Tag Archives: Being a reader

Uncategorized

On Book Awards and Class…

1 Comment

Last week, I promised to bring up the issue of class and book awards, and since we didn’t have the time to discuss it last week, as a follow-up to our discussion of the Hugo Awards and the Puppy Invasion, I figured we might as well get to work now, dear readers.

Pardon me while I climb on my soapbox…

One of the issues that was discussed, as reported by Wired, during the Puppy Horror was the class aspect of the awards.  And while most of the points brought up were exclusionary and near-sighted, there is an element to this argument that should be addressed.

In December of 2014, author Adrian McKinty (pictured left, courtesy of The Irish Times), author of the Sean Duffy crime novels, which I adore, and the Michael Forsythe series, which I also adore, among other literary achievements, sat down and wrote a blog post about the Man Booker Prize (fair warning: there is some strong language in the post).  In it, he challenged two-time Booker-prize-winning author Peter Carey’s claim that Americans should not be allowed to compete for the prize since it would, essentially, spoil the ‘particular cultural flavour’ of the award.*   McKinty used this argument as a jumping-off point to argue that the actual “flavour” of the Booker Prize was classicism, not nationalism.  As he noted, the vast, vast majority of the judges for the Booker Prize were attended private schools (which are much more elite than our version), while only 5% of the British population as a whole had attended private schools.  The result, he stated, was that:

…the Booker Prize judging panels are almost always made up of posh people and their chairperson is almost always very posh indeed. Posh people naturally would be sympathetic towards books about their own class and resistant to challenges to the status quo, hence Peter Carey’s worry about vulgar Americans entering the fray. (Peter Carey boarded at Geelong Grammar, one of the most expensive and exclusive private schools in Australia.) In consequence the Booker Prize winning novel is often a safe middle class rather dull book.

He also proposed a short set of practices that might help the Booker Prize improve its nominations, which included allowing publishing houses to send in more than one book for consideration (that way they could be riskier in their nominations, rather than nominating books they think will win based on past years), and encouraging genre fiction, because: “The best science fiction, crime fiction and romance writing is often as good as literary fiction but these books seldom make the Booker shortlist because they are considered to be a low form of writing.”

Surprisingly, McKinty’s recommendations may have actually helped.  As he noted in a blog post last October (language, again, FYI) the last three winners of the Booker Prize have been working-class, which points to a conscious attempt at diversity among the jury (See Paul Beatty, the most recent winner of the Man Booker Prize, below).

There are two big issues here: class, especially in the United States, is less defined by income, and is much more a social thing, as the Center for Economic and Policy Research examined in a recent survey.  That is mostly because the country is so big and diverse that there is no one bracket to determine wealth (look at house prices in Massachusetts vs. Arkansas, for example).  Thus, an income that might define you as “middle class” in one area would put you firmly in the “working class”, or even the “working poor” in other places.  So there is no one experience of class, or an ideology of class cohesion.

Just the fact that a graph like this exists is proof of my point. From the Economic Policy Institute

And class is perhaps the only social identifier that is inherently anti-social.  Capitalism, by definition, is a competition.  In order to win, you have to beat someone else to resources, to funding, to markets, to jobs, etc.  It’s why the relationship between classes is always categorized as a “struggle”.  McKinty alludes to this in his blog post, but the brutal point is that this “class struggles” makes us instinctively want to punch “downward”, or at those we perceive as “downward”….which is where the intersection of race, gender, nationality, and class all become significant together.

Because one of the positive things about encouraging books from and about “working class people”, especially in the US, is that we would inherently get more books by and about women, people of color, and immigrants, all of whom make up a plurality of the “working class”, and all of whom go under-represented in fiction.

But there is a snag to this.  In order to get these stories, we need to encourage these stories.  Because the main identifiers of the “working class”, across the board are A) a lack of higher education and B) a lack of access to continuing education and self-development, for reasons of distance, finances, or familial obligations.  And that is a huge, huge issue.

