Books

I read…a lot. Here’s where I ramble about books and printed media.

That 100 Book List (That’s Not Actually From the BBC)

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There’s been a book list meme going around Facebook for some time now that purports to be a list of 100 books of which most people will have read only six. I’ve been tagged a few times, and have seen the note pop up when other friends have passed it on. I’ll go ahead and toss my list in this post, but there’s one thing about this that’s been bugging me.

The list has nothing to do with the BBC — the closest the BBC gets is The Big Read, a 2003 list of Britain’s 100 most popular books as determined by BBC viewer nominations — and actually appears to be taken from a 2007 article in The Guardian, reporting on the results of a poll of 2,000 people by the World Book Day website.

In this context, whether looking at the BBC list or the World Book Day list, the claim that most people will have read only six of the books on the list makes little to no sense. Both lists were of the most popular books as selected by the people who took the survey, which carries a strong implication that these are generally well-read books. Furthermore, according to the Guardian article, the “2,000 people who took part in the poll online at worldbookday.com nominated their top 10 titles that they could not live without” (emphasis mine) — so they had to have read more than six, and it’a actually a list of some of the most popular books.

It looks like the bit about most people only having read six was added at some point just to give people a reason to feel superior and to get them curious enough to slog through the list and figure out just how many they have read.

Still. That said. I’m okay with feeling superior. And I read a lot. So, even though the “background” has been thoroughly debunked…here’s how I stack up.

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Unpopular Questions

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Okay, folks. Some of you aren’t going to like this at all. However, I think these are questions worth asking.

Every year, I see a strong majority of my friends and acquaintances promoting Banned Book Week, “an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment…[that] highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship [and founded on] the freedom to access information and express ideas, even if the information and ideas might be considered unorthodox or unpopular.”

Last April, the internet and many people I know were thrown into a tizzy because of apparent censorship of LGBT-themed books, prompting the creation of the #amazonfail hashtag.

So, now we have the latest uproar over a book with unpopular ideas that is under attack — only this time, the popular call is for boycotting Amazon until the book is removed. And, apparently all the uproar was successful, because it seems the book is no longer available.

So, folks, which is it? Do we decry the censorship of ideas that are unpopular, or do we celebrate the censorship of ideas that are unpopular?

Yes, the content of the book in question is disturbing and advocates unethical, immoral, and illegal behavior. Depending on who you talk to and what area of the country or world you live in, most if not all of the LGBT section of any modern bookstore, including Amazon, can be described in exactly the same way.

Either censorship is horrible and should be battled in whatever form it appears, or it is acceptable and necessary and you just better not be writing anything that people in power disapprove of. But it doesn’t work both ways. At least, not justifiably.

From » Banned? Wait, what?! Stop Motion Verbosity:

Good thing Nabokov wasn’t “investigated” because of Lolita. Of course, Lolita was also banned for a while. But hey! Who cares, right? Wait, maybe it isn’t books that are clearly fiction, it’s manuals and guidebooks.

Good thing the Anarchist Cookbook is banned. Oh, wait, hold on. Right! It isn’t. Because free speech isn’t just protected when you agree with it. Because the alternative is madness.

[…]

You don’t get to call for a boycott to delist a book when you feel like it, without being willing to sit while someone boycotts for a book you like, the next day.

This is why we don’t ban books, remember? Because it’s dangerous and fucked up and wrong. Even when the book is horrible and morally objectionable. Even then.

That’s the price we pay for free speech. And if you aren’t willing to pay it, then you better duck, because that has consequences you may not enjoy for very long at all. About the time someone disagrees with you and you can’t do anything about it, I’d think.

(Via MissAmberClark)

And this next bit is from a 2008 post in Neil Gaiman’s Journal, which addresses a different specific controversy, but the same questions: Why defend freedom of icky speech?:

Freedom to write, freedom to read, freedom to own material that you believe is worth defending means you’re going to have to stand up for stuff you don’t believe is worth defending, even stuff you find actively distasteful, because laws are big blunt instruments that do not differentiate between what you like and what you don’t, because prosecutors are humans and bear grudges and fight for re-election, because one person’s obscenity is another person’s art.

Because if you don’t stand up for the stuff you don’t like, when they come for the stuff you do like, you’ve already lost.

[T]hat’s what makes the kind of work you don’t like, or don’t read, or work that you do not feel has artistic worth or redeeming features worth defending. It’s because the same laws cover the stuff you like and the stuff you find icky, wherever your icky line happens to be: the law is a big blunt instrument that makes no fine distinctions, and because you only realise how wonderful absolute freedom of speech is the day you lose it.

