Category Archives: Book Talk

Book Reviews, Book Talk

Book Review: X Saves the World

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X Saves the World: How Generation X Got the Shaft but Can Still Keep Everything from Sucking by Jeff Gordinier

This is a book that I want to share with my friends. Gordinier does a FANTASTIC job of capturing the thoughts, discussions, issues and music that I had all throughout my school days.

Gordinier does a good job of outlining the media’s fascination with the tsunami that is the Baby Boomer generation and the lurid news fix on the youngest generation, the Millennials. Sandwiched between these two spotlight hogging masses is Generation X.

If you’re looking for a strong call to action to save the world and a 10 bullet-point plan for starting a movement. This book isn’t it (and you’re probably a Boomer anyway). If you’re looking for a book to outline a strategy to get your cause noticed and bring some media attention your way. This book isn’t it (and you’re probably a Millennial).

This book has all those things, but presents them in a much more REAL way. Not slacker. Not dumb. Not unmotivated. But data driven; experience driven; community driven. Real.

At 179 pages, it reads like a well-informed passionate op-ed piece and not much more. And the beauty of it, is that it doesn’t try to be much more. Sure there are the rants and causes that come into play late in the book, but this is all just to show what’s possible and what Generation X is grappling with now, in 2009.

At a minimum, the book will have you out renting Slacker, Googling Captain Beefheart and surfing eBay for Oblique Strategy Cards.

So if you’re looking for something to help you build you case or start a movement, there are probably better books out there. But if you’re interested in what’s happened over the past 20 years, where it’s all going and who is in charge, then this short cultural history is just the thing.

(Special thanks to Laura whose review made me want to pick up this book)

Birmingham, Book Talk, Bookstores, Events, library, News, On the Web

Four Bookish Dealings of a Timely Nature

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I just wanted to take a moment to make sure that some of these things are on your radar, as they all have deadlines and dates attached to them. I think it would be fun if everyone promoted and participated in these events! Let us know of anything else cool going on that we could follow.

This week (September 14-18) has been Book Blogger Appreciation Week. Many, many cool blogs have been mentioned and awarded. Congrats to all who participated and won! My RSS reader overfloweth now. Too many great new blogs to keep up with

Publishers Weekly has declared November 7th as the first annual National Bookstore Day. They promise lots of industry coverage and hometown events are in the works. So I’ll pass along any bookstore specific events I hear about here in Birmingham.

Also, head over to Fictional Stimulus site. It’s a new reading-online experiment that kicks off on September 22nd. I honestly have no idea what is in store there, but I’m excited. Basically, you sign up and they send you 12 emails over four weeks which are designed to dole out “introductory tasters” for digital reading. So if you’re curious about the future of reading, books and publishing, you should check it out. It’s a ning site, so let me know when you get your profile set and we can connect. I do hope it’s good. Lots of potential there!

You have just 13 more days to take advantage of the JCLC’s Food for Fines program. That is, for every canned food item you donate to the library, one dollar will be subtracted from your ‘overdue materials’ fines (up to $10). I think all Jefferson County library locations are accepting the can goods donations. It runs through the end of September.

Book Talk, Digital Publishing, E-Books, On the Web, Publishing Industry News, Technology

I Bought an iPhone3GS and Now I Want to Read

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Not sure if you looked up in the sky last night, but a rare astronomical event occurred as planets aligned with soon-to-expire cellphone contracts and only a 5-minute wait at the local Apple store… so after many months of waiting… I finally got my iPhone. I spent the evening getting my gMail and Google Apps affairs in order, downloaded a cool typographic wallpaper and now I’m ready to read.

I haven’t bought a book yet, but I grabbed these iPhone apps and a few freebie books to page? flick? thumb? through. What I’m asking is… what reader/app am I missing? I’m coming late to the game and I want to start with everything in the arsenal and then weed out the slackers. So, my iPhone book reading slate on Day One is…

Barnes & Noble Store
Barnes & Noble eReader
Kindle for iPhone
Stanza
Fictionwise’s eReader
Shortcovers
BeamItDown book of Benjamin Button
Iceberg book of Jame’s Patterson’s Maximum Ride

Of course, some of these are eReaders and others are books as apps, which should be fun to try and see what bells and whistles are available. So let me know of any free or paid apps that I need to add. True, I am always looking for good reads, but this time I’m looking for who is getting right and who is presenting the best reading experience on the iPhone platform. Though not my usual genre, I hear I need to check out some Harlequin material, as they have been leaders in the digital space for over a year now, but what else am I missing?

This is going to be fun!

Book Talk, On the Web

Reading and the South

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The Alabama Humanities Foundation has a new blog up and running called the Kudzu Twines Journal and it’s off to a good start! In fact, a recent post there caught my attention as it speaks to a new “book theory” of mine that I’m working on. The more I talk to folks about books and business and life and etc. the more I’m convinced that it’s a good sign if someone reads biographies. I don’t know too many people that start off reading biographies, but all the really smart, passionate, interesting folks I get to know all seem to take the next step and read about the musicians or about the architect or about the author… you get where I’m going.

Anyway, here’s a post from the Kudzu Twines by a “transplant to the South” who picks up on the idea of studying the people behind the stories and the places you visit. She says much more, but I like that.