My reading preferences tend to be somewhat cyclical. My last few book choices have quenched my non-fiction thirst and left me aching for something lighter, I have now journeyed to the opposite end of my reading spectrum and am enjoying some science fiction, specifically, Frank Herbert’s Dune.

I was always intimidated by Dune. Perhaps it was its weight or that the title does little to entice. However on Vivienne and Jesse’s insisting, I tried it again.

I am so pleased with the book so far. The families were a little hard to keep track of at first, but having trained with the near infinite Aurelianos of 100 Years of Solitude, I’ve been able to follow the characters fairly well.

I just reached the end of Part I. The book captivates and uses beautifully descriptive language. Despite the fact that I’m only 40% through the book, I’m confident it will be a favorite. If you haven’t read it yet, I strongly encourage you to join me.

I heard a short clip on the radio suggesting that publishers might delay the release of electronic copies of their books. It’ll be like the video release of movies, coming months after the original release.

I find the battle between paper and screen completely fascinating.

In conversing with Sarah T. about literature and education, I realized I strongly oppose mandatory reading for high school students.

I went through the public education system and endured summers of reading lists and English classes full of literature. Of the vast multitude of books populating the curriculum, here’s what I remember:

I enjoyed reading Old Man and the Sea and Sons and Lovers.

I struggled painfully through Pride and Prejudice, The Scarlet Letter, Of Mice and Men, most Shakespeare, and The Invisible Man (spoiler: not about a superhero who can turn invisible – I know right?!? WHAT THE HECK.)

There’s nothing else. I might recall a storyline here or there if you gave me hints, but otherwise it’s all gone. Furthermore, many of the books I was suppose to read, I didn’t read. There was a fair fraction of us who skimmed and skipped our way through the bulk of books. I think my class read Beloved in high school too. I’m pretty sure I didn’t read it.

With this in mind, it’s hard for me to see value in mandatory reading. Sarah T. pointed out that becoming educated on culturally significant storylines of quintessential works is only half of the purpose. The other half is learning to unearth and appreciate the symbolism and themes that lie between the lines. And while I may have called shenanigans on these themes in high school because they seemed convoluted and contrived, I now appreciate that many written works are carefully crafted to share something deeper than 300 pages of Times New Roman.

Right now I’m reading some poetry. Specifically, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Coleridge. This is a perfect example of a work that I would have no interest in if it was forced upon me, but now that I’ve picked it up on my own volition, I find it deeply powerful. Is the best way to educate to try and push value upon someone who may not be ready to embrace it? The clever child might make this argument regarding those last stems of lukewarm broccoli sitting on his dinner plate, but I submit to you that these are different situations.

It could very well be that it just wasn’t for me and that most lives are enriched by what I saw as cultural water-boarding. Even if the mikedidonato.com sampling might have a disproportionate amount of engineers who, like me, chose a college based entirely on the fact that they didn’t have to take English courses, I’m curious to hear your opinions on mandatory reading in high school.

Literature really is an art. I didn’t see it as such until I started walking down the literary path alone.

My sister recommended MJ Hyland’s Carry Me Down after I finished Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves last year. She described it like this:

House of Leaves is truly unique, but at times it seems like the author is exploring new writing styles just because he can – more for the gimmick than for the act of telling the story. Carry Me Down is just as unique in its main character and the means of the story, but it never feels forced or fake.

I didn’t read the book right away because it wasn’t available on Kindle. Thankfully, there’s a really handy website called Mysteria which will regularly ping Amazon to see if they have the book you want converted as ebook. Conveniently, Mysteria e-mailed me about Carry Me Down on Thursday just before my flight. I promptly downloaded the book and read it on my westward journey.

Nothing makes a flight more enjoyable than a good book to read. And mostly, I agree with Alicia’s opinion above. Carry Me Down never felt forced and it had a subject matter that was very clever and mostly untouched in the literary world. That said, I don’t think you would ever want to put Carry Me Down and House of Leaves in the same sentence let alone the same bookshelf. House of Leaves is a suspenseful book whose subject matter steps far into the paranormal – Carry Me Down is just a story about a boy. There are no endless hallways or monsters lurking out of view, it’s just decent story telling.

It’s a pretty short book too which is nice. I read it in about 6 hours of flying.

Next up, I’ll be reading Going to Extremes with book enthusiast Tony E. If you’d like to join our impromptu book club, pick the book up and plan on finishing the first 2 chapters by next weekend.

Until then, keep reading!

