Book Column, Book Talk, Recommendations

WEEK 2: BOOK PAIRING #NONFICNOV

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This week’s host for Nonfiction November 2019 is Sarah over at Sarah’s Book Shelves. This week all of the participants are are to offer a couple of books that dovetail nicely following Sarah’s directions: “It can be a ‘If you loved this book, read this!’ or just two titles that you think would go well together. Maybe it’s a historical novel and you’d like to get the real history by reading a nonfiction version of the story.”

The last time I participated in Nonfiction November I offered up a books-about-books pairing. For 2019, I’d like to pair up two books that talk about change. Specifically the fear of change while standing in the shadow of the rapidly evolving world of technology. It’s all moving so fast!

David Sax’s The Revenge of the Analog: Real Things and Why They Matter is a couple of years old and a very good read. While Sax never gets overly romantic over the things and ideas he covers, he does a good job of highlighting the benefits and uniqueness of vinyl recordings, paper, board games, etc. I recently heard a technologist say something along the lines of “… the better digital tools get at helping us, the more relevant and needed analog tools are.” It almost sounds like a contradiction, but it’s really about what it means to have a worthwhile experience and experience the world your body lives in. These are themes that Sax covers with humor, understanding and critically all at the same time. I highly recommend this book.

A wonderful counter balance to Sax’s book is Laurence Scott’s The Four-Dimensional Human: Ways of Being in the Digital World . This nonfiction book came out in 2015 and is a wonderful (almost philosophical) take on what it means to walk around with a computer in your pocket, with the ability to instantly be connected digitally to anyone on the planet. There’s a ton being thrown at us every day and it can be tough to navigate. Scott’s writing is beautiful and full of empathy and understanding as he shares some of his experiences with an “always on” lifestyle. I mean the technology is here, how do we learn to cope with it and keep it in check while using it to its fullest potential to better our world.

Where David Sax offers up a summary judgement in The Revenge of the Analog Laurence Scott offers a slower “we’re all in this together so let’s try to get it right because I don’t know either” take in The Four-Dimensional Human.

If you ever find yourself wondering or worrying about the phone, music, books, ebooks, Spotify, etc. I think you’d enjoy both of these books.

AND THE FICTION PARING FOR EITHER OF THOSE. . .

If fiction is what you’re in the mood for, then check out Tim Mason’s The Darwin Affair . I’ve been recommending it to friends that enjoy historical fiction. As a thriller/mystery it’s a fair read, but it all centers on the real world release of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species and the effect it had on the world at the time. Talk about a world that was afraid of change and newly rapidly evolving ideas! It was crazy times, for sure.

AND AS A NONFICTION NOVEMBER BONUS FOCUSING ON BOOKS AND FEAR OF CULTURAL CHANGE. . .

If podcasts are your current jam, then I’d recommend listening to the Pessimists Archive episode titled The Novel. Click through to their page and check out a couple of the highlights from the show notes:

  • “Too Much Reading is Harmful” by Angelo Patri (1938)
  • Novel Reading: A Cause of Female Depravity, The Monthly Mirror, 1797
  • Thomas Jefferson worries about children reading novels

Can you imagine being scared of the affect “longer books” would have on society? Talk about crazy times!?

Happy Nonfiction November!

Book Column, Book Talk, Books About Books, New Releases, Upcoming Titles

New Books I Am Looking Forward To This September

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Books about books are my absolute favorite. I love them all and if this batch of new books hitting store shelves this September are any clue, it’s going to be a great fall season. Anyway, I figure, if you’ve happened to land on this blog, these may be books you’d want on your radar as well.

Here are three that I am looking forward to reading. They all come out in September 2018:

I’d Rather Be Reading: The Delights and Dilemmas of the Reading Life by Ann Bogel. This is one I’ve pre-ordered. It officially releases September 4, 2018 in hardcover. I’ve not read Bogel’s other book, but I do keep up with her popular bookish podcast What Should I Read Next. She is a huge lover of books and seems to be an even bigger fan of readers, so I think this short collection centered on “the reading life” will be very interesting.