Because we are not going to get those stories unless we encourage people to tell those stories.  And in order to do that, we need to give people the tools to be storytellers–reading, writing, and practice.  But more than that, we need to provide time and space.  The first two can be acquire via education.  The second two, however, are some of the most difficult to acquire, especially for those without income security.  And no book prize in the world is going to improve its “working class” prejudices until we all show that we value everyone’s stories by listening to them, and providing the space for them to be shared.

 

*I feel the need to state here that Peter Carey is the author of some of the most important books in my life, including Oscar and Lucinda and His Illegal Self, and use this moment to point out that we all, always, have lots of learning and growing to do.

Uncategorized

Reading Without Walls

1 Comment

Like many of you, dear readers, I read a lot of books.  Moreover, I spend a lot of time reading things about books…indeed, some of the links on the left-hand side of this page will bring you to our favorite places on the internet for reading about books.

Some of these readings make me very happy, like the Children’s Book Council’s “Reading Without Walls” Initiative, which encourages younger readers to explore books of diverse voices, genres, and formats.  Here is the poster that the CBC produced for the challenge:

How cool is this?!  Helping readers to realize just how many options are available to them, how many voices, how many format, and how many genres, is a terrific way to foster a lifelong love of reading.  Moreover, studies have shown that reading, particularly reading fiction, helps build up empathy.  And Heavens knows that this world needs as many empathetic people as it can get.

I also really appreciate that this challenge also focuses on different formats of books.  I’ve written about my own struggles reading graphic novels, which I attribute, in large part to the fact that I didn’t realize they even existed until I was a lot older.  And as much as I hate to admit it, it is more difficult for an older brain to adapt to new stuff.  So getting readers’ minds and eyes (and ears!) adapted to as many formats as possible as early as possible ensures that they can enjoy All The Books as they continue to grow.

But the real importance of this project wasn’t driven home for me until I saw this article on BookRiot, entitled “A deep dive into Goodreads Top 100 Mysteries and Thrillers“, and discussed the diversity of the authors listed.  As you will see in the graph below, which we borrowed with respect from BookRiot, the Mysteries and Thrillers market is dominated by white men:

Now, I have a number of issues with Goodreads (much of which I blame on you, Amazon), which we can talk about in-depth later, but the gist of it is that their numbers, and especially their ratings, are seldom based on actual living-in-reality fact-based statistics.  If anyone followed the vicious, misogynistic movement to make the new Ghostbuster’s movie the lowest-rated on IMBD, you’ll know to what I am alluding here.  Indeed, Goodreads admitted this was a popularity contest, stating “every one of these books has at least a 4.0 rating from the Goodreads community.”  In order for a book to make it onto Goodreads’ radar like that, it has to be read by a lot of people (admittedly, who had to then have enjoyed their reading experiences–which is terrific.  Yay reading books you enjoy!)

But what we are actually seeing here is a reflection, not of the best books, but of market trends.  No one was asked “what is the best mystery book you ever read”.  Instead, the aggregate ratings of a website that is A) Owned by Amazon* B) Reliant on user input.  If you don’t have internet access or a Goodreads account, you can’t play this game.  More than likely, you are only going to list books read in the last decade or so.  I know that two of my favorite mysteries as a younger reader was The Westing Game and The Haunting of Cassie Palmer, but I never listed them on Goodreads because I didn’t get a Goodreads account until I was in my late 20’s, and if I tried to list all the books I had read to date at that time I’d have starved to death before I finished.

So what we have is a market that isn’t designed for people who are reading without walls.  And that’s where you come in.

Because while this survey can show us very broad changes over time–for example, that there are more authors of color on the list now than there were in 2000 (see the graph below)–it can’t show us how individual reading trends have changed.  If everyone and their mother and their father and their Aunt Rose are reading James Patterson, then the fact that Aunt Rose also went out and discovered Attica Locke’s The Cutting Season means nothing to Goodreads.  But I can guarantee you that it will mean something to Aunt Rose.  And I bet that being exposed to different cultures, different voices, different ways of telling stories, will mean something to you, too.

So come on into the Library and check out our “Reading Without Walls” Display for grown-up readers, and try something new.  I’ll be giving it a whirl, too, beloved patrons, so we can compare notes as we explore all the stories this big world (and even bigger universe!) has to offer!