WARNING: SPOILERS.

I finished The Story of Edgar Sawtelle this weekend. On Sunday I relaxed for the better part of the morning prone and closed to the world reading my book. The writing kept me captivated and it wasn’t a challenge to just read for 4+ hours straight.

Repeat warning: Spoilers.

I really disliked the ending. When I told my mother that I had finished the book she said

Mom D: “Oh, right. That’s an Oprah book club book right?”
Mike D: “I think so, have you read it?”
Mom D: “I haven’t. Was it depressing? All Oprah books seem to be depressing.”

And yes. It was depressing. It ended in a giant pile of sadness. I really dislike disheartening books. I mean, it’s fiction. Why create a book that provides a path of misery for your reader? Some people might enjoy a good gloomy book. Perhaps it leads them towards a better understanding of life’s unfairness. Perhaps those cynics readers find it a more realistic story. But not me. For me, the best thing about a sad book is that it boosts my joy for those books that end with justice and a happy couple walking into the sunset.

Are there any people out there who prefer a depressing ending to one that is happy in its conclusion? I wonder if there’s some metric that could help define which sells better: the joyous finale, or the dismal one.

Out of curiosity, now I want to check to see what percentage of Oprah book club books are actually depressing.

Occasionally you meet people who have read every book you’ve ever read as well as a million more. My sister Alicia is one of those people. So too is my friend Bekah Hayes. Most recently though, I interacted with Treesa’s old office mate Tony E. Tony E. also has a wide breadth of books under his belt. Before I started in on One Hundred Years of Solitude, he gave me a firm warning of its potential to become mind-bendingly irritating.

He read my most recent post about the book and we had the following conversation:

Tony E: hate to say it…. but i told you so
Mike D: it’s absolutely true. It became torturous
Tony E: yeah, Edgar Sawtelle is an awesome book though
Mike D: You’ve read that too? Geeze, it’s like you’ve read every book. TIME FOR A TEST.

1. Did you read: Curious incident of the dog in the nighttime?
2. Did you read: East of Eden?
3. Did you read: Atlas Shrugged?

Tony E: 1. yes 2. yes. 3. yes, even the speech.
Mike D: even the speech? Gah! you win man.
Tony E: though I must admit I haven’t finish Sawtelle yet
Mike D: you still win.
Tony E: No no, when you read books everyone wins

Awww.

Awhile ago, I asked Tony for a book list. He sent me the following recommendations:

1. the savage detectives, Roberto Bolano
2. heartbreaking work of staggering genius, dave eggers (this one is probably the sweetest to read)
3. Zen and the art of motorcyle maintenence, Robert Pirsig – that book is freaking cool

Sadly, #’s 1 and 2 aren’t available on Kindle. Though I’ve heard very good things about the Zen book. Has anyone else tried either of those first two?

When we last talked literature, I was reading One Hundred Years of Solitude. In regards to language, it was a beautiful book and the story telling method was refreshing and distinct. Despite all this, I gave up on it. It finally came about that I got too frustrated with the challenge of keeping track of the characters.

This is the name distribution for characters in the book:

Half of the characters are named Aureliano. Half.

What the heck?! Not only that, except for Ursula (God bless her) nearly every uniquely named character is a minor character. This is annoying to me.

So I quit.

Now I’m reading a much more readable book called the Story of Edgar Sawtelle. And I’m enjoying it. I’m only about 10% through, but it’s so very much more rewarding. I’ll let you know how this one goes. So far, the characters all have names of their own.

I’m currently reading ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’ by Gabriel García Márquez.

It’s a strange book. I’m only 10% through, but I’m already finding it a unique read. It follows the lives of a family in a small town and has such remarkable color to it. At times, the lead character seems to be pursuing futile goals like alchemy and elixirs of youth, while suffering from impossible plagues and mystical curses. It’s written in such a way that makes you wonder if it’s all in the insane mind of the characters… yet the author keeps the reader in check by actually describing working wonders like flying carpets – is this book suppose to take place in the real world or is it fantasy? It’s this mix of fantasy and reality that adds a sense of color and wonderment to the reading. This fictional town has a very potent vividness to it.

Again, I’m only 10% through so it could turn into a bundle of unreadable crap – but at the moment I am very impressed with the quality of the reading.

I checked Wikipedia to read their introduction to the book. They describe it as a book which developed the “postmodern literary style.” I find this interesting as I’m reading another book about postmodernism right now and, so far, I don’t see any real parallels. We’ll see – perhaps there’s a whole new degree of interesting in that last 90%.

