Another Stirring List

I've been away. I've been in transition, but so what. Let's move on.

I'd fallen behind on my commentary related to the Bibliophile's Devotional. Now arrives at my desk 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die. Yes, there are literally thousands of best books lists, what I find interesting about this one is the annotation by the author. Why he read or recommends a book is not always in synch with why I read it or would recommend it to friend or foe.

While the Bibliophile's Devotional was structured around a book a day, the 1,000 books are just that - page after page of titles I have read, had on my to-read list (a few on my not-to-read), and surprisingly to me, never heard of. Yes, the whole pile of tomes never ever in my sights before.

I have several long-time friends who will be thanking me for this discovery but that appreciation will come with a long, long sigh because none of us that a thousand reads left in us.

I may have more to say on this topic, but my Kindle just pinged - another book has arrived.

The Bibliophile's Devotional

I have a dear friend with whom I periodically exchange books, articles and academic ephemera. Today in the midst of deliveries of food, hand sanitizer and catnip, came this book. With this thoughtful gift a long-standing personal dilemma has been resolved.

I have been looking to keep this little grey blog focused my quest to publish Grey Angel, my novel. Pandemic reflection and quarantine news are not serving that quest. But a daily dose of selective literature will surely spark something resembling literary at least once or twice a week.

I hope you will look forward to my meanderings sparked by The Bibliophile's Devotional.

Today's bon mot from Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier.

"At the first gesture of morning, flies began stirring."

"Inman, a confederate soldier wounded at the battle of Petersburg, wakes up in a hospital ward. Flies buzz around the long wound in his neck that after months has finally started to heal."

Thank-you, Don. 

. . . and a grateful bow to the book's author Hallie Ephron "the best, friendliest, hippest librarian you ever met."

100 Best Novels

[original posting August 3, 2010]

I got a call from an old friend the other day. I mean an old, old friend; someone I had not spoken to in over 20 years. Strange what parts of that conversation became bloggable. She mentioned during a long rambling conversation that her daughter, about to be a senior in high school, was on her third summer of reading the 100 best novels of all time. Having read thru freshman, sophomore and junior summers, she now expected to reach her goal (all 100) by her first summer in grad school. A total of 100 books in ten summers, a laudable feat in my estimation.

Later that night I wondered how one finds the 100 Best Novels? I tried the internet and then sent off an email: "What list is your daughter using?"

The next day I got this response: "She is using the Modern Library list of best novels."

I give you the Modern Library's own bio.

The Modern Library has played a significant role in American cultural life for the better part of a century. For decades, young Americans cut their intellectual teeth on Modern Library books. The series shaped their tastes, educated them, provided them with a window on the world. Many of the country's celebrated writers are quick to attest that they "grew up with the Modern Library."

Damn, it was that Modern Library list that scared me when I googled the 100 Best Novels. Shortly and happily, I got a follow-up email: "She is reading from the ML Board's list, not the readers list." 

I leave you without comment the top ten from those two lists. If you want to see the full 100 of each, here is the link.

Modern Library Board List

1. ULYSSES by James Joyce
2. THE GREAT GATSBY by F. Scott Fitzgerald
3. A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN by James Joyce
4. LOLITA by Vladimir Nabokov
5. BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley
6. THE SOUND AND THE FURY by William Faulkner
7. CATCH-22 by Joseph Heller
8. DARKNESS AT NOON by Arthur Koestler 
9. SONS AND LOVERS by D.H. Lawrence
10. THE GRAPES OF WRATH by John Steinbeck

Reader's List

1. ATLAS SHRUGGED by Ayn Rand
2. THE FOUNTAINHEAD by Ayn Rand
3. BATTLEFIELD EARTH by L. Ron Hubbard
4. THE LORD OF THE RINGS by J.R.R. Tolkien
5. TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD by Harper Lee
6. 1984 by George Orwell
7. ANTHEM by Ayn Rand
8. WE THE LIVING by Ayn Rand
9. MISSION EARTH by L. Ron Hubbard
10. FEAR by L. Ron Hubbard

OK, one comment. Who the hell are these readers?

(2020 addendum: I know who they are and I know how they vote.)