 

*For the Record: There are aspects of Amazon that I think are terrific–namely, that they have opened the book world to millions of readers who live in book deserts, and opened an e-book market that has made reading (and writing) easier for millions more.  Amazon Smile also lets you donate to NOBLE, which is great.  However, it has also, and continues to do a lot of harm to authors, to independent bookstores, and to readers.  So while I respect the good the corporation has done, I’ll always be a wee bit skeptical of it.  

Uncategorized

On Book Stagnation and Readers’ Advisory

Did you ever have one of those days (or weeks….or months…) where you just couldn’t find anything to read?  Where every book you started failed to hold your interest through the first fifty (or twenty…or three…) pages?  Where even the covers annoyed you because you knew they weren’t the book  for you?   Where you genuinely begin believing you will never find another book to read ever again and there is no joy left in the world and all is darkness?

I’ve been there.

We’ve all been there–to a greater or lesser extent.  Your addiction to reading might not be quite as strong as mine, but I think you know what I mean.  It’s a more common issue for readers than we like to discuss.  Sometimes it’s a condition that Lady Pole has described here as a book hangover, when the last book you read was so good, so immersive, so engaging, that you don’t want to leave it’s spell once the final page has turned.   But sometimes, it has nothing to do with the last book you read.  Sometimes, it’s book stagnation.

We haven’t really discussed that one too much, but book stagnation refers to that feeling when you just can’t find a good book; when the publishing market and your personal tastes seem to be on very different pages (proverbially speaking).  Like when every romance novel I picked up wanted to be Fifty Shades of Grey.  If that was your thing, I’m very happy for you.  It just honestly did nothing for me.  Or every mystery I picked up featured a highly-detailed and gruesome murder, as told by the murderer, in the first pages (in italics, because all murderers talk in italics).  Again, if you enjoy these books, then I rejoice for you.  It’s just not my cup of tea at all.  Or when history books don’t have proper citations/footnotes/bibliographies.  That’s one that I refuse to tolerate, sorry.

But, thankfully, there is a remedy to both book hangovers and book stagnation.  And both can be found at the Library.  More specifically, from the people working at the Library.

Speaking for myself, one of my most favorite parts of the job is when a patron comes up and says that they like a certain author, or genre, or topic, and that they don’t like another genre, or a theme, or a type of plot, and asks me to help them find a new book based on that criteria.  Not only is it a fun challenge to find the bookish needle in the bookish hay of our stacks, but it’s also a true, heart-swelling moment of joy to talk about books and stories with another person, and connecting with another reader.  We may not see eye to eye about what makes a ‘great read’…in fact, we usually don’t.  And that makes it so much more fun, because it helps me appreciate the elements of a story that much more.

For example, I’ve had a long talk with patrons about scary stories.  And it was fascinating to learn what scares people in fiction.  For me, as we’ve discussed here, it’s a lot about the unknown, and the unexplored.  For others, it’s haunted houses.  For others, it’s true crime novels.  And for another, nothing was scary unless it had a soundtrack (so we headed to the DVD section of the Library).  Similar things happen with ‘funny’ books.  I delight in absurdities, while some patrons prefer black-as-night humor, and still others prefer humorous non-fiction like Erma Bombeck’s work, because the laughs come from empathy, rather than absurdity.

So imagine my joy when a fellow librarian friend of mine sent out a note to the Social Media last night saying that she was suffering from book stagnation and needed help!

I provide the recommendations she received in this hopes that it might encourage you to come in and find some new books for yourself, as well.

Here were the guidelines:

Books Recently Enjoyed:
The Rosie Project
A Man Called Ove

Dislikes:
Military History, Contemporary Romance, Gruesome Details in general (though mysteries are ok in theory), scenes of animals or children suffering

Recommendations:
(These are just a few of the huge pile that were suggested–feel free to check them out, or bring in your own list of ‘likes’ and ‘dislikes’ to get some more personalized recommendations!)