(Via bicyclefish)

My Famous Awkward Family

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(Apologies to Facebook friends who are seeing this multiple times. I think this should be the last time this pops up in my feed.)

Last year, I stumbled across a new humor site called Awkward Family Photos, which was posting funny old family photos. It gave me a laugh, and I started going through what they’d posted…only to suddenly find one of my own family’s old photos on the site!

Amused by this, I commented, telling them that if they really wanted an awkward photo, they should see this other one we had, which has always been one of my favorites. Not long after that, that photo was posted as well, and we became the first family to voluntary submit a photo to their site.

As the site gained popularity, they decided to release a book, got our permission to use our photos…and today, at long last, I got my copy of the AFP book, which uses both photos we submitted! One is on the back cover, and one is given the place of honor as the first featured photo in the book, opening Chapter One. We’re also given thanks in the Acknowledgements section as the first family to send in a shot.

Awkward Family Photos Cover

Awkward Family Photos Back Cover

Awkward Family Photos Chapter One

This is great! Many thanks to Mike and Doug at AFP, and to my family for sharing my amusement at all of this!

…but there your rights stop.

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I’m no big fan of Philip Pullman — not that I go so far as to actively dislike him for any reason, I just didn’t think the His Dark Materials trilogy was really all that good — but this quote, in response to someone asking whether his latest book was “offensive,” is a thing of beauty:

It was a shocking thing to say and I knew it was a shocking thing to say. But no one has the right to live without being shocked. No one has the right to spend their life without being offended. Nobody has to read this book. Nobody has to pick it up. Nobody has to open it. And if you open it and read it, you don’t have to like it. And if you read it and you dislike it, you don’t have to remain silent about it. You can write to me, you can complain about it, you can write to the publisher, you can write to the papers, you can write your own book. You can do all those things, but there your rights stop. No one has the right to stop me writing this book. No one has the right to stop it being published, or bought, or sold or read. That’s all I have to say on that subject.

(via Boing Boing)

Links for January 18th through January 19th

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Sometime between January 18th and January 19th, I thought this stuff was interesting. You might think so too!

  • H. G. Wells on ‘Metropolis’ (1927): "Never for a moment does one believe any of this foolish story; for a moment is there anything amusing or convincing in its dreary series of strained events. It is immensely and strangely dull. It is not even to be laughed at. There is not one good-looking nor sympathetic nor funny personality in the cast; there is, indeed, no scope at all for looking well or acting like a rational creature amid these mindless, imitative absurdities. The film's air of having something grave and wonderful to say is transparent pretence. It has nothing to do with any social or moral issue before the world or with any that can ever conceivably arise. It is bunkum and poor and thin even as bunkum. I am astonished at the toleration shown it by quite a number of film critics on both sides of the Atlantic. And it costs, says the London Times, six million marks! How they spent all that upon it I cannot imagine. Most of the effects could have been got with models at no great expense."
  • Offline Book "Lending" Costs U.S. Publishers Nearly $1 Trillion: From what we've been able to piece together, the book "lending" takes place in "libraries". On entering one of these dens, patrons may view a dazzling array of books, periodicals, even CDs and DVDs, all available to anyone willing to disclose valuable personal information in exchange for a "card". But there is an ominous silence pervading these ersatz sanctuaries, enforced by the stern demeanor of staff and the glares of other patrons. Although there's no admission charge and it doesn't cost anything to borrow a book, there's always the threat of an onerous overdue bill for the hapless borrower who forgets to continue the cycle of not paying for copyrighted material.
  • AirTran 297 – Anatomy of an Urban Legend: Since the flight and initial media reports, several blogs and Internet sites have recounted the incident as portrayed by a passenger originally scheduled for the flight. Below is that passenger’s account (unedited in any way including spelling and grammar), as reported on several blogs. Highlighted between the passenger’s account, are the factually accurate circumstances surrounding this incident. We bring this to your attention in order to dispel myths that are beginning to make the rounds in chat rooms, blogs and conspiracy theorists’ Web sites.
  • Dear God, please confirm what I already believe: God may have created man in his image, but it seems we return the favour. Believers subconsciously endow God with their own beliefs on controversial issues. "People may use religious agents as a moral compass, forming impressions and making decisions based on what they presume God as the ultimate moral authority would believe or want," the team write. "The central feature of a compass, however, is that it points north no matter what direction a person is facing. This research suggests that, unlike an actual compass, inferences about God's beliefs may instead point people further in whatever direction they are already facing."
  • Insanely Vulgar ‘Better Off Ted’ Outtakes (NSFW Video): "ABC's 'Better Off Ted' recently had an episode where a mistyped inter-office memo encouraged employees to swear insults at each other, with PG-rated results for broadcast. Below are the ridiculously NSFW outtakes, scripted for Web-only release. If you are offended — not even 'easily' … but, like, even slightly, by graphic language, do not watch this video, which is like melding the Disney-owned TV network with 'The Aristocrats.' According to a network spokesperson, ABC did not post this."

