid.

It is the business of a child to form ideas and opinions based on their experiences. This is their learning. When they read at a library, they are about this business. Should the library really be so careless? Perhaps my home town should have been a prototype for libraries instead.

I have a terrible story to tell you. A story of shame. A story of mistakes and foolish pride. Last night I – oh, how can I tell you? – last night, I went to the Library.

Okay, it wasn’t that bad. But let’s recap with a glance at what I’ve said in the recent past about libraries.

I’m … disappointed in them. In my adult life I’ve only visited them for specialized information and left confused. Where were the greats in the field I was searching in? Granted, I have no idea how to properly search for books in the library, but still. Aren’t libraries supposed to to be a repository for the best of our civilization? It makes me wonder: has God decided to flood the world again then? Only this time in worn Tom Clancy paperbacks?

And when I later complained about a possible future elementary school for my son not having it’s own library, my top two commentators, Elliot and Imani had this to say:

Elliot: God: “Oh, so you say you don’t like libraries, Ian? TAKE THIS!” [lays a smackdown of poetic justice]

Imani: That’s kind of a mean way to get back at you though. God should have just dropped something on your head like…a library check-out system. Plus, it would have been funny.

To make matters worse, when commentator, Julie, stopped by to lend her approval to Elliot’s comment, I suggested I would never pass through Library doors again.

Until last night. And it was fun.

I made it sort of a father-son adventure. We had dropped my wife off at her art class for the night and needed some way to pass the time. Now, my three year old son, he loves the book store. “This is all the books, dad?” he asks. I wanted to enlarge his conception of “all the books” so we went to the main branch of the Winnipeg Library system, the downtown library embarrassingly named Millennium Library.

What did we do there? We first admired the art installation in the main entrance, a two-story wall covered in hundreds of business card-sized canvases. It was my son who pointed it out to me. His parents are artists so he thinks art is cool. Each one was, I think, painted by a different artist, although it could of been the work of one person. I have to confess I didn’t pay much attention to it. I was distracted when I realized the last time I was there someone had been sleeping where I was standing.

We pretended the wide, four-story, concrete staircase, enclosed by glass paneled railings, open space on either side of it, that leads up to the reference floor, we pretended that was a mountain. I’m sure the people studying and watching movies on their laptops in the small alcoves off to the side weren’t impressed as we stopped at every floor to wipe our brows and loudly wonder if we’d ever make it to the top. Which we did, of course. And the fourth floor was pretty quiet. The computers up there don’t have internet access so, of course, no one goes there – take that library, you slave to novelty.

We eventually made it back to the main floor where we didn’t actually look at books. My son reminded me that little kids don’t know how to be quiet. He actually said that. I tried to convince him that the library is a church for books so he’d use his church-voice but he wouldn’t buy it. So instead of reading we ran between the aisles tracking deer. My son thinks he’s Mowgli, you see – its actually tough convincing him to wear clothes around the house some days. I guess it’s alright to be noisy in the library if you’re pretending to be a character from a classic children’s story, right?

Anyway, my son has his very own library card now. He even checked out his first two books, a collection of Brer Rabbit stories. What did I check out with my brand new library card?

Nothing. You don’t think I’m going to take out one of their books do you?

I’ve just discovered a great blog, Great Books ~ A Chapter a Day. It’s, well, it’s great.

Listen to classic books from some of the world’s best known and respected authors – an ideal way to expand your horizons, catch up on your classics “reading” list, or listen to books everyone you know says they’ve already read. It’s as easy as downloading a chapter to your iPod or a CD to take with you while you walk, stair step or spin. Or you can just sit back, relax and listen.We also podcast the Poem of the Week – a reading accompanied by classical music – from a collection best loved poems from around the world. Join us.

The main page currently features Chesterton’s The Man Who Knew Too Much, Kipling’s poem If, T.S. Eliot’s Wasteland and the tail end of Shelley’s Frankenstein. I think that’s recommendation enough.

Looks like the whole family will get to squeeze some summer reading in during the drive to the cabin. T.S. Eliot is appropriate for three year olds, right?

Check out Great Books ~ A Chapter a Day.

I’ve started reading Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. I mention Melville’s name not because there is another Moby Dick (a Disney prequel about Ahab’s troubled youth where he forgets to believe in himself?). but because I’m afraid it’s too easy to think of this book as unbirthed, always swimming around in the deep like the whale himself. It’s better, I think, to remember that a man wrote this monster into existence and that it can be read and tamed.

“Whales- Mammal or Fish? Moby Dick is the stupidest book ever written.”
SuperBruinMan at Bruins Nation, from The Stupidest Book Ever Written

Or maybe not. Melville is a classic example of the artist ignored in his own time. His peers were unable to appreciate this thing; what hope have I? Moby Dick has been over-interpreted, under-interpreted, and variously and conflictingly interpreted for over 150 years. Can I add anything interesting to the discussion? Probably not. Hopefully, and more likely, definitely, it can add something to me.