Non-Fiction:

Joe Gould’s Teeth: Joe Gould believed he was the most brilliant historian of the twentieth century. So did some of his friends, a group of modernist writers and artists that included E. E. Cummings, Marianne Moore, William Carlos Williams, John Dos Passos, and Ezra Pound. Gould began his life’s work before the First World War, announcing that he intended to write down nearly everything anyone ever said to him. “I am trying to preserve as much detail as I can about the normal life of every day people,” he explained, because “as a rule, history does not deal with such small fry.” By 1942, when The New Yorker published a profile of Gould written by the reporter Joseph Mitchell, Gould’s manuscript had grown to more than nine million words. But when Gould died in 1957, in a mental hospital, the manuscript was nowhere to be found. Then, in 1964, in “Joe Gould’s Secret,” a second profile, Mitchell claimed that the book had been, all along, merely a figment of Gould’s imagination. Lepore, unpersuaded, decided to find out.

The Soul of an Octopus: Sy Montgomery’s popular 2011 Orion magazine piece, “Deep Intellect”; about her friendship with a sensitive, sweet-natured octopus named Athena and the grief she felt at her death, went viral, indicating the widespread fascination with these mysterious, almost alien-like creatures. Since then Sy has practiced true immersion journalism, from New England aquarium tanks to the reefs of French Polynesia and the Gulf of Mexico, pursuing these wild, solitary shape-shifters. Octopuses have varied personalities and intelligence they show in myriad ways: endless trickery to escape enclosures and get food; jetting water playfully to bounce objects like balls; and evading caretakers by using a scoop net as a trampoline and running around the floor on eight arms. But with a beak like a parrot, venom like a snake, and a tongue covered with teeth, how can such a being know anything? And what sort of thoughts could it think?

Hidden Figures : the American dream and the untold story of the Black women mathematicians who helped win the space race: Starting in World War II and moving through to the Cold War, the civil rights movement, and the space race, [this book] follows the interwoven accounts of Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, Katherine Johnson, and Christine Darden, four African American women who participated in some of NASA’s greatest successes. It chronicles their careers over nearly three decades they faced challenges, forged alliances, and used their intellect to change their own lives, and their country’s future.

Fiction:

Miss Jane:  Brad Watson has mad his career by expanding the literary traditions of the South, in work as melancholy, witty, strange, and lovely as any in America. Inspired by the true story of his own great-aunt, he explores the life of Miss Jane Chisolm, born in rural, early-twentieth-century Mississippi with a genital birth defect that would stand in the way of the central “uses” for a woman in that time and place–namely, sex and marriage. From the country doctor who adopts Jane to the hard tactile labor of farm life, from the highly erotic world of nature around her to the boy who loved but was forced to leave her, the world of Miss Jane Chisolm is anything but barren. Free to satisfy only herself, she mesmerizes those around her, exerting an unearthly fascination that lives beyond her still.

The Spellman Files: In San Francisco, 28-year-old private investigator Isabelle “Izzy” Spellman works for her parents’ detective agency as does her 14-year-old sister Rae (their brother, the perfect and non-nosey one in the family, is a lawyer). The fact that the Spellmans are outlandishly dysfunctional, have trouble with boundaries, and are prejudiced against dentists (including the one Izzy starts dating) just adds to the fun–but then things take a bit of a serious turn when a family member goes missing.

Good luck, and good reading!

Uncategorized

A Letter To You for National Library Week

It’s National Library Week, dear readers, and blogs across the Interwebs have been celebrating in their own way.  If you want to read more about National Library Week, the American Library Association has a great little fact sheet here.  It turns out that in the 1950’s, people were concerned that other people were “spending less on books and more on radios, televisions and musical instruments”, and thus organized to promote Libraries.

Since then, as we sincerely hope you know, Libraries have grown from “a place to check out a book” to a place where you can find radio shows to hear, tv shows to watch, and sheet music to read.  And on that note…no one here begrudges you the time you spend doing anything that makes you happy.  Especially not playing music instruments (yeesh!).  We do, however, try really, really hard, to be one of those institutions at which you would like to spend your free time.

Our pals at NOBLE posted this splendiferous photo of the Lynn Library from 1946 (whoever you are with your back to the camera?  I covet your sports coat).