Upon Attempting to Be a Novelist [early reflections]

[originally written June 2011]

All praise to any novelist who takes us out onto thin ice, under which large, dark shapes are discernibly swimming. Michael Cunningham

As a rule it is not a good idea to tell someone a story before you write it. Any comments or feedback will distort your vision before you have committed the words to paper or cyber-storage. About eight months ago I told two good friends and trusted critics the first part of my novel. I had what I thought were all 35,000 words written and I was interested in their reaction to the big reveal that finishes part one. Indeed it was at this point all of my large, dark shapes came into view and I did indeed have my readers out on very thin ice without them even noticing they had been led out onto a lake.

Unfortunately, neither of them liked the dark turn my story takes and I was concerned that the tale was way off track. So I turned back to the pages and began to edit, I could have simply changed the big reveal but I was sure I had it right. Must have been the lead-up twas lacking. After several weeks the 35,000 words had burgeoned to 63,000 and I sent the newly fattened part one out to six readers, including those same two I had verbally told the story. Lo and behold none of them were put off by the big reveal, in fact, the two who had been less than lukewarm originally were glowing with their praise.


I pondered this for a few moments and realized I had attempted to condense my well structured dark forms into a two minute verbal summary. Clearly, darkness needs some time to build. I needed those thousands of words to lure my readers out onto the dangerously thin ice and then and only then to reveal the sinister shadows beneath them. 


Lesson learned, I ain't tellin' nobody no stories no more; at least not ones that are going to take tens of thousands of words to deliver all the darkness and shadows.

Road Trip: Book Review -- Anathem

For long road trips, I have become a big fan of audio books. Back in Northern California I launched the first of 28 CDs of Neal Stephenson's Anathem. I have several more audio books ready for the next few phases of my sojourn but for now I give Anathem a big thumbs up.

Audio books tend to shorten the driving experience if they engage you at the level you want, need or desire. For me that means a solid storyline that meanders a bit. Short, fast and direct is not what the long road provides, so the stories need to avoid brevity as well. Trust me when I say 28 CDs is not short. I do take breaks for music and once in awhile some crazy ass right-wing radio commentary. But mostly I go with the audio books.

Anathem is science fiction set on another world, which strangely resembles earth. The characters as a whole have the same social and political failings as do we earthlings but Stephenson knows how to tell a tale. All of the side stories keep you moving towards the big finish but nary a once does the true nature of that finish get revealed. Hints, yes. Distractions, plenty.

A great listen for a lengthy road trip.

The Culture of Possibility

Another friend has written a book - The Culture of Possibility: Art, Artists & the Future by Arlene Goldbard.

Arlene's premise is that our culture is influenced perhaps even defined by how we support art and creativity. None among us will argue that art has not been diminished in our schools owing to the never-ending budget cuts. The Culture of Possibility suggests that we ignore Art at the peril of our Culture. There is a timely even timeless message that we would do well to consider.

What Arlene has written is an antidote to the despair many of us feel about the direction of our culture. Her work is not only anti-consumerism but it demonstrates how the current state of work and consume is itself both anti-social and anti-community.

I would point out that some of us hear very different things and conjure very obscure images when the word "art' is invoked. But Arlene makes the strongest of her points when she reminds us that music is art. Who of us has not been moved by music, who doesn't still drift back to "brighter days" and "happier times" when hearing the refrains of music from our adolescent years.

When you encounter dark nights, when politicians and Wall Street make you despair for our future. Take some time to heed a simply yet powerful message. We collectively can take it all back, there does exist a Culture of Possibility where the greed and avarice of today's economic machine do not dominate the future.

Arlene has written a guide to those times that will uplift your spirits and have you humming a happy tune, though it might be Woody Guthrie or Holly Near you hear.

Berkeley Book List

Living a few blocks of the UC Berkeley campus means I pick up a fair amount of academic detritus. Recently I ran across the 2013 Summer Reading list for incoming freshmen, the class of 2017. The theme of the list changes each year, in the past decade or so the topics have included: Social Media, Books for Future Presidents, War & Peace and Banned Books. For most of the 90s the books were picked by select groups: Berkeley librarians, Faculty who teach freshman introductory courses, Chairs of departments.

They've reverted to this older tradition this year, the list is titled: What Would Seniors Read and was selected by the graduating class of 2013. Here's this year's list, the webpage includes a few words of recommendation from the recommender:

Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert (2008)

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (1962)

Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv (2008)

The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson (2010)

Saturday by Ian McEwan (2008)

Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer (2009)

Extremely Loud, Incredibly Close by Jonathon Safran Foer (2005)

Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond (1997)

Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution by Paul Hawken (1999)

Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Ablom (1997)

Garbage by A.R. Ammons (1993)

Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell (2008)

Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852)

Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy and Everyday Life by Robert B. Reich (2007)

The Stranger by Albert Camus (1946)

The Plague by Albert Camus (1948)

American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America by Colin Woodward (2011)

Confessions of St. Augustine (397)

War and Peace by Leon Tolstoy (1869)

Interesting what current graduates see as relevant today.