I recommend this book.

I’m reading Masterpieces a collection of Science Fiction stories penned by different authors and organized together by famed sci-fi writer Orson Scott Card.

My sister Alicia owned this book a few years ago and I had scanned through a few of the stories. Now that I have my Kindle, I wanted to read the rest so I purchased the compilation. It is Excellent.

My favorite so far has been The Saucer of Loneliness by Theodore Sturgeon. It’s a very short story and can be read in about 30 minutes. I’ve found a link to it on Google Book Search. Enjoy it here. (this link brings you to a big book which contains a bunch of stories. don’t be intimidated by the appearance that the book is a bajillion pages long, it may be, but this particular story is quite short.)

I love the author’s last two lines. I find them so powerful. Way to go Theodore Sturgeon.

Also included in the book is Robot Dreams by Asimov that is a basis for his i robot series and a funky time travel story by Robert Heinlein called “All You Zombies-.” If you like sci-fi, I’m quite certain you’ll enjoy this collection.

My two most recent literary conquests were Ayn Rand’s Anthem and Karl Marx’s The Communist Manifesto.

WARNING: Spoilers.

What a perfect book combination! Firstly, both are very short. Anthem is maybe 80 pages, The Communist Manifesto about 40-50* Secondly, both books predicted amazingly similar resulting oppressions despite completely opposite political views. Rand communicates her ideas via the story of Equality 7-2521. He’s a dude who has grown up in a complete collectivism environment. The population is imprisoned in bureaucracy and all aspects of individuality have been banned. The world is bleak, white, mundane, and scripted by ‘The Councils’. Equality 7-2521 has an awakening and finds an escape to the mundane through the development of himself and, essentially, capitalism. He develops an individuality and an ego with which he reinvents property and plans a capitalist revolution! (cue trumpet fanfare)

Karl Marx, on the other hand, conveys his point with a succinct presentation of his beliefs. He describes Capitalism not as a path to triumph but instead as a path to exploitation. He looks at capitalistic society and sees the few commanding bourgeoisie posed above the many victimized proletariat. Without exploitation, Marx argues that there can be no capitalism. He predicts that a purely capitalistic world will continue to widen the wealth gap until the vast majority of the world’s population will live in a bleak, mundane world scripted by the bourgeoisie. He ends by calling for a revolution.

If this were a fight, who would win?

Readability
Point goes to Ayn Rand. Marx is academic in his writing style and it can get boring. It took me longer to read Marx’s shorter essay than Ayn Rand’s longer essay. Ayn did a great job of keeping the storyline captivating and the plot moving.

Potency
hmm. Tie. Both predicted pretty miserable results if you were to choose their opponents path. I found it fascinating and awesome that both predicted such a similar outcome though.

Support
Karl Marx does a better job with supporting his arguments. But… I guess that’s expected. Ayn is telling a story – there’s little room to really get into supporting historical facts and such. Marx on the other hand is arguing and does a good job in cranking the volume to 11 on his political amplifier.

Which would I recommend?
I would recommend that you read whichever book you disagree with more. For those hardcore Republicans amongst us, try to get through the Communist Manifesto. For the diehard Liberals, go for Ayn Rand. I would say that both of these books are important reads for anyone who deems themselves well-read.

Which do I agree with?
Had you asked me before reading these books, I would have guessed that I’d go with Ayn Rand. I’m a strong believer in the theory that hard work can help pull the most out of luck into a position of strength. My Dad is my example of the ultimate hard worker who brought a comfortable lifestyle to his family through incredible dedication to his work and schooling and a fortitude to stick with it no matter what. He is a man who won’t stop for his own convenience and I’m quite certain he’ll never stop working for the benefit of his family, friends, and community. If the world were full of people like my Dad, capitalism would work beautifully.

But there are a lot of people who get higher capitalistic stature by pulling those around them down. I see Marx’s argument as a clever way to prevent exploitation. Rand, I think, argues that the world will stop trying if you start spreading wealth. I’m not sure I agree. I remember reading in one of my organizational behavior classes that there were three sources of motivation: Power (doing something to gain Authority), Social (doing what you do for your family or friends), and Achievement (I do it so I can say I did it!). I think I’m a mix of achievement and social. I think my Dad is something similar. Perhaps Marx is right. Perhaps if we removed the financial benefits of doing work, the world would not grind to a halt… perhaps instead we’d find a new motivation. The kind of motivation that drives people to publish free online software or the kind of motivation that advances the whole populous not just the individual.

