Used Books Blog

Welcome to the Used Books Blog Year in Review sponsored by John Barth. That’s right, not meta-fiction but meta-blogging.

The blog began in late June as a way to stay connected to books and to learn more about search engine optimization (SEO). I struggled at first with WordPress but got the hang of things and began to post regularly. An interview with Fine Books & Collectibles helped launch the blog, for which I am very grateful. I also received support and links from many booksellers, as well as colleagues at both Alibris and Abebooks. Again, a hearty thank you for your kind words and assistance.

I took a hiatus from the blog soon after because I just didn’t have enough time to write good reviews. I was busy at work, heading up the launch of Santa.com. I did, however, have plenty of time to read as I commuted on BART. So I have returned to the blog with a stack of books to review and plans to post on a more regular basis.

So what exactly worked and didn’t work for the Used Books Blog in 2007. Thankfully, search did work! Nearly 50% of traffic came from search engines - primarily Google. The terms that drove the most traffic were:

• Used Books
• Barnes and Nobel
• Kindle Sales

I’m also receiving traffic from a number of odd terms like ‘blow job decal’ and ‘blow job short story’ because of my review of Magical Thinking. Thank you Mr. Burroughs. (A pity sarcasm doesn’t translate as well in writing!)

Referring traffic was good but should be better so add me to your blogroll and we can swap links. I also explored Digg, StumbleUpon, Facebook and numerous other venues to increase the exposure of the blog. I’ve got plenty of ideas, just a shortage of time. Don’t we all these days.

Outside of more referring traffic my goal in 2008 is to produce interesting content and increase comments. So don’t be shy! Leave a comment, whether it’s one sentence, a paragraph or an essay.

Happy New Year and happy reading in 2008!

Zeroville by Steve Erickson is what I would describe as a mood novel. The narrative, plot, description, imagery, structure and dialog all combine to produce a certain vibe, they strike an emotional chord that produces a general mood. I hear this happens a lot when people listen to jazz. I’m not a big jazz fan myself, but I can relate and would include OK Computer by Radiohead, the theme to Six Feet Under and anything by Ride as music that elicits a very specific mood.

It’s rare that this happens with books in my opinion. Yes, there are some that have a theme, that set a specific tone that you might immerse yourself in, but it’s not the same. What I’m talking about is the ability to create and influence the reader’s mindset. It’s like the ink is tinged with some sort of pathogen that infects you through the fingertips. Thus, every word you read is seen through this filter that the author has instilled in your brain. (That actually sounds like an interesting science-fiction plot don’t you think?)

One of my favorite passages from Zeroville relates to this concept:

It’s like the first time I heard the second Pere Ubu album and throught it just blew completely, I thought anyone who liked it must be stupid and full of shit - and then for about a year it was practically the only album I listened to. It was the only album that made any sense at all. So why does that happen? The music hasn’t changed. The movie hasn’t changed. It’s still the same exact movie, but it’s like it sets something in motion, some understanding you didn’t know you could understand, it’s like a virus that had to get inside you and take hold and maybe you shrug it off - but when you don’t , it kills you in a way, not necessarily in a bad way because maybe it kills something that’s been holding you down or back, because when you hear a really really great record or see a really great movie, you feel alive in a way you didn’t before, everything looks different, like what they say when you’re in love or something - though I wouldn’t know - but everything is new and it gets into your dreams.

Zeroville follows Vikar Jerome as he lands in Hollywood in 1969. He’s easy to spot, what with the tattoo of Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift on his shaved head. He’s prone to quick violence, particularly if you mistake Clift and Taylor for James Dean and Natalie Wood. Yes, Zeroville is about movies and if you’re even a little bit interested in movies it will make the story that much more fulfilling. Erickson often doesn’t come out and tell the reader what movie he’s referring to, encouraging you to piece together the reference.

Vikar’s love of movies leads him to work as an editor. That’s about the most ‘normal’ thing I can say about the plot, which pinballs from one strange situation to another, chopped up into over 400 ‘chapters’ that range in length from a word to a few pages. This is quintessential Erickson, weaving together the odd and bizarre into something that is entrancing. There are times when you may not fully understand what he’s driving at but it feels interesting and important.

In this city a person can hide from God for a long time.

He uses film as a metaphor for life, and editing as a mechanism to manipulate, or to make choices by showing the ‘good’ or ‘bad’ profile of an actor. I highly recommend Zeroville and any other Erickson for that matter. Simply be prepared to absorb the material on a different level and let the mood of his work take over.