Dystopia

For a variety of reasons, I have become familiar with the various "lists" used by Amazon books. You probably know about the Top 100 Books and perhaps the Top Kindle sales list but Amazon literally has hundreds of these.

Take for instance How to Win Friends and Influence People written by Dale Carnegie, first published in 1936. It is currently the 387th best selling book on Amazon. But it also qualifies on three other uniquely Amazonian lists:

• #2 in Books > Business & Investing > Job Hunting & Careers > Guides
• #7 in Books > Self-Help > Relationships > Interpersonal Relations
• #18 in Books > Self-Help > Success

Then there is the current hot summer offering from Dan Brown - Inferno. Currently the best selling book on Amazon (well at least it is this hour, Amazon updates all of its list every hour). Inferno also rates a #1 on several other lists.

• #1 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Action & Adventure
• #1 in Books > Mystery, Thriller & Suspense > Thrillers > Suspense
• #7 in Books > Literature & Fiction > United States

How can the #1 book be #7 on the U.S. Literature and Fiction list? Blame it on the algorithm that runs the lists. But my point today is not about how Amazon rates every book it handles but what I have discovered about the Young Adult reading category. YA for those not yet in the know, refers to books marketed to the age demographic 12 to 18.

And what are the teens and pre-teens reading these days? Very dark fiction. Stories lean heavily to dystopia, post-apocalypse, plague, collapse, invasion and oh yes, vampires. Sure there is young love mixed in but a lot of heroes and heroines go the way of Romeo and Juliet, who if you forgot, ended up quite dead.

Psychologists and anthropologists are having a field day with the overwhelming rise of darkness in teen fiction. All kinds of phobias, psychosis and ominous predictions are being forwarded. My only suggestion is that you give The Lord of the Rings to any teenagers who cross your path. I considered Dante's Inferno since they are almost there anyway but if you really want to stir the morose, why not just give them Atlas Shrugged.

Yikes! that darkness stuff tends to rub off on you.

Tantra in the West

One of my good and treasured friends, Birrell Walsh, has become quite an author in the past few years. Besides a book of poetry and popularized version of his doctoral dissertation on prayer and healing, he has now produced four books in his series Tantra in the West. I want to recommend all or some of them to you.

Sister Clare's Lover was the first. This tale is set in San Francisco and follows the life and loves of a 'confused-by-life' priest.

"Father Matthew Shalgry, a priest who himself has been silenced for his writings, is asked by his archbishop to find Sister Clare, the mysterious author of *The Love of Christ.* It is a highly sexual poem and secretive devotional practice that is sweeping through the convents. He will find the practice, and lose his heart, in this encounter of Catholicism and ancient tantra." 

Next came Illuminating Four Cities: A Recipe for Catholic Tantra. If you have read The Years of Rice and Salt by another of my favorite authors Kim Stanley Robinson or if you enjoyed the film Cloud Atlas last year, I can strongly recommend the tale told in Four Cities.

"Father Shalgry has loved a woman honorably, and she is gone. Now he must find meaning for what has happened. His best friend, ex-Sister Marta Vasquez, owns a tavern. In one long night of storytelling at her bar, he recounts visions of other worlds and of his connections with his beloved there. Then, at a fire on the longest winter night, it is time to bring those visions into this world." 

The third book in the series takes an acute turn into Birrell's convex, concave, convoluted version of heaven and earth. In the weirdly titled Philanthropic Horse is Haunted by Gravity, we explore heaven, earth and other realms both far and near. 

"A visiting lama asks a young stallion if he wants to help. It means carrying the dead to the river of rebirth, climbing cloud mountains to a monastery of many species, raiding Hell itself, and joining a tantric circle headed by a tigress. On the last peaks, where the lightning strikes, he must face death to bring light to his lost love and the heavy, suffering earth." 

Last month the fourth book in the series appeared - Shepherd of Wolves. For the first time Birrell has taken on the motif of an international thriller. 