I think it’s best to start of this review, recap, or exasperated attempt at understanding with a short message to author Gene Wolfe:

Dear Mr. Wolfe,

LOL! You tricked me!

Awfully pleased,

Ian Stewart

Now that that’s out of the way I can continue with not explaining this novel.

The Book of The New Sun is just a smidge bit more than your average fantasy or science-fiction novel. It seems to be something like a riddle instead, whose answer hangs out in front of your nose suggesting to you that it’s solution will provide answers bigger than the resolution of the plot.

As I read the closing chapters of The New Sun’s fourth volume, The Citadel of The Autarch, I was impressed. I could easily see why people would want to reread this thing, and how it could be read as allegory – but I wasn’t going to reread it. Yet, before long I was putting down the closing chapters to pick up the first ones and rereading The New Sun’s opening. A not so simple plot twist, one that should have been expected really, had me reevaluating the whole work and in doing so trying to understand the work in a new light.

Understanding in a new light. Probably the whole point of Wolfe’s Book of The New Sun. The final movements of our hero, Severian, find him treading down a once dark path, now carrying a light bright enough to dispel all former mysteries only nothing is really revealed. The most startling thing about retreading his steps, he finds is not seeing where he’s been, but seeing how much he’s changed since his first time there. Kind of a corny metaphor? Maybe. Trust me, it doesn’t come off that way.

What’s Wolfe playing at with his philosophical treatise disguised as a Sci-Fi novel pretending to be a fantasy? Peter Wright, author of Attending Daedalus: Gene Wolfe, Artifice, and The Reader, thinks he knows.

Coming to understand The Book of the New Sun is like learning the rules of a game. If the reader succeeds in perceiving the rules of Wolfe’s literary game, achieves the reconciliation of plot with story, then the experience of reading becomes an educational one. By stimulating the reader to reject primary assumptions and existing preconceptions, Wolfe not only lifts the reader onto a level of alertness that allows for his most subtle effects, but also reveals to the more cautious reader how they ascribe meaning to a text. This is, perhaps, the most fundamental factor in any claim that The Book of the New Sun is a ‘masterwork’: it encourages the growth of the reader towards what Jonathan Culler terms ‘literary competence’. In short, Wolfe organises the text to be understood only by those readers willing to question their own literary assumptions, pause, reflect, and reread.

…The real strength of his work arises from [Wolfe's] ability to make the reader experience [his] conception of existence during the reading process. Accordingly, throughout The Book of the New Sun, habitual modes of reading become metaphors for systems of manipulation and deception; unreliable narrators emphasise the reader’s own subjectivity; and unfamiliar diction calls into question the accuracy with which we can perceive the actuality of ‘the real’.

The Actuality of The Real. It’s not often I read what should be just a fun adventure novel that delivers new confused conceptions on the actuality of the real. Thanks, Gene Wolfe. I’m impressed.

The Urth of The New Sun.

And then there’s the sequel. Good Grief. A sequel that fulfills the usual expectations without being just more of the same. Actually it is just more of the same – in the same way The Book of Revelation finishes off The New Testament by being more of the same.

That’s kind of a lofty analogy, isn’t it? Maybe it’s not quite like that.

Humorously, The Urth of The New Sun inverts the scheme of it’s predecessor. Where The Book of The New Sun was sci-fi cloaked in fantasy, Urth is a fantasy novel pretending to be a science-fiction novel. Fantasy, that is, with a capital A for Apocalyptic, that old, much missed style of writing that casts aside character and sense to kick you right between the eyes until you can see things the way they really are.

Huh. Not much of a review at all. Sorry, I’m not even trying really. I’m just sort of reveling in the effect of the novel on me, not caring if I’m making too much sense or delivering a recap of events. The biggest job here for me actually is editing what I wrote in my notebook so I don’t come across as crazy here. Let that admission serve as something of a recommendation.

Read The Book of The New Sun. I think you’ll find something in it you’ll like. Then read it again.

If you would like to read it there’s some Amazon links for you below. There might even be reviews that make sense there, too.

Shadow & Claw: The First Half of ‘The Book of the New Sun’ (Amazon)

Sword & Citadel: The Second Half of ‘The Book of the New Sun’ (Amazon)

The Urth of the New Sun: The sequel to ‘The Book of the New Sun’ (Amazon)

This weekend is sort of the start of summer up here in the frozen wastes of Canada, a perfect time for hot dogs I think. I made some last night, steamed buns and everything. Unfortunately, I was out of mustard. Clearly I need some help. And, despite the national past-time of most Canadians being Making-Fun-Of-Americans, it looks like the USA is ready to come to the rescue.