Coin Locker Babies by Ryu Murakami is a frenetic, disturbing coming of age story. It’s a compelling read, that keeps you interested despite the sometimes gruesome activities and descriptions. I stumbled on Coin Locker Babies while trying to figure out which Haruki Murakami novel I’d read next. Coin Locker Babies popped up after a search for Murakami and I became intrigued because it wasn’t a title with which I was familiar. Had I found a rare or new Haruki Murakami novel? No. I quickly found that there was another Murakami. Perhaps Murakami is to Japan what ‘Smith’ is to America.

I checked it out and Ryu Murakami’s bio was interesting enough that I decided to give Coin Locker Babies a try. The novel follows two orphans - Hashi and Kiku - both abandoned in a coin locker soon after being born. They befriend each other at an orphanage and wind up being adopted together by a childless couple on a small rural island. From here the novel begins to accelerate as we follow Kiku, a pole vaulter prone to violence and Hashi, a frail and musical sort who winds up an excessive rock star.

The novel doesn’t quite hang together all the time, as Murakami explores different genres and topics. Most of these explorations are interesting, though sometimes overly grotesque in my opinion. Murakami delves into the underbelly of Japanese youth culture coupled with the struggle around bisexuality; the inner-workings of the music industry and the tortured artist; life within a progressive prison facility; and biologic weapons.

The central theme of Coin Locker Babies is self-discovery, with the vehicle being the struggle to do so after being abandoned in such a callous way. But there’s a secondary element of debauchery, darkness, self-loathing and hatred. In the end, it’s these secondary themes that overtake the novel and the narrative. Lives gone awry, a society gone astray.

Not for the feint of heart, Coin Locker Babies by Ryu Murakami is a consuming read, but may not ultimately be satisfying.

Cosmopolis by Don DeLillo was disappointing and ranks as my worst book of 2007. Perhaps I expect too much from DeLillo. I’m an ardent fan of his work, having started with Ratner’s Star and read everything except Players and the new Falling Man. The cadence of DeLillo’s work is always engrossing, a stylized, off-kilter pacing, rich description and dialog that is hyper-real.

White Noise, The Names, Americana and Underworld are some of my favorite novels. They evoke a mood, a time, and a place, provoking thought on both modern and timeless themes. With Cosmopolis, all that once seemed so effortless for DeLillo now seems forced. It feels like an attempt to modernize, to make himself more relevant to the Internet age.

Cosmopolis starts out promisingly enough. There are descriptions and turns of phrase that rival those of his best work. We follow Eric Packer as he sets out in his white limousine, beset by the confusion of a modern world fraught with instant success and the conflict between technology and humanity. The set-up is good, and there’s a real vehicle (both literal and metaphoric) to move the plot along.

Sure enough Eric gets caught in New York traffic. But so does DeLillo’s focus. The deconstruction of Eric Packer is clunky and the happenstances that occur are forced and the returning phrases (a DeLillo trademark) just don’t seem to work. Usually, these returning phrases, these echoes of the character’s subconscious, help to shape the mood and tone of the novel. They’re the border collie of his prose.

Cosmopolis is nothing if not challenging, thought-provoking, and utterly different.

That’s what the Chicago Sun-Times had to say about Cosmopolis. That should have been an warning, a red flag, since it says absolutely nothing positive about the book. Quintessential critic-speak for an author that they can’t quite pan given his track record and following.

Avoid Cosmopolis and instead pick up any DeLillo work before Underworld.

Inspired by fellow Reign of Error blogger, I’ve decided to do a best books list. This is about books I’ve read in 2007, not those published in 2007. Remember, this is the Used Books blog. I’ve selected David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas as my best book of 2007. It was a very close choice between Cloud Atlas and Ghostwritten, Mitchell’s debut novel. They both have similar styles, but I found Cloud Atlas just slightly more inventive from a structure and language perspective. Get your hands on a David Mitchell novel soon and you won’t regret it.

There was a solid list of contenders on my 2007 list. They included:

• Atonement by Ian McEwan
• Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
• The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
• The World to Come by Dara Horn
• Strong Motion by Jonathan Franzen
• Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke

I haven’t reviewed all of the above because I’ve been busy with work (launching Santa.com) and family (a great wife and fantastic 3-year old daughter.) But look for the missing reviews (and more) in the coming weeks.

Right now I’m in the middle of Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore, which will likely make it on the 2008 list. I’m also looking forward to Mischa Berlinski’s Fieldwork and Ian MacDonald’s Brasyl. The important thing is to keep reading.