"Genocides who would destroy half the world with a GMO weapon plot in Scandinavia. Interpol thinks they put together the strange team to hunt them down - a Danish detective falling in love with an American doctor, a sad priest and a lesbian bar-owner from San Francisco, a Filipino cop from the mean streets of the Mission District, and an agent of Germany's shadowy watchdog agency. But the real team is stranger still, as ghosts and half-human guardians struggle to prevent the ghastly Cleanup Virus; and history itself shimmers and reshapes." 

When I read Shepherd the first time I had the same reaction I had when I picked up Sister Clare's Lover - I was shocked to find I had a friend who is an accomplished, professional writer. If you are a fan of intrigue or even if like me you aren't, I strongly recommend Shepherd of Wolves but I can't leave this suggestion without adding that reading Sister Clare's Lover first will make the experience even more enjoyable. Being introduced to the cast of characters in Sister Clare makes the story in Shepherd that much more satisfying. I mean who only sees only the fourth Harry Potter film?

What Are We Reading?

On one of the writing sites I frequent there was a discussion recently about whether book sales said anything about the quality of the writing in those books. This particular discussion centered on the success of the Fifty Shades trilogy. I got to wondering just what were the genres of the books we are reading.

Here is the list of the top 100 on Amazon.com by genre. Classification interpreted by me with some assist from the Amazon categories. Totals are at the bottom.

1.   business
2.   science & religion
3.   self-help
4.   diet
5.   self-help
6.   self-help
7.   novel
8.   diet
9.   self-help
10. children's book 
.
.
.
28. erotica
29. health
30. self-help
31. children's book
32. comic
33. diet
34. romance
35. self-help
.
.
.
46. erotica
47. diet
48. diet
49. erotica
50. diet
51. children's book
52. self-help
53. fantasy
54. diet
55. children's book
56. novel
57. self-help
58. erotica
.
.
.
99. novel
100. diet

Children's Books - there are 15 children's titles on the list. I am told that holiday purchasing inflates these numbers by nearly 50% in the weeks leading up to Easter when I took my little survey.

Diet Books - 14 titles in the Top 100 is fairly average year in and year out.

Self-Help - a total of 16 offerings is also about average for this category.

Novel - 22 novels plus 7 in the "fantasy" category are just below the steady average of 1/3 of all best-sellers being novels.

Erotica - the 4 such titles on the list all come from the Fifty Shades series.

Hope for the Hopeful

I realize my own internal political discussion has been tumbling out here for the past several weeks. I would not argue if someone were to label my current position as cynical. I prefer to think of myself as semi-mired in a period of existential angst over the direct of the country in political terms. 

I cannot in good conscience shift this blog completely away from the political, at least without offering some lights at the end of the tunnel. Here are several sources I think would buoy up any sagging political conscience.

The Leaderless Revolution: How Ordinary People Will Take Power and Change Politics in the 21st Century by Carne Ross is by no means a pollyannish approach to political change but rather a blueprint for individual involvement in the system. His main point - government is an inadequate answer to the problems we face today.

We Can All Do Better by Bill Bradley. Former Senator and NBA player, Bradley itemizes the problems and suggests step-by-step how each one of us can contribute to solutions both local and national.

The Great Divergence: America's Growing Inequality Crisis and What We Can Do About It by Timothy Noah. A truly eye-opening litany of how big and how destructive the financial inequality gap is in the U.S. Even if you think you know how bad it is, I assure you that it's much worse and much more dangerous than you believe. The "What We Can Do About It" part of the book is less than satisfying but the articulation of the scope of the inequality and where it will inevitably lead is worth the read.

Finally, one of my favorite and most thoughtful blogger friends has expressed the depth of my disenchantment with the political system far better than I have. Plus she managed to come out of the dark tunnel still engaged and hopeful. It is my own hope that you might do the same. Read her excellent piece - The Impasse and be uplifted.

The Stranger

"Mother died today. Or, maybe, yesterday; 

I can't be sure."

A good friend mentioned last week that he missed the personal stories I have in the past told here. My political focus of late was 'interesting' to him but he kindly suggested that my voice was more engaging when not mired in the fallow fields of american politics. So today a story of the present and of a fine spring evening in 1966.

It was Thursday night of finals week. The campus was nearly empty, most students had already fled after taking early exams. A few stray pre-meds hung about the dorms awaiting the Friday lab finals. There were also several lingerers who had gone down to the penultimate night to finish a project or paper, I was one of those.