Courtesy of http://digitalheritage.noblenet.org/

The website ILoveLibraries.org has a whole list of ways that you can celebrate National Library Week, which you can read here.

The American Library Association also released their list of Top Challenged Books of 2016…which we will be discussing in far more detail soon, I promise.

And our pals at BookRiot, in addition to putting out a post to help you talk in (Library) code, which made me faint with nerdy delight, also put out this phenomenal post about How To Support Your Local Library, which I would be delighted for you to read.

But that post got me to thinking…and so, for this National Library Week, I thought it might be fun to make a few suggestions about How to Support Your Local Librarians–this week, and every week:

  1. Please don’t apologize for asking a question.

Truly.  It’s why I am here.  If no one asked me questions, I would be out of a job.  And then I would be sad.  Also, I can promise you that any question asked in earnest is never a stupid question.

2. Please don’t apologize for returning a book late.

I am the reigning Queen of You’re Not Getting It Back ‘Til I’ve Finished It, so I am certainly not going to be the person to chastise you for not getting your books in on time.  That you bring them back to us, so that we can loan them out again, is what matters.  We don’t want anyone to have to wait too long for their stuff, so we would ask that you think about the other patrons waiting for the book/cd/dvd/bike lock/etc., that you checked out.  But please don’t feel bad about bringing those items home to us.

3. Please tell me what you thought of the book you read

I truly cannot tell you how big a kick I get out of patrons telling me that they enjoyed a book/cd/dvd/audiobook I helped them locate, convinced them to try, happened to check out for them.  But you know what?  I enjoy hearing that you hated them, too. From a librarian standpoint, it really helps to know what you, our patrons, think of the materials you check out, as it helps us plan our purchasing for the future, as well as to assemble some good Readers’ Advisory ideas for the future.  From a personal standpoint, I love knowing that you are engaging with your Library.  I get books that I loathe, too.  Viscerally.  And I hold grudges.  Knowing that you care enough to hold a grudge, too, is great!  Granted, if it’s something like Lolita or The Picture of Dorian Gray, I’ll probably make a sad face, but I promise, I’ll get over it.

4. Please Check Out All the Things You Can Carry

Seriously, people seem to treat books like cake or french fries–like they have a portion or a serving size to which consumers must adhere.  This is an untruth.  You can check out all the books and cds you’d like from us (we do have limits on the DVDs, though….sorry about that).  And you don’t have to read/hear/see them all before you return them, if you decide you don’t want to.  Take it from someone who may very well be crushed to death if the pile of books beside me ever topples over the wrong way–you can never have too many books.  So grab as many as you’d like!  And then, see Request #3.

5. Please Tell Us What You Want

We’re your library.  If you need a book renewed, we’ll do our darndest to renew it for you, even if it involves some technical creativity.  If you need a book or other material that we don’t have, we’ll use every resource at our disposal (and our resources are considerable, let me tell you) to get that material for you.  If you want us to buy a book or other material, including computer programs or online resource, let us know!  We have forms for those sorts of things because we want you to tell us what you want.  Granted, the money tree doesn’t bloom with great frequency, so we can’t promise to grant your every wish, but we do promise that we’ll do our very best to do so.

So there you have, it, beloved patrons.  I hope these points help you in loving your Library even more.  Happy National Library Week!

 

Uncategorized

Stories that save you

We all have stories that save us.

I’ve used this phrase a few times here, dear readers, and I really do believe it.  We’ve all had a person who came into our lives precisely when they were most needed, and gave us a new direction, some advice, or perhaps some comfort, and made an indelible difference on our lives.

Books can be like that, too.

Recently, Stephen Fry recorded the entire Sherlock Holmes canon for Audible.com.   You can hear a sample of it in the clip above.

…and let me assure you, the rest is just as glorious.  The best part is that he also wrote and recorded a series of introductions for the various books of stories, talking about the history of the stories, of Conan Doyle’s life (and his friendship with Oscar Wilde!), and Fry’s own relationship to Sherlock Holmes’ adventures.  In one of these introductions, he talks about how Sherlock Holmes saved his life.