Top 100 Sci-Fi/Fantasy Novels of All Time

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Obviously, a list like this one is subject to a lot of debate due to everyone’s personal taste. Still, it’s not a bad list of works. Herewith, in true blog-meme style, the list, with those that I’ve read in bold. 35 out of 100. Not bad, but could be better!

(Note: Though this list is numbered 1-100, it should be read as being 100-1. That is, the #100 spot on this list is the #1 spot on the original list. Just a side effect of the HTML list that I don’t feel like trying to hack around.)

  1. The Word For World Is Forest by Ursula K. LeGuin
  2. Sorcerer’s Son by Phyllis Eisenstein
  3. Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress
  4. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch
  5. Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
  6. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
  7. The Company by K.J. Parker
  8. An Evil Guest by Gene Wolfe
  9. Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton
  10. Danny, The Champion of the World by Roald Dahl
  11. Camp Concentration by Thomas Disch
  12. Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner
  13. Song of Kali by Dan Simmons
  14. Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card
  15. A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller
  16. Sphere by Michael Crichton
  17. Fevre Dream by George R.R. Martin
  18. The Alteration by Kingsley Amis
  19. The Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey
  20. The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers
  21. Watership Down by Richard Adams
  22. Griffin’s Egg by Michael Swanwick
  23. Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan
  24. Free Live Free by Gene Wolfe
  25. Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke
  26. Ringworld by Larry Niven
  27. Schismatrix by Bruce Sterling
  28. Old Man’s War by John Scalzi
  29. Maske: Thaery by Jack Vance
  30. The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
  31. The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
  32. Flow My Tears The Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick
  33. The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov
  34. The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
  35. The High Crusade by Poul Anderson
  36. A Song for Lya by George R.R. Martin
  37. At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft
  38. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
  39. Wildlife by James Patrick Kelly
  40. The Book of Knights by Yves Maynard
  41. The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan (Well, I made it up to book six or seven, then decided to wait until he was dead or the series was finished, since there was no end in sight. Now he’s dead, and I’m just waiting for the last book to appear in paperback before starting over.)
  42. Forever Peace by Joe Haldeman
  43. Nightwings by Robert Silverberg
  44. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien
  45. Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
  46. Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
  47. The Book of the Short Sun by Gene Wolfe
  48. The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
  49. Foundation by Isaac Asimov
  50. The Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. LeGuin
  51. The Wizard Knight by Gene Wolfe
  52. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
  53. The Demon Princes by Jack Vance
  54. Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
  55. The Baroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson
  56. Alastor by Jack Vance
  57. The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
  58. Flatland by Edwin Abbott
  59. Farmer in the Sky by Robert Heinlein
  60. A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick
  61. Animal Farm by George Orwell
  62. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
  63. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
  64. Lyonesse by Jack Vance
  65. Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein
  66. True Names by Vernor Vinge
  67. Ubik by Philip K. Dick
  68. The Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons
  69. Citizen of the Galaxy by Robert Heinlein
  70. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
  71. A Fire Upon The Deep by Vernor Vinge
  72. Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
  73. More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon
  74. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
  75. 1984 by George Orwell
  76. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
  77. The Cadwal Chronicles by Jack Vance
  78. Lost Horizon by James Hilton
  79. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
  80. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
  81. The Fifth Head of Cerebus by Gene Wolfe
  82. A Song of Ice And Fire by George R.R. Martin
  83. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein
  84. The Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay
  85. The Master and the Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
  86. The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
  87. All My Sins Remembered by Joe Haldeman
  88. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
  89. Planet of Adventure by Jack Vance
  90. Dune by Frank Herbert
  91. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
  92. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. LeGuin
  93. The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe
  94. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
  95. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
  96. Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay
  97. The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin
  98. The Dying Earth by Jack Vance
  99. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress by Robert Heinlein
  100. The Book of the Long Sun by Gene Wolfe

I’m a Winner!

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A few weeks ago, I stumbled across the Forgotten Bookmarks weblog, and started following his (?) Twitter account as well. Every so often he runs a simple giveaway contest, and it seems that today, my number came out of the magic hat!

What’s behind the curtain, you ask?

Giveaway includes these books: Romance of Da Vinci, 1928. Pocket Book of Verse, 1940. Robison Crusoe, 1930s…….