The Lost Art of Reading: Books and Resistance in a Troubled Time by David Ulin. I LOVE the idea of “reading as a political act”. I honestly believe that if everyone would just sit down, slow down and read more books, the world would be a much better place. I’m anxious to see what Ulin has to say on the matter. This one came out back in 2010, but this new 2018 hardcover edition (releasing September 4, 2018), being published by the cool folks at Sasquatch Books, has a little extra added in reframing the book in light of the current condition of things.

Bibliophile: An Illustrated Miscellany by Jane Mount. There are a gazillion miscellany books out there about books, reading and the like. But Mount’s new hardcover book will certainly earn a place on the bookshelf due to her unique book-loving artwork. Back in 2012, she did a book with Thessaly La Force titled My Ideal Bookshelf and it remains a fun one to pull down to flip through. It’s a big hit with visitors at the house too.

Book Column, Book Reviews, Book Talk

Book Review: White Tears by Hari Kunzru

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Hari Kunzru’s newest novel White Tears follows a couple privileged hipster college-educated white boys as they try to chase down, record and sell authentic black music from the dawn of the blues era. But what starts out as a snarky take on cultural appropriation and the current music scene in the U.S., ends up taking a dark turn down into the pits of American segregationist history.

For all of the beauty and fresh authentic sounds the American blues brings us, we forget why it’s called the “blues”. The stories, horrors and ghosts that gave birth to all the haunting words and rhythms were real. And it was bad.

Kunzru’s story zips back and forth through time, pulling on threads and connecting dots between the pain that birthed the blues, music laws, the 1960’s music industry and the “only vinyl will do” trends of the current decade.

I enjoyed the beginning of the book and the writing is solid. I wasn’t expecting the honest-to-goodness ghost story that crept up to help drive home the point of cultural appropriation and entitlement, but I have an appreciation for why and how Kunzru did this. Sometimes we just don’t know what we’re messing with and should just leave it alone.

It’s good to stop while reading this book and think about how the ideas are playing out “for real” in the story. It’s easy to forget the sting of all those ideas and themes, once the story starts chugging along and characters start dying and disappearing mysteriously.

I have to admit I’m a sucker for a well done all-type book cover and White Tears does look good (it’s another great one by the modern dust jacket master Peter Mendelsund) face out. Overall, I give White Tears a 3 out of 5 stars.

Alabama, Birmingham, Bookstore Ideas, Bookstores

Price Matching at Barnes and Noble

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Yesterday, I had a great Barnes and Noble experience, in Birmingham, as they are now letting customers get the BN.com price, in the store, and I want to share.

I needed a copy of Mark Larabee’s Pacific Crest Trail book (which is a beautiful book, by the way). I called my indie shop down the street and they didn’t have a copy.

I went to BN.com and saw that the book was $36 (which matched other online retailers) compared to the $50 in-store price. That’s a great discount. I was also able to see that a local Barnes and Noble store had it in stock.

Then I remembered a little birdie telling me that B&N is running a price matching program for B&N Members. I am not sure why they aren’t trumpeting this.

I walked in a local Barnes and Noble and asked the manager about it. She confirmed that it is real and then shared some of her thoughts about it. I would say she was neither plussed nor upset about the practice, just that…

“…customers have been confused by the different prices in store and online and have been asking for this for a long, long time”.

I thought that a pretty fair assessment.

All I had to do was go up, give them my B&N Membership number and the cashier showed me the special “compare to current BN.com price” button, on the register. It took all of 2 seconds and I checked out with the lower online price + tax. The cashier said that if you always ask for the comparison (again after your member # has been entered) the system will give you the lowest price possible. So if your member discount drops the in-store price lower than the online price, you’ll still come out ahead.

This is exactly the kind of customer-focused thinking Barnes and Noble needs to be doing.

  1. I was able to research prices and availability online
  2. I could have even reserved a copy online
  3. I was able to go to a local store, pay local taxes, and get the lowest price Barnes and Noble was offering, online or off.
  4. I had my book immediately (which even beats free 2 day delivery)

Hopefully, more customers will use this price-matching program. It leverages the best pieces B&N has access to, and will keep them  relevant and front-of-mind for local readers. These kinds of services can help them win in a way that all their past experiments, with in-store restaurants and bars, just can’t do.

Books, Publishing and Birmingham