And I kind of know what he means.

I found my first Sherlock Holmes story when I was twelve years old.  For some reason, my sixth grade teacher had a copy of six random Sherlock Holmes stories bound together–I know for a fact that “The Sussex Vampire” was the first I read, which is why, even though I know it’s really not one of the better stories, it’s among my favorites.  “The Blue Carbuncle” was in there, as well, which is also one of my all-time favorites.  I brought that book with me on a god-awful camping trip that they made all the sixth-graders take to “build character” and “bond socially”.  I got lost in the woods and nearly drowned, neither of which really helped my intense feelings of awkwardness, which were largely brought about by being taller than everyone else and not having a clue about how to fit into a group of my peers.  But at night, while everyone else was building their character and bonding socially, I hid in my sleeping bag and read about Sherlock Holmes.  Holmes, too, was an outsider; a man who admitted to not having many friends and not fitting in–and who was taller than most people.  And he, with all his weird quirks and socially awkward manners, was the hero of his story.  I also think I learned how to be a good friend by watching Watson.  Watson didn’t try, at any point, to be something he wasn’t.  He expressed everything he felt clearly, and he showed up when he was needed.  When we got back from that hellish trip, I used my savings to buy a huge collection of Holmes stories, which included A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four, and all the stories up to and including “The Final Problem”.   Having those two around got me through what turned out to be one of the hardest years of my growing up, with bullies and mean teachers and the outdoors all conspiring against me.

Jeremy Brett is the best Sherlock.

By high school, I had read and re-read the entire Holmes canon multiple times.  I actually made a few friends who had read a bit about Sherlock Holmes as well–admittedly, not to the same obsessive level that I had, but who were willing to keep up a conversation with me, or watch the Jeremy Brett adaptations with me.  But college is when Holmes really stepped up to help me out.

I did my junior semester abroad in London, and trust me when I tell you I was living in the creepiest, most unsanitary, and poorly insulated dorm room you can imagine, with some of the least personable people this side of a sitcom.  But I had Holmes.  And I had David Timson’s recordings.  Timson, for the record, is a marvel.  He created a different voice for every character in the entire Holmes world.  And played them all accurately.  I saved up my tiny stipend once a month to buy a new CD collection of stories, and listened to them at night to help me fall asleep in my weird, dingy dorm.  No matter how bad things got, Holmes could set them right.  There is no story that doesn’t end with order being restored, and when you’re living in a place of disorder, that can mean everything. During the day, I learned to navigate London by the walks that Holmes at Watson took in the various stories.  I got hopelessly lost one day trying to get home from Oxford Street, and was about ready to cry when I remembered that Mr. Henry Baker walked from Tottenham Court Road to Goodge Street after his Christmas festivities in “The Blue Carbuncle”, and replayed the scene in my head as I walked.  I made it to the Tube in time to catch the last train home.

In grad school, I became slightly notorious for bringing Sherlock Holmes into every class I took.  Because to know Sherlock Holmes means to understand the tensions within the British Empire.  It means understanding a bit about the Victorian legal system, about social customs and attitudes, and about gender relations.  It also means understanding the impact of railways and travel on the average person in history.  And I made my students read a few Holmes stories for themselves, because they are more fun than a textbook, and more enlightening than my lectures in many respects.  In every case, Holmes was a kind of security blanket for me, easing me into a new, and potentially scary situation by being that familiar, that constant friend, that fixed point in a changing age.

Heck, I even, tangentially, got this job at the library because of Sherlock Holmes.  When I moved back to Peabody, I joined the Library’s Classics Book group in order to make a few friends.  The first book the group read with me as a member?  The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, I kid you not.   It was those stories that kept me coming back to the Library, and they haven’t gotten rid of me since.

And today, when anxiety crops its ugly head, I plug in my earbuds, or pull out that same battered old volume of Holmes stories, and transplant the angry, insecure voice in my head with Watson’s calm narrative, and Holmes’ practical problem-solving.  These two friends have been with me for twenty years now, helping me through every change in life, and every rough patch that I’ve hit along the way, from practical advice about growing up to navigating a foreign city, from intense historic analysis to calming stress-relief.  Those are the stories that have saved me.