The Amazon Kindle hopes to spark the flagging eBook industry. Forgive the corny title and reference to Billy Joel and let’s examine whether this time will be any different from the last time … or the time before that. First thing for you to understand is that I don’t have a Kindle, haven’t seen one first hand and don’t have a real big opinion on the nitty-gritty gadgetology that has been covered so well in other blogs.

I’m looking at the larger picture. First, lets talk price tag. At $399 it’s a pricey bit of hardware which will keep a lot of people on the sidelines. But let’s say that’s not an issue. What about the price of books? $9.99 for a bestseller sounds … good, but not great. Sure it’s cheaper than a new hardback, but it’s enough that it will make people think about whether they’ll buy it or not. It might work for the instant gratification crowd and the book group junkies who want to be the first to read the new John Grisham. But the majority of readers will likely think about waiting for it in paperback, getting it from a friend or finding it used on sites like … Amazon.

Is there an iTunes like future for eBooks? I don’t think so. And it has nothing to do with price and everything to do with the medium.

You’ll listen to your favorite music again and again and again and again. If you’re over the age of 30 you might remember wearing out some of your old cassettes. Books? You might read your favorite books more than once, but it’s not even close to the repeatability of music or even movies. I love Player Piano, I’ve read it three times, but I’ve watched Fletch over 20 times.

Part of the reason for this is that music in particular, and movies to some degree, are passive in nature. You can run, work, code, vacuum and do any number of things while listening to music. Movies don’t make you fill in the blanks, you’re not creating the landscape in your head, all that ‘work’ has been done for you and it’s your ‘job’ to sit back and take it all in. Not so with books. Reading is an active event which ‘forces’ you to think, imagine and create. It will also take you a lot longer to finish a book than a movie or listen to a CD.

Still not convinced? The reason why the iPod and iTunes took off was that there was pent up demand. You wanted to listen to that nostalgic music, and it was tough to remember, and then locate that Devo album and listen to Freedom of Choice. Suddenly you could have all those songs in one place! The shuffle? One massive mixed tape!

Simply insert CD, copy to iTunes, sync with iPod and bingo you had your music collection at the tip of your finger … literally. But would you do that for books? Well, you can’t for one thing. Nothing to insert, can’t copy easily and unlikely that you’d even want to go nostalgic and on a whim spend 4-6 hours reading, say … Ender’s Game again.

Finally, the portability of music was a motivating change for consumers. Ditto for movies to a certain extent. But books have been portable for a long time and there isn’t any new technology for books. No Dolby, no HD, no THX. The fundamental technology of books just isn’t changing.

I think Amazon knows all of this to a certain extent, which is why they promote additional functionality, like newspapers and blogs and the ability to view documents and pictures. To me, it just seems like an admission that the core functionality isn’t a category killer … for now. Yes, eBooks will become a viable reality one day, but that day is not today.

Spook Country by William Gibson is a satisfying book, but it’s not the best of Gibson’s work and not even close to his science fiction masterpiece - Neuromancer. Spook Country flirts with some of what made Neuromancer such a fantastic read, a complete immersion in a strange, fascinating world that explored technology and how it could alter society.

It actually seemed like it was headed that way as Hollis Henry, minor-celebrity from her days in an alternative band, delved into the the new ‘locative arts’ scene. Essentially, creating art on a GPS enabled virtual dimension. Easiest way to think of it is if you were to walk down Sunset outside of the Viper room and could still see River Phoenix dead on the sidewalk.

The technology was interesting, and bumped up against the avatar like representation that Neal Stephenson presented in Snow Crash. So, I was intrigued and read on quickly. But it turned out that this was simply a plot device for the real story, which is a shadowy race to find and retrieve a shipping container with some unknown mystery inside.

The story is told from numerous points of view and, in a somewhat rote way, they all wind up converging toward the end of the book. Outside of the Hollis Henry thread there’s Tito, a Russo-Cuban trained by his family as a spy and Milgram, a prescription drug addict who is being held by Brown, a Blackwater type mercenary. Each story does have its moments and there’s no question that Gibson is a fine writer.

Be forewarned, there’s also a very strong 9/11, anti-Bush administration overtone to the entire novel. That’s not a problem for me, but it might be for you.

An added boost to my enjoyment of Spook Country is how it wove into my own life. I commute into the city on BART. I often put my book down to stare down at West Oakland and then the shipping yard full of containers with names like Yang Ming and “K” line and Maersk. I marvel at the landscape and think about what it’s like to work there and what kind of lives they all lead. Gibson unknowingly tapped into this curiosity which helps me give Spook Country a moderate recommendation.