…….G. Eliot: Poems, 1909. The Moonstone, 1930s. Crime and Punishment, 1953. Works of Dickens, 1940s.

winner.jpg

Pretty slick!

Amazon Kills Pocketpedia

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For a while now, I’ve been using Bookpedia to catalog Prairie’s and my book collections, and DVDPedia for our movie collection. One of the handiest things about the system was the ability to sync our libraries to my iPod through Pocketpedia and have them available at my fingertips whenever we were out and about. No more trying to remember whether or not we’d picked up a particular book from a particular author or series, just check the iPod. It was one of my most-used iPhone apps.

Unfortunately, that’s not an option anymore: Amazon recently changed their API Terms of Service, and included the following clause in section 4(e):

You will not, without our express prior written approval requested via this link , use any Product Advertising Content on or in connection with any site or application designed or intended for use with a mobile phone or other handheld device.

Since the update to the TOS, Amazon has been aggressively enforcing that clause. I saw the writing on the wall a couple weeks ago when Delicious had their iPhone app pulled, and now Pocketpedia has been killed as well.

This morning we received an email from Amazon requesting the immediate removal of Pocketpedia from the App Store since the program is in violation of their license agreement. (A clause we’re pretty sure didn’t exist when Pocketpedia launched with the App Store in June last year but TOSBack only tracks Kindle and MP3 music service terms of use.)

We’ve logged a request with Amazon that Pocketpedia be exempt from the mobile clause (this is stated as a possibility in the license agreement) but it seems others have tried this before and were shot down so we’re not holding our breath for a favourable response. Hopefully the future will bring a positive change in their policy and we can all go on competing in the App Store.

Pocketpedia Not Available

Unsurprisingly, I — and a number of other previously-happy customers — are none too thrilled with Amazon about this. I’m hoping that some workaround can be found, and that Pocketpedia can continue on (even if that means gutting it to remove all data ever retrieved from Amazon). All I can do now (aside from dropping Amazon a quick complaint e-mail, which I’ve already done) is wait and see what happens next.

Update: Hooray! As of today, Nov. 10th, 2009, Pocketpedia is back! You can download the new, Amazon-free version right here.

Book Review: Gothic Charm School

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Gothic Charm School: An Essential Guide for Goths and Those Who Love Them Gothic Charm School: An Essential Guide for Goths and Those Who Love Them by Jillian Venters

My review rating: 4 of 5 stars

Simply put, this should be highly recommended, if not required reading, not just for goths, but also for anyone curious about the goth community, whether because they are personally interested or because they have an acquaintance, friend, or loved one (spouse, significant other, boy- or girlfriend, relative, child, or secret crush) who counts themselves among the spooky set.

Miss Manners’ more somber-dressed and bat-festooned doppelgänger, the Lady of the Manners, has adapted from and expanded upon columns from her long-running website and assembled a delightful collection of advice for the goth and goth-friendly. Covering everything from the basics (“The difference between being a Goth, a NotAGoth, and not being a Goth yourself but being Goth-friendly”) to social etiquette both online (“The Internet is not Real Life (with an aside about the Great Flounce-Off)”) and off (“What to do when people ask why you’re dressed like that”) to parenting (“How to show support to your babygoth or babybat without relinquishing the keys to the hearse, and everything you need to know to Not Freak Out”), Gothic Charm School quickly becomes, in many small and a few not-so-small ways, the very “Goth handbook” that the Lady of the Manners so often reminds us does not exist.

I can’t go back in time twenty years and hand this book to my teenaged self (more’s the pity), but I canquite heartily recommend this to both old and new members of the goth community, as well as those around them who just might not quite get it.

View all my reviews.

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LibraryThing Screensaver (for Mac OS X)

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Are you a LibraryThing user? First off, if not, why not? It’s a great way to keep track of your library. If you’re on LT, or if you sign up, add Prairie and me to your contacts!

Now, for those of you that are LT members (and Mac OS X users), they’ve just released a new toy: the LibraryThing Mac Screensaver. It’s actually just a specialized RSS feed that grabs random book covers from your library which you can put into Mac OS X’s RSS feed screensaver. Here’s a little YouTube video showing the screensaver and how to set it up:

Basically, just add this URL (with your username, of course) to OS X’s “Mobile Me and RSS” screensaver, and you’re off and running: http://www.librarything.com/labs-screensaver.php?userid=USERNAME When I set it up for the first time, it took a few moments for the RSS feed to start generating images, so don’t worry if you get a “No Pictures Found” error at first. Just wait a moment or two and try it again, it should kick in fairly soon. This is now my screensaver of choice. Slick!