I hope you have some, too.

Uncategorized

Private Eyes…They’re Watching You, Watching You…

When I was little, I wanted to be a spy.

I also want to be “the lady who worked at the Library”, so I think I’m doing a pretty good job on the life goals, all around.

But back to the main point–I wanted to be a spy.  I adored watching re-runs of Get Smart on tv, to the point where I may have written Maxwell Smart a fan letter.  Although I did realize, at some point, that I wasn’t going to be able to work for Control, I really never outgrew a love for spy fiction.  Some of my favorite Sherlock Holmes stories were the ones where we got to meet “international agents” like Eduardo Lucas, who managed to be an internationally recognized tenor and a super-spy.

In college, I found the James Bond novels, and found them…sexist and ridiculous, to be honest…but amidst all the feeding people to sharks and men who grew fur during the full moon, Ian Fleming managed to create a world where being a spy was a high-paying, classy-as-all-getout job, complete with trips on the Orient Express, and classic whiskey, and designer weaponry.   This was a Cold War that was fought civilly–with barbed discourse and knives concealed in tuxedo jackets, rather than atomic bombs and mass murder in the developing world.

On the other end of the proverbial spectrum, you had the books of John Le Carre.  LeCarre’s books showed a much more realistic, seedier, and honest view of spywork–a world of betrayal and cynicism and crushing bureaucracy (anyone who remembers the archivists from Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy will know what I mean).  While James Bond could saunter around with his martinis, Smiley and his crew were doing the real work, averting disaster, and suffering the very real consequences.

But then the Cold War ended.  And the spy novel got really quite boring.  I read a few books about industrial espionage, but, after you’ve flown on a jet with Bond, or slunk through the shadows with Smiley, or tried to talk in the cone of silence, rifling a filing cabinet just isn’t that stirring, and the high visibility violence  of the War on Terror took any pleasure out of reading about spies in the modern world for me.  These spies weren’t upholding civilization–they were witnessing its demise.  Sure, spy novels were published, but they were bleak and depressing and clearly suffering the same heartbreak over the lack of post-Cold War peace and harmony that I, as a reader, felt (read some of John LeCarre’s later works to see what I mean).

Stop manhandling women, James Bond. Thank you.

It was around this point that we saw the rise of the historical spy novel, with classics like Robert Harris’ Enigma, which focused on the code-breakers at Bletchley Park during the Second World War, and Alan Furst’s novels about spies across Eastern Europe during the second half of the twentieth century.  In these books, it was clear that the tension and the dingy glamor of the Cold War still hadn’t worn off.  Moreover, in this nostalgia, it was very easy to see a longing for a time where things were black and white, and it was relatively easy to know your allies from your enemies.  Time moved a little more slowly, and information flowed at a speed that the brain could take in.  These novels celebrated the social aspect of the spy novel–it boiled complex, terrifying, real-world scenarios into manageable sizes, and provided us with a few heroes and heroines who could set the world to right through their wits and courage.  For all the nifty gadgets and smarmy phrases of our favorite spies, the goal of each novel was always to keep the world familiar, and therefore, safe.

And now, with the world getting bigger and scarier and more confusing seemingly hour by hour, the spy novel is making a comeback, playing not only on our need to believe that a few intrepid humans can make things right, but also feeding our increasing hunger for technology…wouldn’t Maxwell Smart have a field day with an iPhone?!

So here are a few suggestions for some terrific new books on conspiracy theories, undercover investigations and international intrigue, perhaps to take your mind off…conspiracy theories about covert agents and undercover investigations and international intrigue.  I can guarantee you these suggestions have much, much better plots that then ones on the news….

Slow Horses: Mick Herron’s Jackson Lamb series (also known as the Slough House series) is one of my favorite spy series of all time, and with the recent release of the fourth book, things are only looking up.  The ‘horses’ of the title are all MI-5 agents who have failed.  Colossally failed.  But rather than being booted from the organization, they are moved to Slough House, and left to shred paper, troll the internet, and generally waste away in obscurity.  But the folks at Slough House aren’t about to go quietly into that good night, and keep finding cases that no one else wants to take–or knows how to take–or knows about at all.  Herron has a wicked sense of humor, and writes stories that are linguistically surprising, intricately plotted, and just plain fun.  Plus, I’m in love with River Cartwright.  There.  I said it.