The assignment was straight forward - a paper on Albert Camus' The Stranger. The story was twenty years old in 1966, I was eighteen. The weighty tome stared up at me throughout that long night. The illustrated cover exactly as pictured above. I found three images on the web in that early paperback style; one for sixty-five cents and another at a dollar seventy-five but I remember the buck and a quarter edition. I remember because I had that same copy on my shelf for nearly thirty years. I never reread it until this week when I came across a copy while boxing books for a friend, it had been now forty-six years since my first encounter with Camus.

You see on that warm spring evening of 1966 I did not 'get' existenialism. I didn't get a lot of things. My first year of college had been a shock for me; so many possibilities rushing towards me all at once. And there was the inbred, midwest, just turned 18, need to be knowledgeable and right in the face of this tsunami of potential knowledge, I was lost.

So I sat in that empty corner dorm room. A single incessantly buzzing neon overhead crisping my brain as the night wound down. My single bag was already packed and stored in the closet. Both beds were striped, sheets were already turned in to laundry services, I didn't want to be tempted to 'just a short nap.' My roommate had left two days before, I was alone with Albert Camus and he was not speaking to me.

If you remember the story, early in the novel the main character spends a long night in a stark, white room holding vigil beside his mother's coffin. Inside the room is too warm, he and the few elderly mourners drift in and out of sleep. Outside an inviting spring evening beckons but demands of duty and fealty keep him locked in that overly bright, oppressive room.

The obvious parallels with my own situation that fine spring night were exactly the stuff Professor Bogart would have reveled in. But such fine observations on my own human condition were not within this eighteen year olds grasp. I took another ten years before I was able to openly contemplate that someday I wanted to 'be a writer' - someday.

Shared Marginalia

A couple of months ago Amazon quietly announced public note sharing for their Kindle eReader. I was surprised they didn't make a bigger deal about this great leap forward. You can now read a book with a friend, friends or classmates and share each other's marginalia. I don't know if you have ever passed a book around with everyone adding to the margin notes but I can attest from several such ventures that it is well worth the time. The only drawback was waiting for your turn to get the book or being first in line with completely virgin pages. The last in the queue, of course, gets the full benefit of sharing everyone's thoughts, dreams, reflections and critique.

Now we can do it live and be updated as the group reads through the book in real time. Sure we all have to buy a Kindle or download the free app. to our laptop and upload the same book but trust me this is worth the effort. I assume all the eReaders will add this feature soon. 

Geographical separation will no longer limit the members of your book club; you can have an eBook Club. Who wants to read Heart of Darkness with me? Or the Foundation Trilogy? Or Catch-22? Or . . .

eReader

Consider this a double sided review, sort of like going to see a good movie at the drive-in. A twofer so to speak. First, the eReader I am reviewing is not the Kindle. I had my first experience with a Nook, the Barnes & Noble eReader. 

I must say I am not tempted to buy an eReader at this time but only because every tech prognosticator says they will be obsolete in a few short years, which in tech talk could mean next month. My personal experience with the Nook was very positive. The weight was more than a typical paperback but less than a hardcover book of any decent length. Holding it was no more or less cumbersome than holding the equivalent book. Being able to adjust the font size is a huge plus, I mean HUGE.

I did use an added clip-on light for late night reading but it's the same one I use to read a book, so no big disadvantage there. The charge lasted a good long time even if I forgot to give it morning nursing time from the electronic nipple. Truly an all around positive experience, if I wasn't sure every laptop, tablet and device to be named later will not have the same capacity by the next holiday cycle, I would buy one.

Now to the books I read on the Nook. I know you know that Arthur C. Clarke wrote 2001; you probably also know he wrote a sequel 2010 made into the Roy Scheider and John Lithgow movie, which Clarke was not associated with. Sir Arthur also wrote 2061 and I have recently learned 3001. I read as far as 2061. However, he along with Stephen Baxter wrote another three novels that "will do for time what 2001 did for space." Well sort of, that's a big boot to fill, but I will concede that the three "time books" are worth the read for SF fans of Clarke. Titles: Time's Eye, Sunstorm, First Born. I do strongly suggest that you not read any reviews; they all want to give away the big turn in the first book, which really needs to be experienced in the context of the story.

I must add one caveat: if you are a reader who is disappointed when a well written book fails to deliver an ending that gives you complete story closure then this series may not be your cup of tea. But for sheer SF entertainment, I would put them on my Nook or Kindle or beach blanket.