I strongly encourage you to read both of these books. Reading both gives a great representation of opposite views. Hopefully they can help you better understand both ends of the political scale. These books definitely helped me.

*it’s a little hard to tell length of books with the Kindle. Both of these books were completed within a 2-3 hour period (each).

I am in the midst of the book Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell.

half-way review: Whoa.

For those of you who have read House of Leaves, I urge you to also consider picking up this book. Alicia recommended it to me.

Alicia has an uncanny ability to read and perfectly remember huge quantities of written material. She’s like some sort of massive book sponge. As such, Alicia is an excellent book resource. She has clued me into a whole heap of books that have far exceeded my expectations including my favorite book to date: ‘A Time Traveler’s Wife’ by Audrey Niffenegger.

Cloud Atlas is looking to compete at or above that level of awesome and I’m only about halfway through. The book is very well written. It has a complicated plot that does not feel even remotely contrived. It has a uniqueness that can be compared with House of Leaves, but an honesty that sets it apart. At times House of Leaves felt gimmicky and academic, such is not the case with Cloud Atlas. I implore you: Pick up this novel immediately!

Then we can discuss

and it will be wonderful.

One super thing about the Kindle is the enclosed dictionary. If you’re reading something heavy with syllables and you just can’t figure out what the heck it’s saying, then the kindle will tell you.

As it happens, I’m reading Cloud Atlas and it’s stacked with words I’ve never seen. Here are some of the awesome words that I’ve learned over the past two days.

Peregrinate: (v) archaic or humorous travel or wandering from place to place
Circumvallate: (v) surround as if with a rampart
Obdurate: (adj.) stubbornly refusing to change one’s opinion or course of action
Somnambulism: (n) sleepwalking *this is my favorite
Terraqueous: (adj.) consisting of, or formed of, land and water
Pusillanimous: (adj.) showing a lack of courage or determination
Extirpate: (v) root out and destroy completely
Ameliorate: (v) make (something bad or unsatisfactory) better
Abrogate: (v) repeal or do away with (a law, right, or formal agreement)
Renege (also renegue): (v) go back on a promise
Simulacrum: (n) an image or representation of someone or something
Diaphanus: (adj) light, delicate, and translucent *I like this one too
Indelible: (adj) not able to be forgotten or removed
Pellucid: (adj) translucently clear: mountains reflected in the pellucid waters.

There were more, but those are the ones that were easy to find again in the book. Oh man, I love somnambulant and diaphanus. They were used as follows:

The somnambulant grandfather clock. The diaphanus fog. Neat!

It has arrived.

I’m in the midst of reading “I know this much is true” by Wally Lamb. It’s really depressing.

Spoilers after the break.

(more…)

After reading about House of Leaves on XKCD this week, I decided to head down to my local library and check it out

Amazon’s Kindle is pretty intense. Shamus/Andrew, is this related to e-ink at all?

What makes this one so interesting is that they’ve hooked it up to an online network so that buying becomes easy. It’s a shame the books aren’t free like with a library… if so I’d buy it in a second.

Thanks Kung Fu Roland!

The Secret History is a book that I picked up last Saturday at the Meriden Library. This was the last book in a ‘reading list’ provided to me by a librarian friend. And I’m glad that I ended with this one. To be honest, my excitement for reading waned slightly upon completing the last book: The lake of dead languages. Just enough so that I hesitated when I picked up this one… would it be any good?

I’m very glad I grabbed it. In my recent reading surge I’ve found that outside of the basic ‘good writing’/'bad writing’ separation there seem to be books with good plots, books with good characters, and books with both. The books with good characters, I think, are far better than books with good plots. Though you are free to disagree with me on that one.

‘The Secret History’ by Donna Tartt is one that, I think, has excellent characters and a pretty good plot. What makes the characters unique is that they are outcasts with deep flaws that are really tough to get your head around.

Our main character is Richard. He comes to a school and joins a group of students studying Greek: Henry, Charles, Bunny, and Camilla. The students are exceptionally bright, but fall into trouble when they find themselves in the midst of a murder.

Now, typically I think murder mysteries get a bad wrap. I think they can be seen as cheap entertainment. Despite the fact that this book deals with a murder… it’s hardly a mystery. I read it as more of a journey of a group of students and the interactions between them. The characters are just so wonderful.

I highly recommend this book. If you happen to read it, throw your thoughts in the comments.