Jack of Spies: David Downing’s Jack McColl novels are historic spy fictions set around and after the First World War.  He channels some of the great writers of First World War spycraft, like Somerset Maugham, to create a world that is big and complex and fragile, and where alliances are made–and broken– in heartbeats.   These books are well-thought out and feature phenomenal period detail, not the least of which is the real threats that menace our hero McColl from every side–from Irish revolutionaries to Chinese intelligence agents, to his own lover, McColl’s world is full of the same complexities as our own, but everyone is better dressed.  And he is just the man to try and put it to rights.

The Journeyman Tailor: I think we’ve mentioned this book before, under a different category, but it deserves mention here, again.  Gerald Seymour, who also wrote Harry’s Game, does a magnificent job here showing the very real, gritty, and often terribly mundane world of British spies who were working to bring down the IRA during the height of its bombing campaigns.  When a new recruit is brought in to infiltrate the IRA in the mountains of Northern Ireland, he quickly learns that this is not an assignment where men earn glory, nor is it s a place capable of being saved, no matter how much he or his eccentric colleague might try. It is also a deeply complex tale about those IRA fighters, their families, and their communities, and takes a very hard look at the effects of this war on both sides, making it one that is tense, deeply unsettling, and haunting.

Uncategorized

Saturdays @ the South: Book Slump

Readers have an extraordinary internal life associated with books. There are so many emotions a reader goes through, during the course of reading a book, talking about books, finding out about books and even the space in between books. We’ve talked about book hangovers, Hermitage Week (or month), what happens when you just can’t and I’m sure there are many other thoughts on the spectrum of being a reader. I’ve been experiencing one of them lately: a book slump.

My experience with the book slump is somewhat different from not being able to focus on a book. I’m able to finish books with a reasonable amount of attention. I haven’t started and stopped more books that I normally do in my reading life. And yet, I’m facing a Goodreads feed filled with 3-star books and only a vague recollection of what I’ve read. The books haven’t been bad; they just haven’t wowed me.  I’ve been book-ambivalent lately and I’ve a sneaking suspicion it happens to all readers at some point (or perhaps at several points).

Sometimes you’re still enjoying the reading process, the ritual of whatever it is you do to read, whether it’s blocking out everyone else on the commuter train, listening to an audiobook in the bath (no wrinkly pages that way!) or settling into bed with a book. Whatever your ritual, you’re still into it; the focus and the will is there, but sometimes, the books just… aren’t.

With more and more books getting published and finding outlets to be published, there’s bound to be something for every taste, but let’s face it, not all of those books can be Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell or The Gentleman or (insert your amazing, gush-worthy read here). Getting out of your book slump might be as simple as revisiting a favorite and remembering what it is about that book that made you love it. Maybe after reading it you recognize you’re in the mood for more like that and suddenly, books seem exciting again. Or it might be a matter of sampling something different to pique your interest and keep your brain from getting bored. Or maybe you need to read in a different format (go electronic or audio for a change). Or maybe you don’t need to change anything and these books that are somehow smack dab in the middle of your bad—good scale are an essential part of what makes you appreciate a good book when it does come around for your.

During these times, remember that the library is here for you. We’re here to offer books to borrow for free so that your hard-earned money isn’t wasted on a book you may have enjoyed but don’t want to hold onto (maybe not even in memory) for very long. We’re here to make suggestions about books we love that hopefully you will love, too. And we’re also here to help you ride those times out. Even if you’re feeling that, somehow, your story-loving sense is askew, know that your next favorite read may be just around the corner and you can sample as many of our books as you want until you find it, and your book groove, again.

Till next week, dear readers, know that when it comes to reading, all feelings are valid and wallowing in a slump is OK. We’re here for you and the books are here for you however you want to ride it out.