The Girl Who Played with the Dragon's Nest

Have you read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo? If yes, then have you read the sequel - The Girl Who Played with Fire? and, of course, having read two you must have gotten to the final book - The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. All three remain in the top 30 on Amazon nearly three years after Dragon Tattoo (english version) was released. 


So I have a question - why? 


The writing is not brilliant nor is the mystery unique. A New Yorker article attempted to answer the question: Why Do People Love Stieg Larsson novels? An interesting article that poses even more question than I have and informs us that Larsson may have planned a series of 10 novels with these characters but he died having completely only these three.


I think the answer has to come from the lead female character - Lisbeth Salander. With a Nazi monster for a father, victim of all sorts of abuse; childhood and contemporary, tough, smart, silent and a feminist of a very unique pedigree. The attraction to the books must be a strong affinity to the girl with the dragon tattoo.


For me the books were interesting beach reads, though I consumed them during this northern california winter. The setting in Sweden meant readers are exposed to a different corrupt government than Russia, China, U.S. or Vatican City; that was refreshing. You never get a really good dose of neo-Nazism at work in American novels.


But after the change of setting, the novels are not particularly well written politico-mysteries. No, it has to be the girl in the titles. Don't get me wrong, the stories are good, at times very good; but the delivery is weak. The New Yorker article summarizes all the controversy about who may have helped with the editing of Larsson's original drafts. There is much agreement that he had more than substantive editing revisions to get the books to their current condition.


But even with a gang of editors the books really are nothing unique. Not a single orc to be found, nor actual dragon to be slain or ridden.


Can someone explain this to me?

Literature on the Road

One perk of my semi-nomadic wanderings is that I get to sample the daily lifestyles of the friends and family I visit, including their choice in literature and periodicals. Right now, here in Lake Shastina, California the magazine selection includes two of my favorites: National Geographic and Discover. And while I will go home with a box of older editions, I thought I would share with you the January/February lead story in Discover - The Year in Science: 100 Top Stories of 2010.

To pick my favorite story I had to skip a couple of NASA tales, which I am very fond of, particularly those with photographs from the Hubble. There were also several fossil finds, which made us several tens of millions of years older and set the dinosaurs back nine digits in human years. There were solar planes and green cities; avian optical illusions and rocks in Death Valley that move.

But being the anthropocentric fool that I am, I had to go with a finding from neuroscience about another capacity of the human brain. We know we can measure the neural response in the human brain to nearly any stimuli. So a test was done to first notice the neural activity via fMRI when someone told a vivid memory from their life. Next a group of volunteers were scanned as they listened to a tape of that same memory. 

Two results were discovered. First, the more closely a listener paid attention to the story the more their own brain activity mirrored that of the original story teller. Attention was measured by a follow-up questionnaire. Even more interesting was the discovery that among the most attentive listeners, "key brain regions lit up before the words even came out." Listeners were able to anticipate the coming direction of the story just as the original speaker would foretell their own tale. The short conclusion:

"The more you anticipate someone, the more you're able to enter their space."

For those interested this article is #78 in the top 100, titled: Good Listeners Get Inside Your Head.

30,000 Words or thereabouts

Last month while I was taking a break from blogging I was working on a novel. I had thought that by middle to late December I would have the first 30,000 words ready to send to my small cadre of readers for evaluation and critique. The way I have this novel structured there is a big reveal, a climax, a turning point at about a quarter of the way through the story. At least that is how I thought it was going to go.

Last night I reached that all important reveal at something over 60,000 words. A tad beyond the first one-third of the book and double the number of words I had expected to expel getting to that pivotal point in the story. Rather than make some arbitrary adjustment I decided to let the readers have at it. But I couldn't possibly throw sixty thousand words at readers who have done nothing wrong other than be my friend and let me have their email eddress.

So as a compromise I sent out three chapters, around 8,500 words. If anyone likes those I will supply the remainder. After all, if I can't hook you in three chapters why would you want to read more? I was reminded of that last night when I was looking around my friend's library for something new to read. I started four books and each time I tossed it aside when the author failed to grab my attention with the first chapter. One was so confusing I didn't get past the first page.

Why do some authors think they don't owe their audience some semblance of value. I paid for your talent, okay in this case my friend paid for it, but the point is - have some respect for the reading audience and give them something to hold on to.

Hopefully, my readers will find something to: sink their teeth into, wrap their arms around, dip their toes in, tickle their fancy, capture their spirit, let their heart take wing, or simply enjoy.