Becky Mercuri, in The Great American Hot Dog Book, has found a Hot Dog recipe for every state – I can’t believe there’s 50 different ways to make a Hot Dog – plus something called Pizza Fries. Pizza Fries? Count me in, Becky.

Here’s some more info from Chowhound:

The book starts out by giving a history of the American Hot Dog and debunking urban legends and myths. Well documented, this is a fine history and introduction to the regional styles and descriptions of hot dogs that follow. The chapters include hot dogs of the Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, Great Plains, West and Southwest, and Pacific. Ms. Mercuri not only describes the types of hot dogs popular in each region, but gives names, descriptions, and histories of hot dog establishments all across the nation. Not only a handy road trip guide, but also a cookbook as well, sharing recipes for wieners, sauces, chilis, slaws, relishes, side dishes and more.

This book will appeal not only to hardcore frank fanatics, but to anyone who likes hot dogs and has an appreciation for history. Not to mention the many cooks who might want to reproduce a relish, chili, or side dish from a favorite hot dog joint. There’s even a recipe for Italian Hot Dogs! I heartily recommend this book.

The Great American Hot Dog Book by Becky Mercuri (Amazon)

I’m one of those parents that buys books for his future child, my son at age nine, fourteen and so on. I remember confusing the bookseller at the flea market when I told her I was buying Susan Cooper’s set of The Dark is Rising novels for my then infant son. Not so bookish, but I once considered my future son’s opinion of my taste in music when buying albums – when I was twenty and unmarried. Now you know what kind of dad I am, nerdy, elitist, hopeful, and slightly pushy. Ah, fathers.

Anyway, my head always turns when I see things pop-up in the news like the 160 Books All Boys Must Read, released this week by the UK Education Secretary. The list is peppered with violent tales and what NewKerala.com calls “sporty-working class heroes”. Since most of you have never gone to the movie store with me I’ll let you know what I think of violent tales and sporty working class heroes. While I fail the stereotypical tests of masculinity in most of my hobbies, past-times and occupations (I’m a reading, church-going artist) there is one where I pass: loving bloody, violent, thunderingly apocalyptic tragedy and adventure. The UK Education Secretary doesn’t have to tell me twice what boys like.

Of course, The Guardian had to poop all over that, in Bad Books Won’t Get Boys Reading:

The resulting list is a pile of cack – sub-Tolkien and not-really-books – studded here and there with gems.

It would appear that unless you’re a copper-bottomed classic that Johnson once read, your only hope of appearing on the list is if you’re about spies or wizards, are a compendium of factoids, or are composed largely of pictures.OK, that’s harsh. But there are plenty of books here that I’ve never heard of – and one or two that haven’t even been published yet. The ones I’ve never heard of are presumably recent publications that librarians have seized on after boys cited them as being marginally preferable to a poke in the kidneys with a stick.

Some of them may be quite good – but by being there, they’ve knocked something else off the list. While the quality of the books may be debatable, therefore, their position in anything that might be called a literary canon is not: they’re not in it. There’s no sense of continuous heritage, of anything timeless, or which might alert these putative boy-readers to the fact that once upon a time, books relied on a good, moving story and weren’t packaged with raised lettering on the cover and a picture of weaponry, or dragons.

Here’s the full list of 160 Books all Boys Must Read.

Have I mentioned that I’ve been really enjoying Gene Wolfe’s Book of The New Sun? It’s one of the better genre stories around. Here’s Gene Wolfe, or Severian the once-torturer and future king, on stories:

I confess that I love them. Indeed, it often seems to me that of all the good things in the world, the only ones humanity can claim for itself are stories and music; the rest, mercy, beauty, sleep, clean water and hot food are all the work of the Increate. Thus, stories are small things indeed in the scheme of the universe, but it is hard not to love best what is our own – hard for me at least.

Wolfe, loves stories too. Severian carries a storybook with him, a sort of anthology of world fable, which we hear from time to time. There are buildings that tell stories, interruptions in the action for satirical stage-plays, and story-telling contests. The plot itself is told as a story, as a memoir to be left in the capital’s archival library. This story is filled with stories.

Earlier, at the very beginning of the Severian’s story, Wolfe suggests that we fill our lives up with symbols that collect meaning whether we’re aware of it or not. In a spontaneous attempt at connection with the author and his tale I took part in this act. I started marking my place in the book with a playing card, the King of Clubs. It’s served as a reminder for me on my thoughts about the novel as I read it. It may only be a random thing, or hold only a tenuous, whimsical meaning – or it may be a small act of story-ing, an attempt at recognizing something higher around us.

It’s probably just a card I found on the office floor that keeps me from dog-earing pages, isn’t it?