I'll let you know.

Away

Enjoy as many of the holidays as the waning of the calendar may bring your way.

We shall return in the new year.

Leading Causes of "The End"

Well it is nearly All Hallows Eve and I have been working on a fairly dark section of my current book project, so I thought today I might ponder a bit about death. Specifically, what are the leading causes of death worldwide and then some specifics about death in the United States.

The best numbers on death worldwide come from the World Health Organization. They divide their data into low, medium and high income countries because the standard of living equates to better or worse access to health care. For that reason malaria appears in the low-income data but not middle or high-income nations. On the other side of the dark coin, Alzheimer's related deaths appear only in the high-income countries. A comprehensive global comparison would run far beyond the scope of a single blog post. So I focused on the U.S. numbers.

Divide the population into 10 segments by age:
<1,
1-4,
5-9,
10-14,
15-24,
25-34,
35-44,
45-54,
55-64,
65+.

First a couple of questions and then a big hint if you need one.

Question 1: Five age groups (1-4, 5-9, 10-14, 15-24, 25-34) share the same most common cause of death, what is it?
Question 2: What is the most common causes of death overall, it appears in the top ten of every category except infants under one year of age?

Here is your hint, which will answer question #2 and help you on question #1.

Top Ten Most Common Causes of Death in the U.S.
1. Heart Disease 616K
2. Malignant Neoplasms 562K
3. Cerebro-vascular 135K
4. Chronic Low Respiratory Disease 127K
5. Unintentional Injury 123K
6. Alzheimer's Disease 74K
7. Diabetes Melitus 71K
8. Influenza & Pneumonia 52K
9. Nepritis 46K
10. Septicemia 34K

Heart Disease remains the number #1 killer in the U.S. and from that list you probably also figured out that Unintentional Accident tops the list for those over 1 and under 45. And yes a big portion of that number is automobile accidents. Two more questions.

3. What cause of death not in the top ten ranks 2nd for 15-24 year olds, 3rd for 1-4, 10-14 & 25-34, 4th in the 5-9 age group and 6th among 35-44 year olds?
4. What cause of death also not in the top ten ranks 2nd for 25-34 years old, 3rd for 15-24, 4th for 10-14 & 35-44 and 5th for 45-54 and even 8th among 55-64 year olds?

Just a couple of other facts before I answer those two questions. Clearly the 65+ group has the highest numbers in all categories of the top ten. Deaths of those 65 and older account for nearly 70% of the total nationwide. This 70% of deaths number would be 80%+ if the answers to questions 3 & 4 did not exist.

Answer to question #3: Homicide
Answer to question #4: Suicide

If you would like to see this data as a graph.

Atlas Shrugged

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs. 

Please excuse the lame, stale joke set-up but you gotta love the punch line. If you remember I wrote a post about six weeks ago on the subject of the 100 Best Novels; I was shocked and a touch dismayed to find the reader's poll portion of that survey topped by Atlas Shrugged. In fact the top ten reader's choice novels included four Ayn Rand books, three L. Ron Hubbard pieces of gibberish plus To Kill a Mockingbird, 1984 and, of course, The Lord of the Rings.


I stumbled on the quote/joke the same day I heard that several independent film makers have actually banned together and have filmed what they intent to become the Atlas Shrugged trilogy, well at least part I. Paul Johansson is directing and playing the lead as John Galt, which conjures images of Dancing With Wolves. Part I of AS is scheduled for release in 2011.


For years Hollywood has looked for a way to bring Atlas Shrugged to the big screen, thankfully if it was going to happen at least it is being done my independent filmmakers rather than a big studio. I really don't expect much from the attempt, remember the several attempts to make Dune into a motion picture. There is a theme to both Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead but will it really take two hours or six to delivered the singular idea that it's everyone for themselves?


Hmm, maybe I am wrong here, big Hollywood studios are really good at taking two hours to make one obvious statement. But enough pummeling on individualism, truth, justice and the Amerikan way as depicted by Hollywood.


I am looking out on a stunning orange sky over the SF Bay and the Pacific beyond. I would like to remind my bay area friends that anyone with a good camera and a decent lens or two is welcome to come by over the next month or so, the sunset is slowly creeping towards the Golden Gate and I would really like to have some decent pictures to share here. I will buy dinner, you like Thai?






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opening quote found on kfmonkey.blogs